Purchasing a battery to supplement our Solar and EV - which energy provider / tariff ?

pam74

We have recently purchased a new build house with 8 solar panels. We are currently with Ovo energy at the new house and with Octopus energy at our holiday home which also has an EV charger. We are complete novices and uneducated at the whole solar thing but have been advised the need to purchase a battery to store electricity at the cheap overnight tariff  - the battery is being fitted on Friday. Should I switch holiday home to an alternative provider from Octopus and then switch from Ovo energy to Octopus at our main home? Is Octopus a whole lot better than for instance British Gas? I don’t think I can have both houses with Octopus as I can only have one app? 

If changing both energy providers- which Octopus energy tariff would you go with for main house with battery and which energy provider for holiday home with no solar but has an EV charger? 

Thank you for taking the time sorting out my energy queries - I’m such a newbie to all this and absolutely no help from the original builder re registering solar with energy company or how much electricity the solar makes. 

Netexporter

Octopus offer the widest range of tariffs, so you are more likely to find one that is a good fit for your consumption patterns. Lots of data available on the website, too

Eon Next may be worth a look. They are currently offering 16.5p/kWh for exports (Octopus 15p) but there are caveats.

Have a look at the Gary Does Solar and the Tim & KLat's Green Walk Youtube channels. They both have developed calculators to help with choosing which Octopus tariff would suit  your consumption pattern. Some people swap tariffs, seasonally, on Octopus, which they are fine with, if you don't abstract the Micheal.

QrizB

You can definitely have both houses with Octopus (use two separate email addresses if it makes it easier), although you might only be able to use the app with one of them (you can use the website with both).

pam74 said:

We are complete novices and uneducated at the whole solar thing but have been advised the need to purchase a battery to store electricity at the cheap overnight tariff  - the battery is being fitted on Friday. 

Who advised you of this? The maths don't always favour batteries, it depends on your household energy use, supplier and tariff. I ran through the sums for another forum user earlier today; you'll find them here:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81488645/#Comment_81488645

You might be one of the households where a battery makes sense, but equally you might not be.

Have you done any calculations like that for your own expected use?

What battery are you having fitted and how much are you paying for it?

pam74 said:

Thank you for taking the time sorting out my energy queries - I’m such a newbie to all this and absolutely no help from the original builder re registering solar with energy company or how much electricity the solar makes. 

As a very rough guide, recent installations should use panels that are rated at 400 watts each (or more, up to 500 watts). Eight panels should be at least 3200 watts total, and on a south facing roof you might expect to generate 3000 kWh of electricity per year.

On a decent export tariff like Octopus, EON or EDF offer that would earn you at least £450 a year.

If you can share more details of your panels, your inverter and your household energy use (like in the thread I've linked to above) we can help you work out what you've got and how to best use it.

Qyburn

Which make/model of battery are you installing?  Octopus has some fancy tariffs which are only supported with certain batteries.

If your reason for the battery is to charge at cheap rate, EON has the best option at the moment with their "Next Drive" tariff.

MWT

pam74 said:

I don’t think I can have both houses with Octopus as I can only have one app? 

You can have more than one Octopus account and just log into each on the app when needed.

I have managed both mine and my father-in-laws accounts for a long time now that way.

If you are using an EV yourself and either that or your charger are compatible then take a look at Intelligent Octopus Go.

pam74

Thank you so much - I will start changing my home energy provider to Octopus -need to have a good look at the tariffs - and have both houses with Octopus. Really helpful. Can I refer myself - ha ha.
I really don’t know how many kWh the panels produce or what make or anything. At least I know now what to ask the electrician when he comes on Friday. Husband just told the electrician to install a battery without any prior knowledge. We were just being terribly naive. We are fairly large users of electricity as we have a proper lift built in - my husband is disabled. We were just told that the panels would reduce our electricity bills and to use washing machine etc when the sun is out??? Nothing in pack from the builder. The house next door is the same and our neighbour also wants to know how to get paid for exporting to the grid. Have now got a working smart meter. Usage 328 kWh average (only 4 months of data). 

Hopefully getting the electrician back might provide some answers. 

Qyburn

pam74 said:

The house next door is the same and our neighbour also wants to know how to get paid for exporting to the grid. Have now got a working smart meter. Usage 328 kWh average (only 4 months of data). 

To sign up for any of their export tariffs Octopus will ask for the "MCS certificate" or the certificate number. They will also need a copy of the approval from your DNO for the system to be connected. For your system that's likely to be "G98" which is notification only, they'll want a copy of that notification.

Depending on your smart meter model it's likely it started recording export right away, even though export is not yet registered with Octopus. It might take some button pushing to see the reading, or the display might step through the different values. If you give the model or a photo someone will be able to advise.

You may have a generation meter as well, at least until recently that was an MCS requirement. And a schematic.

sheenas

I use 323kwh and don’t have solar, but am a low power user. I would find out how to get the stats out of your system from the electrician and then you will know if you’re exporting or not. 

69bertie

pam74 said:

We were just told that the panels would reduce our electricity bills and to use washing machine etc when the sun is out???

Not totally correct.    I'm on E.on Next Drive V6 and I charge my batteries during the 7 hours overnight as I only pay 6.7p per kWh. Daytime, the solar also maintains that charge during the day but solar excess, if not required by the house or batteries is exported at 16.50p/kWh. Come the evening, after we have finished evening meals, I have the batteries set to discharge to the grid down to 35% State of Charge - I could go lower to 25%. This has cost me, at most, 6.7p/kWh.

I tend to use the washing machine as much as possible overnight for 6.7p/kWh. If I used it during the day, yes it might well be using 'free' solar energy but I can export that solar energy and make nigh on 10p/kWh profit. All adds up.

Sadly, even though your energy meter might be recording how many kWh you are exporting, you won't be paid for it until you do actually sign up with the correct documentation as outlined by Qyburn and only from the day of application.

For what it is worth, I don't have an EV, which is why I ended up at E.on and didn't stay with Octopus. 

Petriix

You can definitely refer your partner/spouse at the new address and get a nice £100 (total) bonus, just keep the old account in one name and the new one in the other. Eon is likely to be slightly better on the unit prices but you can always switch to them after pocketing the Octopus referral. 

The battery might not be the best financial decision but they tend to break even over around 8-10 years even in the worst case, as long as you use it properly. The most effective way is typically to charge the battery to full every night on cheap rate grid energy and export as much as possible (from both solar and battery) while avoiding all peak rate imports.

Avoid charging the battery from solar where possible because using your own solar generation effectively costs you the 16.5p per kWh you could have earned by exporting it whereas charging the battery from the grid only costs 6.7p per kWh. 

silvercar

Eon Next v8 is the current version and requires you to have an EV.