This is getting ridiculous (energy prices - Strictly NO referrals!)

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

i think we may be at crossed purposes here.

1) by localised generation i meant still on the grid, so wind turbines generating energy for a local town rather than transporting over 100s of miles of cables across the country

2) given i have solar on my roof, and by todays standards it is a very small system (my panels are only 320w compared to modern equivalents of similar size now pushing 500w) and whilst it isnt enough to go off grid it is absolutely not true to say it isnt cheaper.

my system will be 3 years old in July. it cost £8500 to install. The battery (7.2kwh with 6kwh usable) is guaranteed for 5 years, expected life of at least 10 years... the panels 10 year guarantee expected life 25 years. (5.1kwh of panels with a 5kwh inverter). The inverter is the most likely piece of the puzzle to fail but that is "only" around £600 to replace.

combining my solar and battery with an intelligent time of use tariff my electricity bill has been slashed. my system will be operating on pure profit by the time it is 8 years old. its saving me over £1000 a year taking into account the cheap off peak energy, the house running off battery/ solar combined and the excess solar i sell.

getting 2 electric cars actually makes the savings due to my panels hard to work out, but in the 12 months before getting an EV, my yearly electricity costs was less than zero. i built up a huge credit on my account in summer and that saw me through winter. it even covers the cost of a lot of my gas use. my gas/electicity combined direct debit was £70 in 2023. this was way to much as my account ended up £1000 in credit. this is slowly starting to drop since we got 2 EVs last year, and we have been charging them both 100% at home from September... without that however i would have to significantly cut our direct debit and demand a sizable cheque from Octopus.

in 2020 pre solar our combined gas electricity direct debit was £150 and my account was in arrears ... also bear in mind gas and electricity from the grid was significantly cheaper in 2020 than it was in 2023.

Yeah my system was £13k but is bigger (more capacity in panels and battery) than yours. Was installed end of Nov 22 and as of end of March 24 it had saved me over 20% of the install costs.
Being able to take advantage of power ups (charge batteries) and saving sessions (received £170 of credit this year by exporting), plus a TOU tariff meant my elec costs are very low in summer and noticeably lower than they would have been over winter.

Plus for me it wasn't simply financial, but also doing the right thing to at least reduce my CO2 impact.

 

[b0rn2sk8]

I’m not sure why you’d want to be off grid with solar, particularly if you are away from the equator.

Your winter generation is substantially lower than your summer generation so to get enough power in the winter, you’d be substantially over producing in the summer. Part of the economic case of getting solar is selling any excess to the grid.

Thanks to my solar and battery install, my March electricity bill is negative and that’s only possible by being connected to the grid. I sell to the grid during the day when it’s expensive and I buy from the grid when it’s cheap overnight, it’s as simple as that.

Solar is also the second cheapest form of generation, even domestic solar that doesn’t benefit from the same economies of scale as commercial and solar farms.

Solar combined with batteries is also cheaper than fossil fuels currently are.

Solar is only beaten my massive onshore and offshore wind turbines.

If you guys wanna know why batteries can be so dangerous, watch this:

We know why can be dangerous, we also know how they can be made safe with proper controls just like they are in cars already.

Also not all batteries are the same, as pointed out below.

Yes repurposing the car type lithium for home use is what worries me compated to LP04 as you say which is far far less likely to be an issue.

Most cars have LFP/LP04 batteries in them already anyway.

Almost all home battery products are LFP/LP04 too as they are cheaper and don’t have the same density requirements as a car.

 

[bigmike20vt]

I just went and checked and seems mine are LFP/LP04 as well so that is nice to know.

(I have 3xPylontech US2000C 2.4kWh 48V Lithium Solar Battery and it seems have a 10 year 6000 cycle warranty not 5 as i stated above)

more on topic

take a look at these prices right now

National Grid: Live

Shows the live status of Great Britain’s electric power transmission network

grid.iamkate.com

at time of posting....

price £0/MWh
emissions 41gCO2 per kwh

generation 5.7% gas, 8.8% solar, 50.5% wind, 1.4% hydro, (then nuclear and biomass after)

no wonder the fossil fuel companies are crapping their pants and desperately trying to feed the FUD!.

 

[b0rn2sk8]

My system was even bigger but even more expensive, I oversized it based on future demand from a heat pump. The warranty on my battery is for 12 years and the panels 25.

The initial estimates think they’d fully recoup there cost in 12 years but that followed the standard MCS projections which are a bit basic and have rudimentary assumptions on energy use and costs.

It will be hard to tell how quickly they actually will pay off due to the changes we have made such as moving to a time of use tariff. We are also getting a heat pump so nothing is like for like. I’d need at least a year of data to make a reasonable stab at it.

My man maths suggests a lot faster than 12 years though.

 

[Blackjack Davy]

there are some crops which can do really well on solar fields apparently. (ones which benefit from the protection the panels can give and dont need the huge direct sunlight.

that being said (and i am genuinely asking the question as i dont know).... do we really need solar farms on arable land? do we not have enough brown field sites and tarmac covered / roof lined space to put solar there instead?.

I am no NIMBY and i would not fight against a solar farm outside my town, but at the same time, i would much rather have a couple of turbines instead and put the solar panels on sainsburys/tescos car park.

you could say the same about housing its mushrooming all over prime agricultural land and rolling hills around here funnily enough no-one objects to that at least not in sufficient numbers and unlike solar farms that can be returned to agricultural land in the future its permanent.

There was a report on the news the other night interviewing an objector, typical nimby bought a home in the country costing a fortune and almost certainly a WFH city worker, don't spoil my views from my expensive windows I want to see rolling green fields and not solar farms.

**yes i know economy 7 was a thing years ago but intelligent octopus and Agile are far better products. of course then you have the problem with people refusing smart meters.... which is up to them, but then they dont get to moan if their energy cost rockets.

Assuming you can get rid of it I'm still on a dual tariff and the electricity company simply won't budge on doing anything about it/remove it. And I've been on the smartmeter list for years again no interest from electricity provider however plenty of smartmeter letters addressed to the freehold owners of the building that lie unread in the hallway as they're addressed to the building owners and concern the communal areas and they don't live here nor is there anyone to collect them they only care about screwing as much money out of us in ground rent and service charges as they can while everything else goes to pot

 

[200sols]

take a look at these prices right now

Plunge pricing everyday on agile right now nighttime and afternoons. It's very cheap out there and most people are not even aware.

 

[mejinks]

Still paying £360 a month on electricity alone

 

[Skilid]

Been on Octopus Tracker for over a year now and easily saved over £200, if not more. Last month was £88 for gas and electric and it was barely over £100 a month in the winter.

 

[bigmike20vt]

Plunge pricing everyday on agile right now nighttime and afternoons. It's very cheap out there and most people are not even aware.

i admit i am quite sad and follow kates national grid site quite a lot... i even learned to beat solitaire using it. almost -£8 a mwh now... if i was on agile i would definitely be charging the car now whilst i WFH.

It does show the limitations of even the OCtopus smart tariff.. for instance i am still getting paid 15p a kwh for my export off my solar right now even tho we are in a plunge.

i am not complaining but i would rather get some of the plunge pricing love and not take the export rather than getting paid for selling electricity when it is at -ve pricing.

 

[200sols]

It's certainly harder to use the afternoon plunges without an EV.

They may be paying us 15p but the majority are still paying them 24p. I don't feel too bad for them.

If agile export matched the import rates that would be very interesting though. The peaks are too low right now to make it work I guess.

 

[b0rn2sk8]

It also works the other way on a nice still day they are still only paying us 15p instead of paying a gas fired peaker plant £1.

 

[OldKitMan]

Which would be odd given my "smart meter" gives them daily readings, whatever they decide i know my total consumption for the period!

Could be missing some readings, which they've now got. Not sure, you'd have to ask them, but I doubt they're just refunding you for fun!

I've not had my bill for March, queried it with them and they said it was missing readings - I pulled my smart meter data from their website and the only 'missing readings' were the day the clock changed so only 46 instead of 48 readings that day - every other day in the billing period had the required 48 readings. Bizarre but I am sure they will fix it as they said they have re polled for the missing data.

 

[mejinks]

Just out of interest, what are people paying? We have a three bed semi, gas c/h and pay £360/month electricity and £88 /month gas. We can't go on smart meters because they may interfere with the medical equipment my wife uses. (Yes wifi is not available in the same room or near it.)

 

[krooton]

Just out of interest, what are people paying? We have a three bed semi, gas c/h and pay £360/month electricity and £88 /month gas. We can't go on smart meters because they may interfere with the medical equipment my wife uses. (Yes wifi is not available in the same room or near it.)

3 bed detached, 2 adults, 5 cats, £150/month on average combining leccy and gas.

 

[MatsyLR]

Just out of interest, what are people paying? We have a three bed semi, gas c/h and pay £360/month electricity and £88 /month gas. We can't go on smart meters because they may interfere with the medical equipment my wife uses. (Yes wifi is not available in the same room or near it.)

2 bed semi, 1 adult, 1 cat, £45/month on average elec and gas (octopus tracker)

 

[Neil79]

Just out of interest, what are people paying?

£90 a month

All electric (New style Storage Heaters), one bed bungalow

When I turn the heaters off I wake up to around 30p, having them on around £3 and that's before I do anything else

 

[Richie]

When I turn the heaters off I wake up to around 30p,

The new SC rates say "holler"

 

[Neil79]

The new SC rates say "holler"

Haven't hit the new SC rates yet, fixed till August

 

[squerble]

Just out of interest, what are people paying? We have a three bed semi, gas c/h and pay £360/month electricity and £88 /month gas. We can't go on smart meters because they may interfere with the medical equipment my wife uses. (Yes wifi is not available in the same room or near it.)

Comparing monthly cost is reasonably useless because you don't know what unit cost people are paying, what deals they're on, if they've got batteries etc. Posting actual consumption figures give a better comparison of energy usage.

 

[Wizzkidy]

Just out of interest, what are people paying? We have a three bed semi, gas c/h and pay £360/month electricity and £88 /month gas. We can't go on smart meters because they may interfere with the medical equipment my wife uses. (Yes wifi is not available in the same room or near it.)

3 bed semi detached 2 adults 5 children £150 a month on electric and 25 a month on gas on octopus tracker