Making Green Plans - Getting rid of gas. Getting more solar. And a walk round my lounge and kitchen

[@mrsgboring]

Like you I struggled with the idea of having a 42kWh battery sitting on the drive and still paying out £££ for a home battery but it has turned out to be a very key part of our solar installation. With ASHP as a constant consumer, it may be different for you, but for us the battery allows us to use massively much more of our home generated electricity, and in the winter benefit from force charging overnight with cheap electricity (EV tariff) meaning we only buy day rate electricity in any noticeable quantity between mid Nov and mid Jan. The rest of the time the electricity will stretch on all but the dullest and rainiest days. [6kWh system, 6kWh battery, 2 adults working from home full time, two teenagers, 1 EV] In summer we also put most of our driving electricity on from solar panels. Our car charger has the capacity to use excess solar electricity. However, for this to work you have to have over a 1kW excess consistently for a reasonable amount of time, which we find happens quite rarely. We tend to charge on an eco 2kW charging setting instead. This pulls from a combination of battery/direct solar just like the house does so we just turn it on and off when we predict there will be spare electricity. The battery enables us to smooth the load, rather than have to turn off when the sun goes in. Similar for electrical appliances. The sun doesn't need to be shining *right now* for us to decide to put the washing on because we know we will have extra solar generation to use at some point during the day.

[@TheRamblyChannel]

Thanks @mrsgboring your experiences are so interesting. I really appreciate the feedback. My tiny solar system is rarely over 1kW at the moment so charging the car 100% from the sun isn't an option. I'm hoping that will be the case with more solar, but I understand what you're saying - there are no guarantees and how you handle it sounds very sensible to me. I may do the same. You're spot on about the ASHP. It throws a massive question mark into the whole thing and makes predicting what will happen very difficult. My gut is still to jump in and go for it, I haven't been backwards in coming forwards over any of my other green choices but I'm going to try to rationalise it as best I can. When the heat pump isn't running I can see a situation where I could be running off solar and batteries all day in the summer months. I'm currently waiting for the structural engineer to report back on the garage roof and also need to decide what battery to go for. I'm down to a choice of two options. Out of interest, what battery do you have and how have you found it? Thanks so much for watching and taking the time to leave a comment.

[@moonraker2010]

Just watched the video. I am doing things in a different order to you. Solar (4kWp) and battery (Tesla PW) first, ASHP then EV (soon). I have looked at extra solar because you cannot have too much. I have plenty of roof space and I was thinking of additional battery but will probably charge car with excess first using my Zappi. If I still have extra I will use my Eddi to boost the hot water. If I still have excess then I will get another Powerwall but most of the time I doubt it. In your case the battery can help with ASHP running costs by charging during off peak and using during the 4pm - 7pm peak.

[@TheRamblyChannel]

Thanks for your thoughts. Much appreciated. At the moment I’m on Octopus Tracker so I pay the same rate all day. If I get more solar and a battery then I’ll look at alternative tariffs and what you suggest could very well be one of my options. Thanks so much for your feedback and thanks for watching!

[@moonraker2010]

@@TheRamblyChannel Assumed you would be on Intelligent Go or similar TOU tariff as you have an EV. I am on Agile as it was cheaper than Cosy.

[@michaelgoode9555]

My house has a north/south ridge on the main roof and the Jack roof faces north. Solar has never really been an option unfortunately. I have been looking at battery storage for a while and now regret being persuaded not to do it five years ago. The benefits of hindsight, eh? The big project is insulating this old Victorian terrace. As we are renovating room by room I am installing interior wall insulation and underfloor insulation on the ground floor. The loft already has about 20 inches of insulation. For each room we complete there is a step down in gas heating and of course gas consumption in the carefully retained data that we have kept for a decade now and we also recorded where we have adjusted down the trv valves in each room as we go. Some radiators have only opened up during the really really cold spells. We were car free for 22 years but circumstances have necessitated that we currently have a car. We bought a 2 year old EV ...

[@TheRamblyChannel]

Makes perfect sense to double down on that insulation. UK houses are terrible. Mine isn't great but due to the construction it's very difficult to make it better, especially in my bedroom which is a loft conversion. It appears I'd have to rip the entire room out, including the walls and start again. Funnily enough that doesn't appeal to me very much. This is such an interesting area and I'm learning new things every day. I've already picked up a whole load of new information since I shot this video. I'll be talking about that in the next one. I know I'll be talking some nonsense along the way, but I want to be honest and upfront with everyone and see what happens!!

[@CraigJTStewart]

Andy, Battery first, more panels later. No brainer. I'm running almost exclusively on off-peak electric in winter, in summer, actually the same as I export (Octopus) almost everything my solar generates, at more than I pay for the off-peak electric. Do it. And don't undersize on the battery, calculate your daily usage, and try to ensure you have that scale of battery. And if you can, LFP, they are available now.

[@TheRamblyChannel]

Thanks for the advice. The problem I have is that my electric usage is high, especially in winter, due to me having an ASHP. Don't get me wrong, the ASHP is very efficient and I'm finding it cheaper than my old gas boiler, however running everything in my home on electric does push up the usage of that power source. That means I can't get a battery (within a reasonable price range) to cover all my electric needs in the coldest months meaning some grid use. However, if I go on a tarrif such as Agile my calculations are that I should be able to cover my use long enough to get out of the other side of the peak period, around 7-7.30pm so it may still make sense. In 10 years time, when battery prices are much lower and we all have V2x it will make a great deal of senese to use the combination of both fixed-home and vehicle batteries to power your home all day long, even with a heat pump. We're at that point where the battery prices (at least at the point of purchase) are still relatively high and it makes it tricky to get the numbers to add up. My heart wants to do it whatever the cost because it's the right thing to do. My head wants to make a case for it paying for itself in no more than 10 years, preferably less. Oh, and LFP is a must, I agree!

[@dougabbott8261]

I am in the same boat regarding Nissan Ariya. I was hoping they could do an update and allow for vehicle to load but I think this will not happen.Battery will make sense when electricity prices drop during the day and rise during peak times.

[@TheRamblyChannel]

Unfortunately the way I understand it after talking with an expert at Nissan HQ here in the UK is that the hardware itself doesn't support V2x so it'll never be available for this version of the car. I wouldn't be surprised if it's added in a future update or when they start bringing out electric versions of their other makes that it's part of the spec. Time will tell!

[@neilhollow1937]

Difficult to work out a battery payback time I think. Like you we went from a Civic 2011 model held together by plastic ties to an EV (Leaf) which we love. The frustrating thing is the bidirectional chargers are still not on the market yet...

[@TheRamblyChannel]

It'll come with time. One of my complaints about the Ariya is the lack of bi-directional support however you've hit the nail on the head - the infrastructure for it isn't quite ready yet and I suspect that's why Nissan left it out. I'm having second thoughts about more solar battery. I'd love to do it, but it's soooo expensive and am having a hard time justifying the expense. I keep changing my mind about it. I'll be updating the channel soon with my current thoughts! Thanks for watching!

[@Lewis_Standing]

Batteries pay back on the following ways 1. Traditional calculation. Cost of peak grid imported energy avoided because you've stored it when you couldn't use it earlier. Minus any export you'd have been paid for. 15-30p/kWh. 2. Importing on off peak eg. Intelligent octopus costs and exporting at higher rates. Eg 7.5p import 15p export on intelligent octopus. Not all export rates good enough. 7.5p minus losses. 3. The 12 grid savings events a year. Import at 7.5p during the winter overnight or at peak 30p and export at £1.75-£3 during the event. The maths for payback will be cost for whole install / saving per kWh to give amount of kWh needed to offset the purchase price. Then you can/ by your daily kWh use to give a rough payback time. Can be longer tha. That due to losses or shorter if you're doing more with your battery than you realise. Eg the grid saving stuff. Hope that's useful.

[@TheRamblyChannel]

Thanks Lewis. That is helpful. I've only read though it quickly but will return to it as I start getting into the details. The thing I keep going back to is the costs of running my ASHP. Compared to the gas boiler, it's on par but it would drain the battery before the end of the evening in the winter unless I spend stupid amounts of money on several batteries so I'll awlays end up using some from the grid in the colder months. So to save money I use Tracker at the moment thereby removing any very low benefit from the equation. I haven't done the maths - it may be that even with some grid use at the end of the day I'm still better off, but I need to do some serious number crunching to work that out (even if I can work it out - there are so many variables!) Thanks for your input - always valuable!

[@johnb7644]

A induction hob range ?

[@TheRamblyChannel]

Yep. It's a range and it has an induction hob. I suppose strictly speaking it's not a "range" in the traditional sense of the word, but then neither is my gas version if you want to be really pedantic about it. :)

[@jenksfzr600r]

I am too looking at having the gas disconnected once my heat pump is installed in the spring. Only other gas appliance is a 4 burner hob. I am thinking of possibly changing over to bottled gas just to run the hob. You can change your existing or new hob to run off LPG pressures . The bottles would last a very long time if only used for cooking. Also all my eggs wouldn't be in one basket kind of thing should anything happen to my solar / battery system. Could at least make a brew . Got to be cheaper than paying the standing charge and gas usage . Just thoughts at the minute. Factoring in the costs of sorting electrics for an induction hob. ????

[@TheRamblyChannel]

That's a really interesting approach. Thanks for suggesting it. My current gas range has a few issues so I'm happy to replace it, but if it was OK and had a few more years in it then I'd seriously look at the option you suggest. The really interesting thing about this subject area is that there are always so many ways to tackle different problems. Thanks for watching and good luck with your heat pump install. I have other videos on the channel talking about my ASHP installation and looking at running costs.

[@paulsansom9368]

Don't bother with a battery just buy the cheapest Nissan leaf you can find and just use that as your battery storage system because the battery even 10 or 12 years old will still be more than you will need

[@Lewis_Standing]

The Chademo v2g charger is thousands of pounds.

[@TheRamblyChannel]

It's a fascinating area that I know absolutely nothing about but it's interesting to hear that the costs for the 2-way charger are high.