Energy Prices (Strictly NO referrals!)
- Thread starter DXP55
- Start date
Soldato
That data is way off - I’m saving monthly, what they are predicting annually !!
Solar really needs a battery to benefit most.
Without a battery the panels could be maxed out sending all excess power back to the grid (at 4p kWh credit) but a cloud comes over and suddenly you’re demanding power from the grid (At 31p+ kWh).
With battery storage connected any excess solar power gets stored, so if a cloud comes over it uses that stored solar power from the battery, rather than go to the grid, meaning bigger cost savings.
Also, without a battery, if you’re not home during the day being able to use the solar, then nearly all of it will go to waste.
Looks to me like that table was deliberately designed to put people off solar
Perhaps that table doesn't include a battery install (possible given the price of the install used in the table).
Also - @crazyDAJT - you have had your battery for 2 months which is during the peak daylight time so, of course, your usage from grid will be lower but in order to be accurate, you will need a full years data to include Winter generation.
@SDK^ - I'm not sure how long you've had your full install - same applies if installed from April onwards.
I'm not dismissing solar/battery but a full year data is needed as a minimum to include longer Summer days and shorter Winter days.
Soldato
It's an old video but Robert Lewellyn did a review of the Tesla Powerwall system a few years back.
Soldato
Just hang it indoors?!?!?!?!?
Thats what i do during the day or night or whatevver.
You dont need a bloody dryer machine lol
Soldato
I suspect the table above is correctly taking into account cost of capital which most people ignore
Its surprising what impact even 3% can have on a multi year investment
Its surprising what impact even 3% can have on a multi year investment
Yes I know ! - see my cost/benefits savings above : Summer is about £220 savings per month and winter about £120
Energy Prices (Strictly NO referrals!)
Surely common sense would at least bring in an emergency cap so things don't get out of hand (like they already aren't) The low cap was why so many suppliers went bust. Essentially the only solution that I see is the energy market being government owned and ran.
forums.overclockers.co.uk
Also - adding a solar diverter for heating water means for 8 months of year you don't need to use gas for that, this saves me £30 a month (current gas price). Which was another saving missed in that Martin Lewis table.
Last edited:
Soldato
A drop in the ocean to be honest, consider a pretty high-end gaming PC with an RTX 3080 and Ryzen 5800x, you're looking at a 750w PSU and another ~200w for a 34" monitor - total 950w (lets round that up to a nice 1kw to account for not being 100% efficient). That gives you a max cost of ~40-50p/hour of gaming at the October cap rates, and that's assuming you are running that PC at 100% with the monitor at max refresh for that full hour, in reality it's going to significantly less than that.
Not saying that you shouldn't consider going for a walk instead of gaming (especially when it's this hot!), but doing so for the sake of saving money is a bit of a false economy - if money is that tight you'd be better downgrading the GPU for a lower power model, or even just under-volting it and taking the performance hit.
Soldato
PC doesn't use that much at all.
My Ryzen 2700X and 5700XT (undervolted) uses around 150-200w while gaming.
Soldato
Agreed, my figures were for the maximum to show that even worst case scenario you aren't going to be saving any significant amount of money. The upfront costs of PC gaming might be high, but ongoing is negligible (might as well compare it to the wear and tear on your shoes from going on that walk
)Exactly - but when you have 3 of them going (me and kids) with large monitors as well, for most of the day, it adds up
So on the solar savings - I went from around £5 to £7 of use per day without solar to ~£0.08p per day with it.
Without solar : £6.92, including off-peak EV charging
With solar : £0.08p, including EV charging from solar : most days from April to October will be like this . Plus £1+ per day of gas savings from solar water heating.
Without solar : £6.92, including off-peak EV charging
With solar : £0.08p, including EV charging from solar : most days from April to October will be like this . Plus £1+ per day of gas savings from solar water heating.
Last edited:
Soldato
Monitors don't use much power, I believe both of mine 24" and 27" use ~15w if not less. Nearly all of my energy use comes from the pc and fridge freezer. kettle boiled a few times a day, oven/grill/hob once a day depending on what I'm cooking, and a shower in the morning and sometimes at night if I've been working and cycle to and from work.
Soldato
Depending on where your panels are pointing you can get an idea of the expected energy generation in winter vs summer.
7.3kw system with south facing panels your looking at ~32kwh in summer, vs ~10-11kwh in winter some days will be worse, some higher. In fact a clear sunny day in winter will likely produce similar numbers to a summer day if not slightly more as heat reduces the efficiency of the panels. A rainy day could actually improve efficiency slightly for subsequent days as the panels are cleaned of dust/debris.
7.3kw system with south facing panels your looking at ~32kwh in summer, vs ~10-11kwh in winter some days will be worse, some higher. In fact a clear sunny day in winter will likely produce similar numbers to a summer day if not slightly more as heat reduces the efficiency of the panels. A rainy day could actually improve efficiency slightly for subsequent days as the panels are cleaned of dust/debris.
drying clothes indoors by which I assunme you mean on radiators if not good for a number of reasons. It fills your house with damp air which then increases the cost to heat (damp air is harder to heat) it can also create damp/mould.
Caporegime
I'm amazed that in winter you still get 1/3rd the generation when you consider:
Half the hours of day light
Horrible weather with heavy cloud cover a lot of the time
Far less intense sun
Even if you just took the hours of sun and the angle of the sun in winter you would be looking at over a 50% decrease no?
It's not hard to work out the worst case scenario : No solar generation with the cost of charging a battery & car overnight for 4 hours and running off that for the rest of the day.
42 kwh x 7.5p = even you can do that
Also, there have been a couple of cloudy days this week. Tuesday my solar generated just 10 kWh, vs about 36 kWh at peak. Still managed to use no grid power. Just didn't feed power to the car.
Last edited:
Soldato
I ran some numbers and found myself disagreeing with the expected solar repayment times in that table as well.
My new system going in will cost £8250 for 4.44kw of panels with an 8.2kwh battery.
I reckon those two will save me about £1k per year or so, and the system should generate 3.5-4mwh per year.
Winter won't look as good but should be basically free electric for a lot of the year, with the battery and a fairly high usage anyway, I should be able to use most of what the panels generate over the course of the year.
My new system going in will cost £8250 for 4.44kw of panels with an 8.2kwh battery.
I reckon those two will save me about £1k per year or so, and the system should generate 3.5-4mwh per year.
Winter won't look as good but should be basically free electric for a lot of the year, with the battery and a fairly high usage anyway, I should be able to use most of what the panels generate over the course of the year.
Last edited:
Soldato
ambient light is enough for the panels to generate something, they don't need direct sunlight. Even on a cloudy day there's sufficient ambient light to generate something.