Solar panel production figures

That makes sense. As a family of 4 with no gas hobs our electricity usage is a little higher. So still import a fair bit. I mean before panels we'd import over 400kWh in a month especially in the winter. Now we're using less gas too as we can heat up the water with solar as well. And of course lowering our import from.the grid. It really has been win win for us.

Our 12k investment is really helping and I think even if the energy prices drop back to what they were, at our usage and generation rate (if it stays the same) we'll get our payback in under 7 years easily - if not quicker.

As far as I'm concerned the money is spent, and psychologically my monthly bills are now peanuts and it leaves me with more every month. And importantly (and this is important to me), I'm necessarily using less fossil fuels and lowering my carbon foot print.
 
Freefaller said:
That makes sense. As a family of 4 with no gas hobs our electricity usage is a little higher. So still import a fair bit. I mean before panels we'd import over 400kWh in a month especially in the winter. Now we're using less gas too as we can heat up the water with solar as well. And of course lowering our import from.the grid. It really has been win win for us.

Our 12k investment is really helping and I think even if the energy prices drop back to what they were, at our usage and generation rate (if it stays the same) we'll get our payback in under 7 years easily - if not quicker.

As far as I'm concerned the money is spent, and psychologically my monthly bills are now peanuts and it leaves me with more every month. And importantly (and this is important to me), I'm necessarily using less fossil fuels and lowering my carbon foot print.
Click to expand...
i agree on every one of those points in your last sentence.......
 
Freefaller said:
That makes sense. As a family of 4 with no gas hobs our electricity usage is a little higher. So still import a fair bit. I mean before panels we'd import over 400kWh in a month especially in the winter. Now we're using less gas too as we can heat up the water with solar as well. And of course lowering our import from.the grid. It really has been win win for us.

Our 12k investment is really helping and I think even if the energy prices drop back to what they were, at our usage and generation rate (if it stays the same) we'll get our payback in under 7 years easily - if not quicker.

As far as I'm concerned the money is spent, and psychologically my monthly bills are now peanuts and it leaves me with more every month. And importantly (and this is important to me), I'm necessarily using less fossil fuels and lowering my carbon foot print.
Click to expand...

Got 3 PC's running (1 is work laptop), solar is generating 1.5kW and house load is 700W, so more than double my usage with excess going to battery.

It's awesome being able to run stuff and not have to pay for the electric to do it, so many options to shift load for things like washing into a greener time as well.
 
HungryHippos said:
Got 3 PC's running (1 is work laptop), solar is generating 1.5kW and house load is 700W, so more than double my usage with excess going to battery.

It's awesome being able to run stuff and not have to pay for the electric to do it, so many options to shift load for things like washing into a greener time as well.
Click to expand...

Can't agree more. I'm working from home today (I try to most fridays) and I've got the dishwasher on, washing machine on, dehumidifier, my work laptop, screens, radio, plus all the other devices that are on all the time (wifi / routers / servers etc...) and it's not costing me anything to run at the moment. It's a really nice feeling that I can power stuff from the sun - my hot water is already hot. It really is a boon.

At the moment the grid carbon intensity is quite high 31% from Gas at 11am. So I feel really happy that I'm not drawing from a high carbon source at the moment. It's a shame it's all so expensive now. If 50% of the buildings/homes had solar, UK would have a fantastic green credential, but then electricity prices would no doubt increase since the demand for it becomes lower...
 
Freefaller said:
Can't agree more. I'm working from home today (I try to most fridays) and I've got the dishwasher on, washing machine on, dehumidifier, my work laptop, screens, radio, plus all the other devices that are on all the time (wifi / routers / servers etc...) and it's not costing me anything to run at the moment. It's a really nice feeling that I can power stuff from the sun - my hot water is already hot. It really is a boon.

At the moment the grid carbon intensity is quite high 31% from Gas at 11am. So I feel really happy that I'm not drawing from a high carbon source at the moment. It's a shame it's all so expensive now. If 50% of the buildings/homes had solar, UK would have a fantastic green credential, but then electricity prices would no doubt increase since the demand for it becomes lower...
Click to expand...

Actually no they likely wouldn't go up. Because the balance would shift more heavily to the cheap low carbon grid.
Because the grid pricing from the generators is bids, so the request £x/MWH and the cheapest will be supplying more frequently.
TBH even every home in the UK having solar would still leave a large shortfall, but its good at individual level
 
Im not happy with the data i get from growatt fo my solar and export.....so going to get an efergy pro solar kit with ct clamps to monitor usage myself and send the data to my ipad.

Does anyone else do this?? or are you getting the info straight from your inverters??

Efergy Pro - Efergy

uk.efergy.com uk.efergy.com
 
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Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
Actually no they likely wouldn't go up. Because the balance would shift more heavily to the cheap low carbon grid.
Because the grid pricing from the generators is bids, so the request £x/MWH and the cheapest will be supplying more frequently.
TBH even every home in the UK having solar would still leave a large shortfall, but its good at individual level
Click to expand...

In theory you're right - but I'm very skeptical that that would actually happen! However yes, if it does indeed allow more reliable low carbon energy generation then of course it's win win. I wonder if industrial-scale solar would also provide some interesting opportunities - i.e. factories, and manufacturing plants etc... whilst they'll never be able to rely solely on their solar generation, it would have a significant impact.

Perhaps solar isn't the right application for high draw applications like factories and manufacturing plants - not really efficient enough yet I guess.

It's interesting, in Cyprus they don't have the infrastructure for exporting solar back to the grid (it would throw it off balance completely), and you can't have storage batteries, unless you can prove that you are going to be off grid - because there's only 1 power company, they have a monopoly, and it's all quite government / politically charged. It's daft as they have so much sun it would be a boon for them. It just proves that there is still a pecuniary incentive for businesses / government and the altruistic / "right thing to do" seems to fall by the wayside.
 
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