[Mystery] £400-600 monthly home electricity bill with Octopus

Minato said:
I do not, I looked at it to see how much people were generating and if maybe I should invest in a system to cut my bills down. But given that in winter people are generating like 1-3kW a day it wouldn't really touch even my 'low use' (60kW) days.
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In the winter it's not how much you can generate but how much you can store during the off peak period. Even on a bad solar day I run my house on 8.5p electric all day then export what is left for 15p kWh. Soon my imports will be 7p kWh when I get my charge point installed.

Sounds like you've got a big house, if you have plenty of space for panels then a large system will generate well in the summer, which potentially builds up credit for the winter, couple it with batteries and there is plenty of savings to be had. Our gas and electric has been negative two years running.
 
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Ron-ski said:
In the winter it's not how much you can generate but how much you can store during the off peak period. Even on a bad solar day I run my house on 8.5p electric all day then export what is left for 15p kWh. Soon my imports will be 7p kWh when I get my charge point installed.

Sounds like you've got a big house, if you have plenty of space for panels then a large system will generate well in the summer, which potentially builds up credit for the winter, couple it with batteries and there is plenty of savings to be had. Our gas and electric has been negative two years running.
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Good point tbf, if I can generate >60kW in summertime then at least those months would be free.

Haven't looked into it too much yet as I've heard prices of panels are constantly decreasing, and I'd want to get loads of panels so makes sense to wait a bit I think.
 
Minato said:
Good point tbf, if I can generate >60kW in summertime then at least those months would be free.

Haven't looked into it too much yet as I've heard prices of panels are constantly decreasing, and I'd want to get loads of panels so makes sense to wait a bit I think.
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I can't see panels getting much cheaper, you can a decent 425w panel for £47.56 excluding vat, in the meantime labour rates will be going up, and summer is coming.

Batteries may get a bit cheaper, but now is a very good time to get PV and a battery system, and get as many panels as you can fit, even north facing roofs are worth doing along with the others, or if you have room a ground mount system.

If you want advice on systems post in the following thread.

Solar panels and battery - any real world reccomendations?

is that the spot that you grow weed?
forums.overclockers.co.uk forums.overclockers.co.uk
 
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I didn't read all of the posts.

Yes, that is very high.

I think you need to go through the house looking at everything.

My base consumption is 21W and average in the day is 250W.

The most concerning for me would be the 661W. That's one heck of a lot if everything is off!

One suspect may be the central heating pumps. They are on all the time the central heating is on and many installations these days have more than one. Plumbers have a habit of just turning them up full, but they can use 100-125W each. A modern self-adjusting pump will usually use around 10W by comparison.

My biggest normal day to day user is the fridge. It's consumption is fairly low but it's on all the time and kicks in quite often.

Another hidden evil is underfloor heating in bathrooms. Quite popular at the moment, but they are fiendishly expensive to run.
 
The OP needs to get a thorough understanding of what's using what, and label all those breakers as well. It's a big house, but I suspect a lot can be cut back when you look at that list.

Flood lighting, if old style bulbs and not Led will consume a lot, 3 freezers the same.

At least they are on the right path now, and that 661w constant load needs identifying.
 
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