I am going to try and do monthly reports on my solar installation to keep track of how it is going. You can see details of it here.
I had to expect production to drop as we headed into winter. As well as the weather changing the days get shorter. In the summer we were getting almost 900 kWh per month, but it was just 160 kWh in November. You can see the days when we got some sunshine, but even when it is cloudy all day we get something.
I will be interested to see what the total for the year is. This is with 8kW of panels that face due west on our roof.
We get our energy from Octopus (this is a referral link so we get a bonus if you sign up with them). They are really into encouraging alternative sources and cutting consumption. We have a tariff that provides cheap power overnight. So we pay 8.5p/kWh for those five hours and 26.7p otherwise. We only spent a little less than November last year, but those peaks are where we charged up the electric car that we did not have then.
We did not export much, but then it mostly went into powering the house and charging up the battery. As there is less sun there are days where the battery does not get to 100% charge during the day. Hovever, at the start of the month I was able to move to a different tariff that pays 15p/kWh rather than 8p. That increases the incentive to export, so I set up the system to fully charge the battery at night rather than just going to 60% so that we could export more. It is only a few pounds, but it all adds up.
Before we got the solar we were paying over £130 each month the cover electricity and gas. We had built up some credit, so I reduced that to £30 and will see if that is enough to keep us in credit over winter. In the summer we earn more than we pay. The new tariff should shorten the time until the system pays for itself.
People may think that the UK would not be viable for solar, but I think it is worthwhile, especially if you have a battery to take advantage of off-peak prices. If you live somewhere that gets a lot more sun then it ought to be standard, but it will depend on what the energy companies charge and whether there are other incentives. If every roof had some panels then we could burn a lot less fossil fuels.
If you have questions on this topic then I will try to answer them. I am interested to hear about the experiences of others.
Shine on!
I'd be happy generating around 500w/h of power cause that covers my minimum constant usage in this house.
That would save me almost £300 a year at just that.
Alas its a rented home and I doubt the landlord is up to paying for solar installations and I certainly can't afford to pay towards it atm.
My house averaged 3 times the electric useage of the average in the uk, since we're heavy computer users and are indoor all day, our gas useage on the other hand is well below average as we keep the house at around 18 degrees and wear cardigans all day.
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If you are renting then it's not easy unless you can persuade the landlord that solar is a good investment. Offering a house with lower bills ought to be good. Otherwise you need something standalone. With a smaller system then the inverter and other extras become a bigger part of the cost.
@louis88 has some panels on his balcony so may have some suggestions.
At least you are still generating something. Ours is nearly installed and expect this to be done by Tuesday. I now need to get the boilers/geezers converted to solar and also a gas hob. The hope is we can permanently cut our ties with the grid by Friday. There is no point supplying back to the grid as they charge for being connected to the grid so it is not worth the effort. They are trying to penalise those leaving the grid because we were the ones paying and now they have a problem with less revenue.
It's not viable for us to be off-grid and so this works for us. As I said, it can vary depending on where you are and we need campaigns to encourage alternative energy.
In the UK, probably using wind turbines are a better option than using solar panels. Or mixing the two.
It is possible to power your devices by using only the generated energy entirely from the green energy sources, without having to use the service of energy companies.
Of course this solution probably requires more investment, depending how much energy your household is using.
Trying to achieve an offgrid system when you don't actually need it (i.e. have grid access) is expensive and there are better ways to spend money. But of course it's always great to focus on increasing self-consumption.
For individual it's very hard because those energy sources are very unpredictable, grid have a better tools (and scale) can do that.
But hey, we want to decentralize everything so maybe neighborhoods will be able to do that in future :-)
Exactly. We have much reduced our grid consumption (if you exclude the off-peak car charging). Being totally off-grid would bring different problems.
I think wind only really works on a large scale and is not viable on a house. Solar should be low maintenance and has no noise issues.
We still need the grid as we would not get enough sun at this time of year, especially when it comes to charging up the car. So we have to pay the standing charge, but then we can get paid to export our excess power.
I also would not put wind turbines on a house, but in the garden.
Of course if you have enough space for it.
If your area is windy enough, then it is worth to consider.
Especially if generally there is more wind than sunlight during the average days on your area.
I looked up some small turbines that are designed for boats. One of those that costs £500 will only generate up to 60W. That would not run much, but could keep the light on in a boat. Even in our garden we would not get constant wind due to other buildings.
We can get all our power from solar (apart from car charging) in the summer, so it balances out over the year and will pay for itself. If you live on a hill with constant wind then a turbine may be an option, but you just don't tend to see them on urban homes. In some cases people could have both.
@steevc, I paid out 2.050 HIVE and 0.000 HBD to reward 9 comments in this discussion thread.
I'm looking into solar for my car to power electronics and offer a backup in case my car battery goes flat. Mainly, I'd like a LiFePo4 battery with a pure sine wave inverter as a way to run a few luxuries like a laptop and a coffee maker.
There are various portable batteries that come with an inverter, so that may be an option. Will you fix the panel on the roof?
I've seen some. "Only" $500 USD on Black Friday sales! I'm not sure about attaching a panel or not.
I also wanna get solar plus battery to my house in thr future 👏
It's become cheaper over the years, so it's worth looking into. Good luck.
Wow! Wow! It truly saves a lot of money @steevc 😊
I am interested and plan to install solar panels in my house.😊
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