Soldato
Flux here
Solar panels and battery - any real world reccomendations?
- Thread starter GinG
- Start date
Associate
Useful to be aware of.
Not something that works for us. We are with Coventry building society who do offer bolts on to mortgage but they exclude offset mortgages lol.
As above the premium will be paying for the cashback or finance cost. This in my experience recently was paid for a 20% cost premium from the larger firms over smaller more specialist installers.
In terms of spreading the cost we are getting a long 0% credit card. Which allows you to shop around and spread the cost.
Associate
Looks like fixed is best for us looking at the octopus tariff tweaks. Need to work out the optimal combo.
Associate
Phwoa even in winter? Check you out Mr electrons! I've got givenergy so I was considering doing intelligent flux in summer but for winter I'm not sure if I'll get value from the variable export tariffs. Tbh I don't know if I'll even be exporting until March: the battery just about covers my daily demand with a bit of a top up but I've not been getting anywhere near topped up as yet.
Soldato
It's probably far from ideal in the winter, probably better options, but for me there could potentially be issues switching back come spring. With recent system upgrades it should only be November to February (Dec & Jan being the worst months) that I have to pay. October I was in profit, and so far this month, which has been terrible I've effectively paid 5.2p per unit.
Once we get a heat pump I will need to change for winter.
Once we get a heat pump I will need to change for winter.
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Associate
Flux works if your battery size is much bigger than your daily usage (as it is for you) and you can force discharge at the peak rate. I've done a few days on Go and the 15p export now and with this current weather it hasn't made a great deal of a difference cost-wise.
Assuming little solar, on Flux I would import around 12kWh per day at 14.2 pence but force discharge 5kWh at 4pm. With standing charges that's a cost of about £1.30 per day. With Go I'm importing about 8kWh per day at 8.5 pence but not force discharging and as a result its about the same cost plus or minus a few pence. The only real reason I switched is I have an EV now so charging that at 14.2p was extremely expensive.
I suppose I could force discharge a little still each day at 15p and reduce that a little, but I'm conscious of battery wear. At just under 2 years old I'm at 93% SOH and about 500 cycles so I've stopped now I'm off Flux.
I was thinking being on Go with agile export could be quite good, its basically a play on peak rates. Import at 8.5p and export at 15-40p in the peak window. The flux import rate is just a bit too high in my eyes, no justification for it.
Soldato
@reef interesting, thanks for your perspective. Crunching numbers for the best options is just too complicated for me.
@200sols Over the years they have really squeezed the gap between off peak import and peak export rates, and like you say when others are 8.5p and often for longer periods why is Flux around 15p in the off peak period.
@200sols Over the years they have really squeezed the gap between off peak import and peak export rates, and like you say when others are 8.5p and often for longer periods why is Flux around 15p in the off peak period.
Soldato
Now that's making my head hurt, I've not updated all the prices for the respective tariffs as they do differ slightly from what I would be charged here, but the spreadsheet is saying -£137 for Flux for the year and all the rest including Flexible are -£1000 to -£1500. I'll have to do some more digging, but something seems off. Actually just noticed the best strategy for Flux hasn't yet been implemented in the spreadsheet, perhaps thats why.
Associate
Seen their spreadsheet before, it's cool. It doesn't really explicitly account for losses wire-to-wire so need to bear in mind the tiny gap between e.g. cosy import at 12.5p and export at 15p, well, you'll lose around 10% of the kWh anyway so real export gap is a lot closer. I've a mind to do something like they have and figure out how much to discount by (varies depending on inverter losses which scale depending on load). Will be useful if you want to do something really exciting like run Agile for either/both import/export.
I've moved to Cosy for now until I get an EV, was on Agile but Cosy probably benefits me more in winter for now. Even when the weather picks up again it'll take some doing to beat 12.5p/kWh which, with 9.5kWh of storage and a bit of solar every day will get me through all but the coldest days. My usage is mostly 12-13kWh per day so far. Just about too much for 9.5kWh to do in a single charge so I do need one of those cheap lunchtime slots to let me run through the rest of the day.
I've moved to Cosy for now until I get an EV, was on Agile but Cosy probably benefits me more in winter for now. Even when the weather picks up again it'll take some doing to beat 12.5p/kWh which, with 9.5kWh of storage and a bit of solar every day will get me through all but the coldest days. My usage is mostly 12-13kWh per day so far. Just about too much for 9.5kWh to do in a single charge so I do need one of those cheap lunchtime slots to let me run through the rest of the day.
Soldato
Panels and ground mount all down…..
Next to come down is the greenhouse and then the shed
Next to come down is the greenhouse and then the shed
Soldato
Have you done any in-depth analysis on this? I looked at August's data and even if I could have captured all of my generation in my battery to export in the peak rate window, I would have been quite significantly worse off. The highest export value was 18.4p/kWh which just never offsets the weeks of data where the peaks don't beat the 15p of the fixed output.
As it happens, I can't store all of my generation in a given summer day so I'd be absolutely ruined by moving to Agile for export. I am also export limited to 5kW by my DNO so I can't pour the energy out fast enough to take advantage of the really peak times. It strikes me as really edge case where this works in favour of the customer.
Soldato
Had an email to say I could click to go to 15p fixed export on Go. About bloody time!
Anyone on Go who can export should have the same email. If you don't do it within a couple of weeks they wont move you until renewal or you contact them specifically to ask to be moved.
So yet again its another change on the balance of the best tariff. I moved to Go in the summer due to the 15p fixed export and did well from it.
Next year with Go also on 15p export I may stay on Go. Don't get me wrong agile is great and has a massive opportunity many days to min max for profit.
But Go to top up each night to full knowing that as soon as batts are full your exporting at 15p seems like its uber hastle free compared to the gain from min maxing Agile.
@TNA just linking you into the thread I referred to earlier so you know which one.
Anyone on Go who can export should have the same email. If you don't do it within a couple of weeks they wont move you until renewal or you contact them specifically to ask to be moved.
So yet again its another change on the balance of the best tariff. I moved to Go in the summer due to the 15p fixed export and did well from it.
Next year with Go also on 15p export I may stay on Go. Don't get me wrong agile is great and has a massive opportunity many days to min max for profit.
But Go to top up each night to full knowing that as soon as batts are full your exporting at 15p seems like its uber hastle free compared to the gain from min maxing Agile.
@TNA just linking you into the thread I referred to earlier so you know which one.
If you are on regular Go and you don't swap to Octopus' other tariffs at other times of the year, you should move over to Eon Drive Next.
It's considerably better than Go and gives Intelligent Go a run for its money for the vast majority of people. The fact it is 7 hours at fixed times and you don't have to worry about the 'intelligent' nonsense is a massive boon for those who don't want to go down the home assistant rabbit hole when dealing with home batteries that get drained by their EV charger.
The main reason to stay on IoG is if you regularly need >7 hours charging or make use of other tariffs at other times of the year.
It's considerably better than Go and gives Intelligent Go a run for its money for the vast majority of people. The fact it is 7 hours at fixed times and you don't have to worry about the 'intelligent' nonsense is a massive boon for those who don't want to go down the home assistant rabbit hole when dealing with home batteries that get drained by their EV charger.
The main reason to stay on IoG is if you regularly need >7 hours charging or make use of other tariffs at other times of the year.
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yep. i use this for my tariff. set and forget
Not for summer, I wasn't thinking for summer. I used intelligent flux in summer and it was by far the most profitable tariff for me.
I was thinking more in winter, these recent 80p agile import peaks have seen 35p+ export rates.
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Associate
Rumours going round on fb that fixed 15p oct outgoing export is getting nerfed to a variable export with a floor. Someone got an email to say that and posted it. Anyone else get similar? I've just got the docs and applied for my export yesterday.
If that's the case, the floor could then be dropped next summer. Could be a pretty massive nerf tbh, basically like a slow move of everyone to agile export.
If that's the case, the floor could then be dropped next summer. Could be a pretty massive nerf tbh, basically like a slow move of everyone to agile export.
Soldato
Im contracted to 15p export until next december…..