Shatch If you are only using solar pv then yes its pretty unlikely you will see an appreciable charge going into your battery until spring 23 onwards.
IF you experience power cuts then that's a legitimate use case.
However it only works if you have the system installed so that it provides emergency power functionality. If you have got this installed like that there is typically a limit on how much energy it will provide through the specified circuits. There are too many ways it could have been installed, but they typically install it such that it powers a socket or two and then you can plug things in like the Fridge/Freezer.
If you haven't had it installed SPECIFICALLY with this function then your inverter will shutdown when there is a power cut . This is required by law to ensure the safety of workers that may be restoring powerlines etc and who would have no idea if, or how many, micro generators are connected to the system.
Typically a solar array & battery system is a "double prong saving measure". During high pv generation you are charging your battery to then power your house when night falls. Works great in summer.
The problem arises what happens in autumn/winter?
Well IF you also combine this with a Time of Use tariff such as the Octopus Go/Intelligent/Agile or from one of the few other Suppliers who offer them, then you can charge your battery up each night during that period and gain a significant benefit that way too.
We saved over £80 just by using this last month.
That is simply from the difference in cost between the cheap rate versus the peak rate. That's 3 adults in the house most of the day. Our bill for the month was £52 and could have been £39 but were still waiting on the DNO to approve the G99 application so we can claim the SEG on exported energy (hopefully comes through in a couple of weeks)
In an ideal world we would have been able to afford an 8k inverter (not that GE have one but others do) and about 15kw of battery storage. The combination of those with our 6kw Solar array would enable us to either use Solar during summer almost exclusively and during winter using off peak rates. Sadly that was beyond our budget.
Although its a pain to sign up to Octopus having to call them, you can still sign up via telephone. If you are currently on the standard variable rates with another supplier you will pay the EXACT same amount with Octopus.
BUT as soon as the switch has taken effect you can then immediately switch to one of the alternative tariffs offered by Octopus.
Obviously I cannot tell you whether you will save money or not. You would have to do some math to work out whether shifting your use to charging the battery at the cheap rate saves you money over the day.
But you at least have the option to switch tariff which is almost certainly something that you can't do with an alternative supplier (unless you want to fix your rates at a much higher price).
Plus, if you use my referal code then we both get £50 when you switch.
If you aren't an Octopus Customer see if you can make savings if you are able to sign up via the internet use code:
https://share.octopus.energy/open-yak-351
If they are still limiting sign ups to phone only then quote "open-yak-351" instead.
