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leccy daily rate has more than doubled, leccy up 10p/kwh
gas, daily rate up 7p, gas more than 2.5x
They said they were doing everything they could and I pointed out that they weren't as they still had not fulfilled my request for a night rate on a smart meter. They ummed a bit but are fitting a new meter this friday so I can get the go rate and charge my car at night.
I'd say they are trying as much as any energy supplier.
Octopus appear to be doing more than most.
What is the Loyal tariff they are offering?
What is the Loyal tariff they are offering?
Those options are both fixed which generally are not competitive at the moment, don't they offer you a standard variable based on the cap? If not vote with your feet.
Look at the standard variable and compare to the fixed. If the fixed is ~<25% over the variable, I would take it. October cap is going to rise again and I expect much greater than 25%.
OP
OP
Deleted member 2463
OP
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Deleted member 2463
so many of the energy trading and futures companies stopped offering futures on gas today - they basically sell far in to the future at a price point where they hope the actual price is lower than the price they sold at. They sell at a lower price to entice you to commit - none of them offering anything now. In twenty years of buying energy at significant levels I've never seen this.
Seriously man what are you running a weed farm?
What’s peoples thoughts on solar these days
Iv never been interested in but with my electric about to double in April then most likely jump again in Oct I’m seriously now considering them.
I stumbled across this Project Solar UK company which appear to be one of the biggest and got a quote of £13k!! For a 4.8kw system + 4.8kw battery (for evening) installed which they say would pretty much cover my electric usage completely (will always have to pay standing charge though) but should barely need to touch the grid.
They also say they guarantee the output and if they don’t produce what they quote they pay you the difference at the current market rate.
Also has 12 month 0% finance so can still buy pins
Done bit of research and other smaller companies appear to be around 11k for same system.
Any one know if that is a reasonable price in todays market for that size system in south west (prob cost £50 up north I know lol)
I know nothing about solar panel pricing so can only go off what I’m told.
Even at 13k with the way pricing is going it would like pay it self off after 4 years?
Iv never been interested in but with my electric about to double in April then most likely jump again in Oct I’m seriously now considering them.
I stumbled across this Project Solar UK company which appear to be one of the biggest and got a quote of £13k!! For a 4.8kw system + 4.8kw battery (for evening) installed which they say would pretty much cover my electric usage completely (will always have to pay standing charge though) but should barely need to touch the grid.
They also say they guarantee the output and if they don’t produce what they quote they pay you the difference at the current market rate.
Also has 12 month 0% finance so can still buy pins
Done bit of research and other smaller companies appear to be around 11k for same system.
Any one know if that is a reasonable price in todays market for that size system in south west (prob cost £50 up north I know lol)
I know nothing about solar panel pricing so can only go off what I’m told.
Even at 13k with the way pricing is going it would like pay it self off after 4 years?
I can see a few things that sound off.
Tge 4.8kw might be panel capacity in DC but not what the inverter will give you in AC. There are losses at the inverter, as well as expected max AC output that will be less than the array.
4.8kW storage seems small but might be enough for your usage but you won’t generate all hours of sunlight every day. It is south west, and based on other over shadowing, might get peak for less hours.
Also, what is the peak draw amount. It might take a kettle, oven and dishwasher, it might only allow 2kWh draw which could mean you go on grid every time you use the kettle.
Cost wise, I paid £9k for a 4.2kWh system without battery. 11 (380wh) panels on different roof angles so it isn’t expected to generate 4kWh at a time but 3.6kWh over a longer period of the day. Today it generates 11.6kWh from 8 to 17:00.
My powerwall battery arrives tomorrow. 13.5kWh and a draw of 5.8kWh and peak of 10kWh for 10 second. But that costs another £9.5k.
Tge 4.8kw might be panel capacity in DC but not what the inverter will give you in AC. There are losses at the inverter, as well as expected max AC output that will be less than the array.
4.8kW storage seems small but might be enough for your usage but you won’t generate all hours of sunlight every day. It is south west, and based on other over shadowing, might get peak for less hours.
Also, what is the peak draw amount. It might take a kettle, oven and dishwasher, it might only allow 2kWh draw which could mean you go on grid every time you use the kettle.
Cost wise, I paid £9k for a 4.2kWh system without battery. 11 (380wh) panels on different roof angles so it isn’t expected to generate 4kWh at a time but 3.6kWh over a longer period of the day. Today it generates 11.6kWh from 8 to 17:00.
My powerwall battery arrives tomorrow. 13.5kWh and a draw of 5.8kWh and peak of 10kWh for 10 second. But that costs another £9.5k.
Interesting, this is my last months usage
Do you think a 4.8kw system plus all the various losses would cover most of my energy? I don’t need to be 100% self sufficient but 80-90% would be pretty cool
These are the panels
And will make this much power and if it does not they pay you the difference
Do you think a 4.8kw system plus all the various losses would cover most of my energy? I don’t need to be 100% self sufficient but 80-90% would be pretty cool
These are the panels
And will make this much power and if it does not they pay you the difference
You have some fluctuations in your usage. Each day looks wildly different but that sample day looks like it could work out. Get quotes from a few companies.
From the spec sheet, it looks like there are different output sizes. Unless the cost is significantly higher, by the best performing panels you can.
From the spec sheet, it looks like there are different output sizes. Unless the cost is significantly higher, by the best performing panels you can.
Again, I don’t know you yearly usage and how that changes over the seasons.
But you are likely to generate a lot more than you need and can store in your battery on a good summers day so will export it to the grid. In winter, you will generate less and need to buy most of your usage.
But you are likely to generate a lot more than you need and can store in your battery on a good summers day so will export it to the grid. In winter, you will generate less and need to buy most of your usage.
The price of a barrel of oil dropped sharply today, so maybe there is still hope....
One of the problems with solar is trying to make best use all of the power you generate and not feed it into the grid as you get paid back a lot less per KWh you feed back in than you pay per KWh you pull from the grid, something like 7p back when from April 1st you will be paying about 27p.
russdx1 this is something that you will need to take into consideration, Any generated power you dont use or put into the battery storage (when its full) you feed back into the grid and then if you drain the battery fully before the solar kicks in the next day and have to get power from the grid you pay a lot more for it. This can also work in your favour though as if you export say 4 KWH to the grid and only pull 1KWh back from the grid then you would break evenish.
What helps is changing habits during the day to best use the power generated, such as using washers/dryers in the afternoon when you tend to get the most out of the solar generation and likely the battery would be full then, also if you have a hot water tank then you can get controllers than see when youre exporting power and it diverts the excess power into an immersion heater to heat the water up.
russdx1 this is something that you will need to take into consideration, Any generated power you dont use or put into the battery storage (when its full) you feed back into the grid and then if you drain the battery fully before the solar kicks in the next day and have to get power from the grid you pay a lot more for it. This can also work in your favour though as if you export say 4 KWH to the grid and only pull 1KWh back from the grid then you would break evenish.
What helps is changing habits during the day to best use the power generated, such as using washers/dryers in the afternoon when you tend to get the most out of the solar generation and likely the battery would be full then, also if you have a hot water tank then you can get controllers than see when youre exporting power and it diverts the excess power into an immersion heater to heat the water up.
A 4.8KWh battery has 4.8KWh of power stored in it (see below though) , the max amount of power it can put out depends on the inverter that its connected to it (and the battery specs). If that was a 4.8KW inverter and you put a 4.8KW load on you would not need to pull power from the grid, but if you put a 6kw load on then you will still only get 4KW from the inverter and would need to pull the other 1.2KW from the grid, ignoring the solar panels for that explanation.
If the solar panels were generating at the same time the power would come from them first if they were not supplying enough then the battery would top it up until its at max output and then you would have to pull in from the grid if the solar and battery were maxed out.
One thing to be aware of with batteries is depth of discharge, if its a lithium battery then the usual recommended depth of discharge is normally about 80% of capacity. So if the 4.8KWh battery you mentioned was rated at 4.8kwh then you would only be able to pull 3.84KWh out of it. To get an actual 4.8KWh of storage you would need a 6KWh battery.
Oil goes up, pump price shoots up accordingly. Oil goes down, price doesn’t drop as quickly as ”its priced ahead of time”. Up like a rocket, down like a feather
Yeah so running tumble/dryer/dishwasher in day to make use of the solar would work well I think the bit I am a little concerned about is we use mostly use our electric oven/hob/air fryer for dinner which is around 6/7 so usually when it’s dark half the year so all this load would be on battery and just kill it each evening? Or Is solution just get bigger battery lol?
paulg100
Registered
Theres a brilliant website where you can see all the houses that are connected to that particular solar company/network and how much each install is generating and other stats.
Cant remember the site now but maybe someone else here knows it? or maybe theres similar ones for every network?
Was like an interactive map of the country and you just clicked on each connected household for all the info.
Fond it very helpful when looking into solar a few years ago and based of it decided it didnt justify the expense for me but that was before all these crazy increases.
Might have to look into again.
Cant remember the site now but maybe someone else here knows it? or maybe theres similar ones for every network?
Was like an interactive map of the country and you just clicked on each connected household for all the info.
Fond it very helpful when looking into solar a few years ago and based of it decided it didnt justify the expense for me but that was before all these crazy increases.
Might have to look into again.
I'm got in on the very last FiT payment scheme before it was axed by the government.
I think it's 5.38p per KW based on half of what I produce (regardless of what I export)
Dead glad I did as my electric bills have basically halved and I use the FiT payments to cover the gas.
One plus from all these massive bills is that people might stop playing who can have the brightest house. My neighbour opposite has so many spot lights on the front of his house that it looks like Gotham City trying to signal Batman.
I can see why the quickly reduced the FiT down and then got rid of it. I think its called an export guarantee rate now and only one Ive seen was 7p per KWh.
I got 5p per kWh 
Pretty much yes and yes, its just getting the balance right between paying more for a bigger battery vs the extra you would spend overnight, also a bigger battery may never get full during the winter months depending on daytime usage and how much you get out of the solar, ideally you would want to calculate how much your cookers would use, i.e. using a 2KW oven for an hour would use 2KWh or less or power, as it tends to use less to maintain temp when up to temp, same with Hob, not sure on Air fryer as never used one.
Possibly one of the things to be aware of for the sellers Guarantee is it appears to be KWh produced over the year, so you might easily meet that but a larger percentage is during the summer months, and possibly fed back into the grid.
Im sure there must be some experts who can work everything out and get a close calculation, not sure i trust every seller, I know there was a lot of talk about something similar to PPI mis-selling for solar a while back, but that was for early systems.
I built my own system over the last year but only just got the battery usable as where I installed them on my garage room its a bad spot for winter as its behind a line of houses that block direct sunlight for most of the day but the solar is starting to produce more per day now.
Ive got a 3KW solar inverter with 3.4KW of solar panels connected to it in 2 banks of 1.7KW , but one of the banks is north facing so not the best to generate but you still get a decent amount of power on a bright day from it. Ive also got a smaller system I started with on my Shed room with 1.2KW but they are laid flat so not as efficient.
The Shed system cost me about £900 but it was built using smaller panels and inverters and I wasnt aware that the bigger stuff was cheaper per KWH to buy and wanted to tes the waters first.
The Garage system cost about £1700 and about £900 for the battery storage system which I setup with a used storage inverter and using cheap Lead Acid batteries but that only holds about 2KWh at the moment, I can get a bit more out of it by putting things on during the day to pull power from the battery and then let the solar top it up again. There is issues with using Lead Acid Batterys but I just started with them as they were cheap and wasnt sure how well the system would work, the plan was to upgrade to Lithium later on once the LeadAcid ones have had their day.
Even with those 2 combined some dark days over winter I didnt even produce .5KWh per day, now that the days are longer and brighter Im starting to produce more each day, averaging about 7KWh this week and with the battery and Solar diverter for the Immersion heater I only export about 0.5KWh a day but being a DIY system Im not eligable for any feed in payments, but should have free hot water for most of the summer.
I get the Export on top, additional 3.95p/Wh (deemed to 50% of generation)
Am seeing some advice to take a meter reading and submit it on the 31st March before the new pricing to get a more accurate bill when it comes..I guess that's so they don't apply any increases to the usage before the 1st April.