That's Much Better

Now that's the kind of data I want to be seeing.

Having a lovely day here today, brilliant sunshine, almost zero cloud cover at all. From 8am we started generating half what we were using and by 9am it was covering the house entirely. Battery was fully charged by 12:01 and we cooked lunch using an airfryer and george forman grill almost entirely from the solar alone... just a fraction back from the battery. Had the dishwasher and washing machine running today too.

Currently more than 15kwh generated... that's more than the rest of the week combined... I'm expecting more like 16-17kwh, Then the battery can power the house most of the evening. No major electrical appliances needed again, the odd boiled kettle, maybe a microwave for a few mins.

Just need to see if the setting to allow battery discharge to be used from 6-11pm works as intended

Exported more than twice what we imported this morning.

Really need to get a SEG sorted out soon. Looking at rates and they're all pretty crap... the only good ones require you to be tied into their eco system too... Stuck with Eon until Sept (fixed lower rate tariff) and they're doing 5.5p. But you can change SEG supplier if you want as far as I'm aware... So maybe switch to octopus in Sept

Based on 5.5p we'd have earned a whopping 30-35p today I think... triple that with octopus, quadruple that with tesla

But seeing this graph makes me happy, this is why I installed it... Days like today may only generate 30-35p in SEG, but they save about 8-10 times more.... and that's on a fixed rate tariff... those on the higher rates out there right now it would save them 15-20 times as much.

It's also made me realise that we can generate a lot more than I realised in a day and that a 5.2kwh battery... may not be enough. So when the house is finished, I'm going to look at adding another battery if there's enough left over... at least another 5.2kwh... maybe larger.

What discharge setting do you have for 6-11? If using the discharge timer in the app/portal that will likely just dump the contents to the grid. Unless there is something new. I initially thought the discharge timer was to specify when to use the battery but was quickly proven wrong when we were losing all we generated.

MarkyG82

I've got it set to discharge for home demand only at a rate of 1300w, so even at full tilt, we should get a few hrs out of it. So I'm hoping it works as intended... First time I've set it up to do this... But I noticed it drawing from the battery a few times when use spiked as generation was dropping off. It's currently 16:50 and still producing 640w and battery is back to 100% from 95%

We only use more than 1300w if we cook with electricity or boil a kettle... and when we do, it's for short periods. Airfryer instead of big oven or perhaps the george forman grill... maybe the microwave. On avg even cooking a meal pushes the hourly avg up to about 900-1100w when the normal avg is in the 400-600w range.

There are two people in the house all day too.

Just added some tariff details to the portal as we're still on a fixed rate deal until Sept... in Jan, the early days of the install we were using on avg around the £2.50 a day range. now that we've dialed in settings and adjusted our consumption/useage a little... and with longer days & more sun ... the avg is now about the £1.30 range. Obviously that's with a decent amount of sunlight... bad generation days will see that shoot back up... but we can try to avoid using washing machine/tumble dryer & dishwasher on those days.

This is a world apart from your previous comments.

Glad the system is now working as expected.
Did you load the beta FW? Pr was it another solution to your issues reported?

Interesting, how much PV do you have? I pulled in 15.5KwH today which charged my 9.5KwH battery from empty which I’m running off now.

I never maxed out my PV though here in South Birmingham. I have 4.08kw of panels and as soon as my battery was full about 4 pm whacked on my dishwasher. The induction hob has been on since it got dark and the oven briefly. I’m down to 56% on my battery but expect that to cover the house load until the morning.

I’ve left mine in Eco and let it sort itself out.

I’m on Octopus Tracker, but have applied for their fixed Export at 15p per KwH.

Hook

Basic figures are

Generated 16.97kwh
PV to the home 6.5kwh
PV to battery 3.99kwh
Battery to home 3.41kwh
PV to grid 6.27kwh
Imported 2.99kwh

We powered the house from solar/battery from around 8:45pm until around 9:30pm

According to the figures for our electricity tariff (15.93 p/unit & 21.81 standing charge thanks to still being on a fixed rate tariff until Sept) yesterday cost 54p.

If we'd been getting paid for exporting already... we'd have earned about 39p (based on Eon 5.5p)

So with SEG setup, we'd have paid about 15p for the day.

TheDragon (GivEnergy)

It appears that the previous problems were all related to the failing dongle... the issue where generation would suddenly jump from a few watts above what the house is using into the kw ranges (600w to 3.2kw once) have entirely disappeared. After redoing the calibration on the battery, it's charging normally I think. I don't know exactly how/why it only seems to charge 4kwh into a 5.2kwh battery from 4% and if that's still an issue. But with average use in the evening and no major appliance use. We powered the house for about 5hrs from the battery (sometimes just before 5pm until almost 10pm).

As the days get longer, the battery should start powering the house overnight... and I'm hoping that we'll end up having some zero import days when the avg overnight use is just 100-200w.. and I reckon if I was more active with shutting down items on standby, I could reduce that further. But Monitors/TV's are less than 1w these days... even if I did that to every screen in the house it's only saving 6w.

Maybe I'll look into some smart plugs at some point... Not sure if the expense would offset the savings, could take years and it's another gadget connected to the cloud that can monitor/invade privacy and be a potential point of attack... security on these IOT devices are notoriously bad.

Anomnomnomaly

Glad to hear all is well now. 5.2kwh battery's are 80% DoD at 25°C. So 4.16 usable. If cooler, the energy will be a little lower. So 4kwh is probably slightly down, but in the right ball park. Note the 4% is there to ensure the battery if left unused, has power to keep the inverter and BMS alive, in extended periods of no use.

Anomnomnomaly

Are you aware of Octopus fixed Export tariff?

It's 15p per KwH. I've applied for it, waiting to hear from them.

My battery was at 21% this morning so kept us going overnight. Even with today's dull weather it's snuck up to 32%.

House load currently about 200w.

I’m looking forward to a sunny day, we barely had any here yesterday (northants). Still even cloudy days are covering two of us working from home all day, I’m timing my dishwasher and washing machine for the afternoons!

Hook Could also check out Octopus Flux. Prices region dependant but 25p per kwh export in my region

Hook Yes, but that would mean switching suppliers and losing the current fixed rate tariff we are on... Only paying 15.93p per unit of electricity and 21.81 standing charge.

Doing some rough sums, switching now would cost us quite a lot more... and with energy prices expected to fall back to around £2100 a year cap in July... Makes sense to stick with ours until it runs out in Sept.

aniseedvan

Cloudy day here, but we had a clear spell between 12:30 and 2 and generation spiked to around 3.5kw for a while... so I grabbed some washing and put the machine on... Solar powered the entire wash and put 29% charge into the battery.

Hook 2 people home all day, 3 computers running... so we idle at around 400-600w depending on what workload I have on my systems and if a tv is on. Overnight we drop to the 100-200 range as at least 1 system runs 24/7 (my server).

When I was away for most of the week, I charged the battery remotely and left it running the idle house... even with poor solar generation at the end of Jan, the covered the entire house for about 36hrs.

Anomnomnomaly same here, I saw the sun poke out, on went the dishwasher then the washing machine. Learning to put things on in sequence!

THALL I did take a look, But I'm presuming my excess export will be mainly when the sun is out blazing away. I don't want to be exporting during peak, I want to be using it.

Anomnomnomaly

I think you can export with anyone and still keep your current import provider.

https://octopus.energy/help-and-faqs/articles/seg-tariff/

I may be wrong though.

Hook That's my understanding too, but from what I've read... the best rates are tied to being one of their customers as well. From what others have said, getting 15p from Octopuss as a customer... but getting 4 or 5p if not.

My neighbour is with Eon... was promised 5.5p and in reality is getting a little more than 3p... His entire years SEG was £35.

So what he's done is add batteries (he's got 4x2.4kwh now) and with a 6kw system puts excess solar into heating things like the pool and using as much as possible on the house.

Yesterday would have netted about 38p... even if you could generate that much every day for an entire year.... it's about £125... and they'll sell it back to you at 8 times the price.

Hook
Correct you can export to anyone that is of sufficient size that they are required to offer a SEG Tarrif

Octopus won't permit you to sign up for the 15p Export rate if your on Octopus Go, not sure about limitations with their other tariffs.

After Octopus the next best is British Gas @ 6pkwh SEG.

Having said that BG are f**king useless. It took them 3 months to finally get ours setup and we had at least 4 seperate emails spanning 2 months asking for the exact same information.........

After that your in the 4p and under market with the rest of the suppliers

Anomnomnomaly Also rember to look at what you consumed which will be

Generation to home = 6.5 kwh
Battery to home = 3.41kwh

Times that by your electicty unit rate and and 5%.

This will give you a figure of how much to you have used for free which I put against what I paid out in the first place.

It's great seeing a system run like it should, even better still when you can add a Eddi or similar power diverter and get the excess solar put to good use. We're on FIT tho so the aim is to use as much as possible as we're getting paid the same regardless.

dbt85

Another good and sunny day, with about 11kwh generated already... battery was charging up nicely, so put the washing machine on twice and the tumble dryer once... Had the airfryer going for lunch as well as the microwave and vacuum cleaner... battery now back to 100% again just after 2pm, 2.2kwh imported all day so far and about 1kwh exported... generation starting to drop down from the 3.75kw I had earlier to around 1.5kw this afternoon as some thin/light cloud comes across.

With no SEG setup yet, and wondering if it's actually worth doing at all right now... I'm sat at mydesk with the portal open and the app on my phone... glancing across at it every now and again... and then going to grab washing for the machine to maximise using as much of the solar as possible.

For some one who's on the spectrum and kinda likes statistical data and analysis... I find it interesting and calming knowing that my electricity bill for the last 7 days was less than £10 inc standing charge (not sure if the portal accounts for 5% VAT though).

Watching the data right now... house is using 7.42kw because kettle, microwave and airfryer in use... generation has dropped to 1.7kw, another 1.3kw from battery and 4kw from the grid for a couple of minutes.

I've literally shouted downstairs from my office and said... put the tumble dryer on now... it's free. :

Anomnomnomaly With no SEG setup yet, and wondering if it's actually worth doing at all right now

Financial gains may not be massive, but at least you will get something if you get a SEG tariff. Watching the portal while our batteries were going through a calibration cycle dumping over 16kWh to the grid did cheese me off somewhat. If I'd had a SEG then, it'd have been a paltry 65p, but something at least to make up for the 16kWh imported straight after, costing £4.64. We are on an old EDF EV tariff now, and the off-peak rate is 4.5p/kWh compared to 4.1p/kWh for SEG, so it's a no-brainer to ensure that there's enough charge in the batteries to cater for lack of PV each day. Think I'll contact EDF and ask them about swapping our SEG to them from Octopus.

Tim

I at least need to let my supplier know we've got the system installed... They might start to get suspicious at the much lower usage now.

I wish exporting could be as simple as removing what you send back to the grid from the balance of what you use... Eliminate SEG altogether... use 350kwh of electricity in a month, and expert 42kwh... your bill is now 308kwh.

Used to know some one who had solar installed 15-20yrs ago... and had the old style of meter with a spinning dial in it... when exporting back to the grid... it used to reverse direction and roll back the dial.

Get yourself givtcp up amd running and you'll be drowning in data and can set up some more advanced automation.

Our 3 systems currently are all just on a flat rate business tariff so there's no benefit to me trying to charge early in the morning. If I'm able to get my system installed this year then I'll get onto one of the octopus Tariffs.

Regarding adding an extra battery, it's always a diminishing return after installing the first so there is a longer payoff for the second compared to the first. However, if you've enough storage to cover the usage for the day, you can obviously save more in the winter since tou can charge at a cheaper rate and then in the summer import vert very little as your storage is enough to cover a whole day.

dbt85

At the moment, as the generation starts to tail off between 4-5pm now (on good days) (currently 4:30, generating 100% of house use still). The battery starts to provide the rest.

Depending on what appliances we use as the evening draws on... the 5.2kwh battery will last until 7:30-9:30pm. With the average being about 3.5 to 4hrs.

As summer approaches and we can generate until 9pm or so, I'd expect the battery to last all night when the avg is just 150-200w p/h.. maybe a little extra if it's hot and running fans. So I'm really hoping to see some zero import days

Adding another 5.2 or 9.5kwh battery... depends on how much money is left over after finishing of the rest of the house. I'd much rather put extra towards replacing the very old and tired conservatory than adding an extra battery.