Solar panel production figures

36 generated yesterday,
31 exported.

A good day seems to end up with £4.50 net profit after standing charge is deducted.

We have a run of some good days but today looks like it will be back down again though.
 
gpuerrilla said:
Agree the past two months have been awful considering they are meant to be the strongest ones of the calendar year for solar gen.

Last year we averaged just over 3kWh per day more compared to this one.
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Someone on another forum said July was their worst since 2011.

I'm currently averaging 37 a day, which would mean 1148 for the month, which will be better than Julys 1069.
 
rangor gubbins said:
I can confirm ASHP work really well, but you're right, the house needs to be well insulated and drafts minimised (but still maintain air flow). Underfloor heating with large bore (+20mm) work well, especially in screed with tiled floors but also works on other floor types (with some caveats). We have UFH throughout including wooden floors and carpet floor.
ASHPs can burn through a large amount of electricity in certain conditions, e.g. very cold but damp or foggy weather because it keeps cycling it's defrost mode. Usually during the winter the ASHP uses 15-20 kwh per day but it can rise to +40kwh when the weather is unfavorable.
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I don't doubt it..... however I don't think that would be an issue for us.
we are pretty high electricity users (which is why solar and battery with good off-peak works so well for us)

but Gas....... we are constantly in the top 25% of Nest gas users for our area (by top I mean lowest users) we get a green leaf most days even in winter and I look at those average usages estimations and for gas we are not even close (as in under 1/3)

so I truly think going full electric could work for us...... (the saving in a year of gas standing charges would likely save us the equivalent of 6 kWh a day of electricity for the 3 months of the year when we use the most heating

Albeit if time of use prices stays being a thing I would likely double down on our battery storage.
 
rangor gubbins said:
Our house needed a full refurb and that's when we put in the solar and ASHP.
With the renewable heat incentive the cost of the heat pump was fully covered by gov grant over 7 years. I think the RHI is closed now but I thought there was still a good gov grant for replacing a gas boiler with heat pump. Something like £5k, which should cover most of the install cost.
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If you had to choose one and keep budgets the same would you rather go solar/batteries or ashp(underfloor if in budget)?

Have you got an idea of how much you save per year with ashp over gas ?
 
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Ron-ski said:
Someone on another forum said July was their worst since 2011.
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Welshman said:
yup last 10wks not been the best here to be honest....mid june was the last good run of production.
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Its only sad when you know we are moving toward the winter solstice and your optimum 10wks were a washout. :(

Taken from the Met:

Northern Ireland had its wettest July on record in a series which dates back to 1836, according to provisional Met Office statistics.

After a hot and dry June, July followed up with a wet and slightly cool month for many as low pressure brought frequent periods of winds and rain. Northern Ireland saw more than double its average rainfall for the month, with 185.4mm (207% of its long-term average) the provisional figure.

The previous record for Northern Ireland was very close to this figure with 185.2mm of rain in July 1936. Further rainfall data will be collected and reviewed for this July over the coming months, which could result in small amendments to the 2023 value in finalised figures, hence why they are provisional at this stage.
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I would instead of playing down the "wet and slightly cool month" and actually report it was unseasonably cold for this time of year but that goes against the climate change narrative tbh.
 
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gpuerrilla said:
but that goes against the climate change narrative tbh.
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I am not sure it does.... climate change over all will definitely mean things get hotter.

but that isnt to say there wont be cool and wet places sometimes as weather patterns change. christ just look at all the fires which are popping up all over the place and the insanely hot temps.

i dont think a crappy july and august in the uk undermines anything to be honest, not whilst other places are burning at the same time.
 
3.3 so far today :( Battery only up to 48%, will have to start charging it overnight I think. Hopefully the sun can stay out for the next 3 hours minimum which should top the battery up nicely.

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bigmike20vt said:
I am not sure it does.... climate change over all will definitely mean things get hotter.
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For various reasons but not everything being presented in the mainstream is necessarily down to it. Like my point was they said June was hottest ever, followed by a much less covered wettest and cooler July.

For example the Tonga eruption last year would have had massive impact which is a natural event. This causes global temperatures to rise.
 
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gpuerrilla said:
For example the Tonga eruption last year would have had massive impact which is a natural event. This causes global temperatures to rise.
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stuff like that wont help.... the thing is, our ecosystem is pretty robust... in general it can cope with disasters like that.......... the question is, can it cope with disasters like that, combined with the amount of crap we are pumping into the atmosphere, combined with the mass deforestation etc.

and now add in combined to the problems caused due to the melting of the poles. (i think many people underestimate how catastrophic this may be)

on its own an eruption like you mentioned would not be a concerned, but when the system is already breaking then its going to have a bigger effect.
I am convinced human actions have, are and will play a huge part in climate changed.

i am unconvinced we have the will or the ability to turn the ship around. I do what i can but only to the point that it doesnt spoil my life too much (so no halo for me), not in the hope that it prevents climate collapse........... more that it may help postpone it in the hope that my lad has a decent life.
 
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Have a watch of some of what Randall Carlson has shared for example. He uses some in depth facts to cover the topic. I am not trying to convince you of my opinion @bigmike20vt as I am not a total naysayer just think there is a lot of cherry picked information that makes the topic more meaty. :)

If you think the Tonga eruption is a nothingburger then that's me out, saying it wont help is a massive understatement. Its the opposite to what you said really, a few wildfires - it can absolutely cope with (spread over the planet), massive eruptions/disasters absolutely matter.

The Coral reef bleaching also seems to be another pawn in the scaremongering. There has been some documentaries and science feedback recently that goes against a lot of what we were told. These are just some of the bits I recall from memory recently.
 
gpuerrilla said:
If you think the Tonga eruption is a nothingburger then that's me out, saying it wont help is a massive understatement.
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that wasn't what i meant and if it came across like that i was wrong.... just that were it not for the other issues i believe the ecosystem would be far more likely to auto correct.

but when its already on the edge then any huge natural issues are more likely to tip it over.

The thing is we have absolutely no control over eruptions, we are stuck with them... however there are things we can do such as (bringing back onto topic) cleaning up our energy generation with renewables like solar.
 
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gazref said:
If you had to choose one and keep budgets the same would you rather go solar/batteries or ashp(underfloor if in budget)?

Have you got an idea of how much you save per year with ashp over gas ?
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Its tricky to answer. If you plan to stay in the house for a long time I'd probably go ASHP and ufh because I think gas is on its way out and the sooner you set up the house for a heat pump the better. Also ufh is great, nice even warmth, and no radiators taking up space.
For solar and batteries, I think (but not sure!) it's still difficult to get a return on the investment for the cost of the batteries over it's lifetime. Solar can be installed for a reasonable amount, especially if you negotiate with the installer and already have scaffolding up due to other building work. If you work from home, have a heat pump, or other high electric usage, installing solar is easy to justify and you should break even on the investment in half the life of the hardware (8-10 years into the 20 years life or so).
Our savings from going from LPG boiler to an ASHP were substantial but at the same time we did a full refurb with loads of insulation etc. so our LPG cost would probably have gone down anyway.
Pre-refurb we were spending about £2500 per year on elec and gas to run the house (some heating was also provided by normal electric heaters). After refurb I think our annual cost dropped to around £1200 plus we got about £300 from the FiT. The other big difference is that even when we spent £2500 per year, the house was not warm in the winter. Now it's lovely and comfortable. Impressive savings but it's really difficult to separate savings from the ASHP vs much better insulation.
 
Battery down to 58%, I am REALLY hoping this doesn't happen again (Below in picture), if it doesn't I should last til the cheap period on octopus to charge battery up at 18p then if we get sunny day tomorrow I will export back at 19p and ive already built up a few quid Mon>Wednesday

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Exported 19.1 over mon>wed and

13.4 at 19p
5.7 at 32p
 
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