What's better than free energy? March solar energy update

The swap from 'deemed export' to a fixed export tariff with Octopus is now paying dividends - literally .
March is the first month to be billed less than £zero for our energy.
Export payments now exceed our entire energy bill and considering we're electric for everything, cars, heating, cooking , hot water etc it means significant savings.
Yes, even payback for all of my solar panels and batteries will be much sooner than expected.
Links / referrals
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OCTOPUS energy referral link....
share ** £50 credit each **
🐙🔌share.octopus....
Actual referral code for telling Octopus "pink-rose-718"
⚡Instavolt App referral : £5 free charging each
⚡driver.emsp.in...
My aircon installer:
Graham Durrant
Ignite heating and cooling
Email: [e-mail]
System / Components
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Solar config
PV all JA solar 9.2kwp
14X280w (3.68kw Solis)
8X300w (2.0kw Solaredge)
4x450w Solis string 1
3x370w (2.5kw) Solis string 2
Myenergi Zappi 1, Eddi and Hub
Battery:
Victron Multiplus II 48/5000
5 x Pylontech Us3000C
EVs:
Mini Electric Cooper SE Level 3 in Midnight black
ESoul First Edition 64kwh in Neptune Blue

[@CrystalNetZero]

You are a role model for green energy practitioners, and I am very grateful for all the experiences you share. The key is that you are so candid and objective, which is very rare and valuable.🙂

[@EVPuzzle]

That's really kind, thank you

[@CrystalNetZero]

@@EVPuzzle It's my pleasure, gentleman.

[@DanEVSolar7]

Good summary Nigel. March actually turned out reasonable for us too and was only 18kWh less than last year in the end, at 328kWh. Stats vid to follow soon.

[@bill_heywood]

Interesting update as usual. We managed 413.5kWh in March from a 6.84kWp SE facing array in the Midlands. As you say, the end of the month was way better than the first 3 weeks On the cost issue, we didn’t have the money for our system, so we had to borrow it - but our savings easily outweigh the repayments. In 13 months, savings have outweighed costs by £2200. And for the first 6 months we got paid nothing for export as it took a while to get this sorted with our DNO. This technology literally pays for itself, even if you have to debt finance it

[@stevegame3000]

Thanks for your update. Very useful and interesting on the first morning after my solar/battery installation😀. Let’s see what the day brings

[@EVPuzzle]

Congratulations on the install , fingers crossed for sunshine

[@smudgey46]

One of the lucky ones who had my first 4kw system fitted in 2011, and the FIT payments cover my power bills and £100 plus surplus per month, had a second array fitted in 2023 with 21kw storage and now in the process of having a Zappi and Eddie fitted so as to minimise the electricity going back to the grid. Like you I've taken early retirement so the more you can save and earn is very important from my solar pv setups. Loving your channel by the way😊

[@EVPuzzle]

Cheers mate. If only I had settled down and discovered solar sooner . Those higher FIT payments are incredible now

[@mikebarry229]

I have an Eddi and am in the process of having a zappi and batteries and a second array fitted. The Eddi will be a paperweight after that...especially if you have a time of use tarrif with decent export rate. With the zappi you will be able to put excess solar into your car but even that doesnt make any sense...charge your car on say Octopus intelligent and your whole house will benefit from cheap electricity, charge your car and house batteries over night at 7.5p (sounds like 21kwh of batteries will run your home for a day or more) and allow your excess solar to export back to the grid at 15p. The Eddi is great as a diverter when you are on a standard tarrif without ev or batteries (even then it will never pay for itself) but once you have batteries/ev and can go on cheap rate electricity for virtually all your consumption the eddi is going to be costing you 7.5p or more for every kwh it diverts.

[@nolandan1]

@@mikebarry229 with one exception - if you are on agile (big if!) - then when elec gets super cheap, then you can just import straight into your immersion heater using the Eddi. That's the only time I use mine. Next step is automate the switching off the gas when I know there's a price plunge on its way.

[@mikebarry229]

@@nolandan1 absolutely and that is how I use mine but you can do the same with much cheaper technology...a simple Shelly switch wired into your immersion cable would cost less than £20 and be just as effective for that use case as you only need on/off functionality, and not all the complex and expensive circuitry provided by the eddi to vary the power draw from your immersion element to match your solar excess.

[@smudgey46]

​@@mikebarry229The thing is l can't have FIT and any other tarrif that pays what you put back in the grid so an eddi and zappi makes sense for me👍

[@rivergladesgardenrailroad8834]

I still, after 5 months of a Kona S2, cant believe how wonderful it is. Still using a manual system of switching on and off the car charging, when the sun is out. Lots of Solar here in South Australia luckily.

[@SolarJourneyWithMatt]

I'm only 4 months into having Solar and batteries and this month we managed to have a £25 credit on the account. We are only at the very beginning of our electric journey so still have heating and car to sort out. But its all looking very positive :)

[@EVPuzzle]

Starting in such a high 👍

[@kevinshales]

I've done the same as you Nigel, Air cons, solar, batteries, EV, and intelligent octopus go with fixed 15p export

[@juttley72]

on the 12th of April, Octopus switched on my export to octopus outgoing at 15 per KWH. Thanks for your previous video on how you went through the process, as it gave me the kick I needed to do the same. My panels were installed back in 2011, so I am on a very good FIT. However, as you know the deemed export was not very good and when I had a second 4KW solar array installed two years ago, I was getting nothing for anything that was exported from that array. By giving up my deemed export and moving to this octopus outgoing tariff, I estimate I could make as much as an additional £500 per year. My system makes me money as well which means I also enjoy when my electricity bill lands as it's exciting to read. My set up is, 4KW west facing array. 4KW south facing array. Ground source heat pump. Tesla Powerwall 2. Rain water harvesting system. I also have two EVs which I charge using a zappi. I did 15,000 miles last year. All of my energy (I dont have gas or oil) to heat my house, heat the water for 2 adults and 4 kids, cook, and lighting came to £1200 (not including any govt discounts for cost of living). I should also mention, I work from home, so my bills will be higher as a result. My income from my FIT tariff was 2K, so I made £800 overall. As you say, that is better than free when you are being paid to cook, drive, heat your house, take a shower etc. I will do better this year due to the new export tariff. I find it exciting each day to watch what my export is doing, the State of charge of my battery and amount of solar I am generating. My Fit payments keep going until 2036 and the tariff rises each year with inflation. My next investment is getting 3 phase power installed to my house which should cost me around 4K. This will then enable me to add more solar (another 4kw on a west facing roof), plus I can add more EV chargers as we are about to get a 3rd EV and so a single charger is not enough. I would also like more battery capacity, but that is lower down the list. My water bill is just £80 a year with ,my rainwater harvesting system, which will become even more handy this year as we establish a vegetable garden with automated irrigation to reduce our food bills. I am 7 years away from retiring and want to keep as much of my pension as possible and therefore reduce my outgoings as much as possible. cheers for all the videos. It's interesting to see how others are getting on with their own setups. thanks John

[@EVPuzzle]

John , it's one of those things you know is better to change but the admin and doubt seems restrictive . All we need is a little encouragement to do the right thing . John's done it, so it can't be hard 😉 Happy exporting Nigel

[@juttley72]

@@EVPuzzle Just a quick update as I forgot to mention that I made a mistake and did not update the Tesla app for a week after my export tariff came into effect. This meant that my power wall was prioritising using the sun to charge the battery, and so overnight, it would charge just enough to cover the morning energy requirements until the sun came up to then charge the battery. It uses weather predictions combined with your normal utilisation data to calculate this. However, changing the settings to include the export rate of 15p per KWH, combined with the already known information in the app which is my overnight rate of 7.5p, has now changed the power walls behaviour to maximise overnight charging and push as much solar to the grid in the day. Just thought I would mention this in case anyone else with a Tesla power wall decides to do the same. cheers John

[@philtinker2364]

Many thanks for your update. My 4kW panels produced 325kWh in March, this is 11% less than average over the last 8 years and the second lowest yield during that time (worst was 2018). Panels are orientated SSE at 30 degrees, located near Swindon. System is now 13 years old and I feel fortunate to be on the very generous FIT payments from that time which more than covers the electricity and gas bills. Sadly my old kit doesn't provide all the wonderful generation/consumption information available to you, but It's interesting to see what you are doing to maximise the yield.

[@Ryanhothersall]

Here in Adelaide, South Australia, March is the first month of Autumn, so solar is on the way down, but still good generation. Generated 1.03 mwh from the north facing 6.3kw house system and 927 kwh from the east west 6.5 kw system on the shed. Total generation is 1.95 mwh.

[@rivergladesgardenrailroad8834]

well done you

[@martinduke218]

March, in the suburbs of Cologne, yielded 21% more than last year! April though so far does not look good... So in March I was just over 95% self sufficient with my 11.46 kWp system with 7.7 kW battery storage. (48% in Jan & 75% in Feb) Stay "Electric".

[@davidsawdon1016]

Having moved to octopus outgoing at 15p means I don’t need to monitor my battery capacity and happy to feed excess back to the grid.

[@leehartshorn1479]

I'm using the same game plan and like you march was my 1st negative energy bill and thats including charging a model x which isnt exactly the most economical EV 😉 looking forward to more sunny days 😎

[@johnrush3596]

Good update. We are still getting our heat pump figures and working on the usage. Also on 3 phase and had another smart meter failure. Something of interest is the new regs from the British standards institute re batteries, they are likely to impact battery installation in houses.

[@rivergladesgardenrailroad8834]

Here in Australia we have newish regs for battery instal. [outside, or in garage with bollards, not near a window or door, and fireproof wall etc etc. Total overkill blanket regs because some idiot dod something stupid, and the insurance industry threw up their hands.... oh well

[@waynecartwright-js8tw]

My roof is full so garden mounted PV is what i am thinking of adding now. I am now fully electric with no gas so time to reduce imported power and bring down outgoings ready for retirement.

[@davespages]

Solar + Battery storage. Energy security. You are not 100% reliant on the grid. And could ride out a power cut.

[@Lawrence7of9]

Thanks for your videos again, I find these & other Utubers on this topic great for reference. Last Sept we installed via Heatable (great quality kit & service) 6kw pv bifacial & 10kw Alpha battery. We got our ev a month or so before, so exploiting Octopus intelligent go tariff which is also great for our Daikin 9kw heat pump (Octopus install for £2.5k) performs brilliant. Headline data (I don’t access all details) for us is even charging ev, powering heat/hot water & house we have hugely reduced our bill & entirely got rid of gas. March entire electric bill is £41.52 (but feed-in of £15 yet to be removed as Octopus not accounting for this) last March electric £76+ & gas £185+ with no ev. Quite impressed.

[@EVPuzzle]

That's great to hear it's working out so well and the heat pump install sounds really good value

[@Lawrence7of9]

It so reminds me of ev experience, you adjust your expectation & realise everything is better. But people get so hung up on change even slightly, they deny themselves the great benefits. Constantly warm comfortable house throughout, other peoples homes feel cold, especially in different rooms. Downside is had to increase heat setting in car as used to being warmer!

[@michaelmcgoldrick78]

using a similar export strategy in Dublin. On my current tariff im charged 5.5 cents import (2am to 5am), paid 25 cents export. last few decent days ive been importing approx 15kwh (charging batteries, load shifting, car, hot water), exporting 20. So im paid about 5 euro and charged about 85 cents. It should only get better for next few months. It does go the other way for December/Jan/Feb/early march. I don't think i'll be making money but my bills will be very low when averaged out over the whole 12 months. Ive a 7.2kwp array, 4.1 south east, 3.1 north west. Very happy with that. Re your db corruption and home assistant - have you looked at going integrated google drive backups? I backup every night so if i mess up anything can go back to it.

[@paulclapton7803]

hi nigel , been watching your videos for years now , i got my first ev 2 weeks ago , 2nd hand 2020 zoe and love it , didn't buy it to be enviromental friendly , just fed up or being ripped off at the petrol station , my last car was a ford focus 2006 which i had owned for 13years .😊

[@peterjones6322]

Absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to be environmentally friendly.

[@EVPuzzle]

You make it sound like I've been you tubing forever 🤣. Congrats on the Zoe, it's a great EV, bigger than it looks and efficient

[@Jaw0lf]

I am in the same point as you mid fifties, retired and on a fixed income. I have viewed solar panels and battery investment have given me a relatively fixed electricity bill Needed when you have a fixed income! My Electricity payment is a little over £100 per month for me for Home use, cooking, heating and driving. We use about 27kWh a day (Before Heating) as standard as I love my tech and now have a smart home. Generated 387.4kWh from Solar E/W split of 7.56kWh. We only exported 50 kWh, ASHP used 111kWh and EV 278.08kWh From the Grid we had 148kWh during Peak and 1011kWh in Off Peak

[@alanslattery5954]

Hi Nigel, really looking forward to see what you are planning for your garden, I'm sure there are loads of subscribers that are interested in expanding but may not have the roof space or grid capacity. You thinking of something off grid?

[@EVPuzzle]

Hoping it integrates with what I have , I have spare capacity on my 2.5kw inverter

[@EVPuzzle]

Me too , think I've just booked a first appointment for the installer . Here goes 🤞

[@5kram]

4 kw array in Leicestershire generated 295 kwh in March best day was 30th with 19.7 kwh worst day was the 11th with 1.9 kwh. Like you have moved my deemed export to octopus and I am charging the car overnight and also heat the hot water on the 7.5 pence rate rather than trying to self consume the solar generation.

[@eddiereed5025]

Really interested in the garden solar array I would love to see this on you channel

[@EVPuzzle]

Coming soon!

[@danielcarswell-tr2vs]

great update likewise I am in credit for march as well. i made the decision to change from intelligent Go to Flux today. although not as good as last year i am hoping i can nail that 5-7pm export and i might see a nice summer boost over IOG

[@EVPuzzle]

I'm about to review that change for myself too .

[@salibaba]

What’s better than free leccy? Charging up and getting paid double to export every bit of export!

[@Nb0ssProductions]

Nice video Nigel. We got 592kWh in March with a similar sized system. Did not export as much as you on Outgoing - need to get our house load down clearly, idling at about 400- 500W overnight

[@EVPuzzle]

Ooof that's a bigger load, be bold and turn more off 😉

[@mb-3faze]

Agreed seems quite a lot.. Maybe you have a heater on or a pump running in an outdoor pool? Teenagers? 🙂

[@Tony-Stockport]

I switched over to Intelligent Go a few weeks ago having been on Agile through the winter. I have the solar, battery, EV combo and also (unusually) an electric combi-boiler. It'll be a year at the end of the month since it was all installed and I'm trying to make a comparison between what it would have cost with other options. I decided against an immersion heater because of the cost, I don't think we use enough hot water to get value out of one. I'm very happy with grid use being at 7.5p/kWh and the export being double that. After showers and a bit of heating in the morning the battery is still at >80% so it's soon exporting. Happy days!

[@tach175]

They are bringing out a new section to the building regs that say, all battery's should be fitted outside if possible and none should be fitted in the attic, have you heard about this ?

[@Joe-lb8qn]

There area series of tweets on X today from GivEnergy talking about this. Without getting into detail AFAICR from the tweets attics/lofts are strongly discouraged but not barred but it seems unlikely many will install. Same goes for under stairs cupboards. . Nothing about being outside though. Though I'd be happy with mine in a loft I'm lucky I have an attached garage which is probably ideal. Cool in summer not too cold in winter. Outside could be problematic in winter a relative had issues with his charging when the temp dropped below freezing.

[@spankeyfish]

@@Joe-lb8qn If you've got megabucks you can get LTO batteries from Zenaji that are good for -20°C to +60°C but they're about £1.10/Wh. They're good for 22k cycles at 100 DoD, though. I wouldn't be surprised if the cells in them outlast the BMS. Sodium ion batteries seem to tolerate cold better but they're not available as packs yet.

[@colingoode3702]

Yes. I saw something about this on the E-Fix electrical channel the other day. I was going to have a battery & inverter installed in my loft 1 year ago. However, after doing a bit of research decided against it & had them installed in my attached single garage instead. 1 year on & I've just doubled the size of my battery storage (now 19kWh) & added an extra 5 NW facing 425w panels. My installer also said something about having to change the existing armoured cable from my array to the inverter for a new double insulated cable that's rated for DC voltages. Apparently the armoured is only rated for AC voltages. Regs are changing all the time.

[@EVPuzzle]

They're not regs just advisory and out of date to be honest . Lifepo is very safe Personally attic install should be last resort anyway due to heat in summer

[@roelvanes1711]

My 7kW array in Cambridgeshire generated 448 kWh in the month, here's looking forwards, will this be the 1G in a month year?

[@jameswestcott4191]

Perhaps someone could help me understand the ROI benefits of these new export tariffs? Keeping things simple, previously getting solar meant saving 30p/kwh as you’d be generating your own electricity. Now everyone is exporting it at 15p/kwh surely your payback time has doubled? The battery use case is even worse, charging at 7.5p and selling at 15p, once you include the inefficiencies, the batteries probably won’t pay for themselves. It appears to me it’s a better investment to consume what you generate and selling the excess should be kept to a minimum and is really compensation for you over sizing your system and fluctuations in the weather.

[@Craig-MItchell]

I wish people would realise that its not just about being green and saving the planet, its also about simple economics. Solar PV, EVs and battery storage are cheaper now 😅

[@stuartburns8657]

Still something you have to carefully do the maths on, otherwise ROI non existent or too far in the future

[@Craig-MItchell]

@@stuartburns8657 I did the sums over 10 years ago, and the maths then suggested a payback period of 7 years. PV panels, battery storage etc. are considerably cheaper now, and EV prices comparable with ICE cars and charging stations are being deployed more and more quickly.

[@stuartburns8657]

@@Craig-MItchell If you can (and its a must) get on a time of day tariff when you can just about make it work if you don't overspec your system. 7-8 years isn't unfair, but of course per unit electricity has fallen from nearly 40p to now 25p. Sadly, standing charges are typically 65p per day. So even is you are able to export on a decent SEG rate it'll take me 8kwh's to cover the daily charge! Then, is the stupid situation with electricity being coupled with gas prices is broken, its not unrealistic to see another price plummet. This would pretty much render PV nearly unviable if prices fell to something like 15pkwh.. I'm 18 months into the ownership of our PV+B solution. I've done well so far, but ROI is like a roller coaster due to fluctuating prices

[@Craig-MItchell]

@@stuartburns8657 I'm in rural Ireland Stuart, daily electricity standing charge is 15 cents per day 🙂 I will look into the figures which I expect for upfront costs will be more here in Ireland. Good luck 🍀

[@stuartburns8657]

@@Craig-MItchell Ah, much more reasonable. Good luck with your endeavours too Craig

[@DTech101]

At Nigel my Nodered is working well lowering the DVCC automagically in intervals from 0600 to 0900 where it leaves it at 5Amps so I’m exporting loads more now

[@EVPuzzle]

Same here, I go to 3A

[@DTech101]

@@EVPuzzle how much watts does that charge with? As I may put it down to that and get some extra rays to the grid

[@EVPuzzle]

@@DTech101 3a x 50v 150w

[@GAWPETE]

Infrared free standing heater is also great

[@UFZ7482]

Is the SolarEdge your east facing array? oops, i just listened again, realise you said the 113kWh is the garage and east wall.

[@EVPuzzle]

Two views, 3 to be sure 🤣 South facing solar edge complete waste with optimisers 🤦 no shade

[@anthonydyer3939]

The SolarEdge production figures are dodgy on my system. There’s a couple of bad days in December when the daily production was showing zero, and yet when you dive into the details, you see there’s 100 to 400 watts of power being produced at various points of the gloomy day. You’re right that it’s not the meter. They’ve got a dodgy formula for integrating power into total energy. On my system I think they are somehow subtracting battery charging from the grid from the production figures / or battery conversion losses. But of course that doesn’t app,y to you since you don’t have a Solaredge battery. But you’re certainly not alone.

[@EVPuzzle]

Let's hope they listen to their customers It's an uphill battle though. I've spoken to about 5 people, most of who understand my issues after long conversations but then someone above ignores them and asks yet another person to look at it as ' the software is wrong ' isn't the answer they want

[@anthonydyer3939]

@@EVPuzzle The overall focus of Solaredge just seems off. The hardware is very good, but the fact that software configuration and operation is accessible to installers but not system owners shows that their philosophy and priorities are not well aligned to the customer (I suspect they consider the installer to be the customer, rather than the system owner). I think though they have a company culture where “we are always right” is shouted down from the top, even when they aren’t.

[@EVPuzzle]

@anthonydyer3939 it's old design imo. Originally people were installing for generation FIT payments and cared about nothing else . Customers didn't need to see the hardware or adjust it Sadly solaredge were asleep at the wheel and haven't seen the market transform. Customers now NEED control otherwise it's a chocolate tea pot solution

[@dennislyon5412]

Hi Nigel - not sure your intentions for the garden panels, but I’ve always had the thought of what it would take to keep 1 or 2 EVs charged up, assuming they’re at home most of the day, and assuming today’s reasonable solar panel prices. EVs nearly 100% powered by the sun is such a cool idea!

[@stuartburns8657]

Thing is that that idea, is unless you are retired and don't go anywhere, why would you pay for an EV (on top of solar) just to keep it on your drive during daylight hours for charging? Or even less cost effective, have the EV topped up via battery storage. Seems very niche and situational to me

[@dennislyon5412]

@@stuartburns8657 - could do the battery bit, but that gets way more expensive, at least for now. Solar could daytime charge a 2nd car that stays at home, or a retired person, as you said.

[@stuartburns8657]

@@dennislyon5412 A person's situation and circumstances needs working out from a cost benefit analysis perspective yes. Cool on paper, but niche in terms of payback and viability for the vast majority of folks. Hard to beat a decent EV tariff around 7p kwh. Especially when you could be exporting at around 14-16p kwh in the bright months of the year. In fact, I'd go as far to say it's nearly impossible to beat lol

[@EVPuzzle]

I'm covered 8 months of the year and now it seems winter charging is paid by summer solar exports . It's all good

[@stuartburns8657]

@@EVPuzzle In this with regards to electricity and gas I agree. Prior to getting PV+B, our combined E+G dd was £140pm. This built up enough to scrape by winter. Post PV+B I've reduced my dd to £40 to cover standing charges but find myself £824 in credit. £500 I'm taking out for holiday spending money this July, but its a case of rinse and repeat. Not personally sold on either heat pumps or EV's with our circumstances and usage however. If gas prices were ever decoupled from electricity (and price per unit plummeted) then the viability of PV would disappear. This is why the original FIT tariff was introduced, and otherwise it just didn't get close to making financial sense.

[@SmithyScotland]

Wonder at what point the uk government will start taxing income from solar? Top home assistant tip - back it up regularly. It has a tendancy to corrupt itself

[@EVPuzzle]

Even if I had a backup I'd still be half a day missing at the minimum as I didn't notice for hours and would've taken ages to recover . Database or file structures are really poor on HA and could be improved massively but all the functionality seems to go to the front end

[@EVPuzzle]

They already do

[@peterwagstaff2715]

What energy monitoring plugs do you use thanks

[@EVPuzzle]

Kasa kp115 kp105 and generic Chinese using smart life app

[@waynefoster3402]

Hi Nigel, I’m getting same issues as you with Solar Edge data. My installer has been in contact with them but 3 months on and still not fixed. Not impressed with Solar Edge at all .

[@EVPuzzle]

I've given up to be honest and just use the home assistant data from solaredge API They really are an odd bunch convinced they're right and ignoring their support people telling them they're wrong

[@hosay299]

What video covers ur start up cost of solar panels

[@johnnguyen1692]

it would be nice to know how much you have spend in order to save a few hundred pounds ?

[@andy4072]

Do you still get your FIT payment having moved out of deemed export? I have FIT and the deemed value is low so am considering changing if OVO allow this but don’t want to lose the FIT .

[@EVPuzzle]

I do still get my fit payments with EON energy , yes just no deemed export

[@andy4072]

@@EVPuzzle Okay that's interesting I take it that you left your FIT with EON but have transferred to Octopus as your supplier and the export part too? Thanks for the reply 👍

[@nolandan1]

hi Nigel - do you have the per-panel, and per-kw-installed stats? I'm always interested to compare the generation and see how ours is against yours. Your south-facing 3.68kw array performs very well. We were £32 in credit this month, but big differences are our load usage (7 people in house using about 20kwh daily), gas heating and hot water, and the fact that Octopus have left me on flux export while I'm also on agile import, meaning that I can export at higher rates in peak and import at whatever the going rate is (tonight there's a slot at 2.65p! but on average it seems a bit higher than Octopus Go).

[@EVPuzzle]

I like a detailed question...👍 On our solar edge , the only one which has by panel stats, we’re averaging 52-55kwh ytd 2024 per 300w panels they're south facing Our 3.9kw array is on the 3.68kw inverter does better per panel as the solos inverter helps as does the higher number of panels so we get better low light generation Per kwp is 316/3.9= 81kwh per kwp 176/2.4 = 73 kWh per kWp solar edge 113/2.9 = 39kwh per for my east facing and shaded array My panel sizes for kwp calc are in the video desc.

[@nolandan1]

@@EVPuzzle this is good - thank you! I have 3 arrays, both with solax inverters (one hybrid feeding a battery, and another is standalone for the relatively poorly performing panels on our garage): 3.87kwp south-east facing was 58kwh per kwp in march 3.01kwp south-west facing was 70kwh per kwp 2.15kwp south-east facing (garage) was 41kwh per kwp I think the first one is being impeded a bit by a line of trees, and I hope as the summer comes in, the sun will be higher and it will perform better The SW facing is not as high as yours - but this could potentially be weather-related - so I'll keep an eye on this one The garage ones I now just consider to be 'extra' - I think you probably treat your east-facing and shaded array much the same. Non-core.

[@nolandan1]

@@EVPuzzle another detailed question - but perhaps you will cover this in a future video. You've mentioned about a possible new garden array. Have you thought about how this will interact with the voltages in the grid, and the max export power you're allowed to do? I've noticed on ours that with parallel inverters, we sometimes push the voltage up to 253 when doing a heavy export (e.g. the afternoon peak dump @30p a kWh!). As the inverters are grid-tied, they monitor output voltage and to export they push the voltage up a bit. When you have two inverters, I think they can sometimes play off each other a bit. I added a moving average sensor in Home Assistant which monitors the voltage and when it gets high enough, I temporarily cease exports - this means that the inverter never trips out (it has its own voltage protection which trips if the voltage remains at 253 or higher for 10 minutes). Also, I got a sense from the DNO that they would not be happy with us going up above the 9.5kw that we are rated for on the G99 (our first application was for 7.5kw, but they initially rejected the upgrade to 9.5kw, but then relented). So, with yours, you have roughly the same export capability as me. I wondered how you would wire a new inverter in. I assume it'll be in parallel with the others - so you'd have 4? Perhaps you might have to limit the output if the DNO doesn't allow you to go higher, which would limit the effectiveness of more solar.

[@thefallenangel2]

Love the videos. What is your opinion of how the government will tax it going forward? Do you see vat breaks for installs being removed and additional tax on grid purchases?

[@EVPuzzle]

They do already

[@sun-sea-solar]

Have you ever posted the total cost of your system

[@EVPuzzle]

Did a whole video about it last year

[@sun-sea-solar]

@@EVPuzzle cool I'll check it out

[@EVPuzzle]

Think it's "Does solar PV pay for itself . 3 year update From memory it's £3500 pv1, £3,150pv2 £8,700 for the battery then £2,800 pv3, mixergy was £2,200 and A2a heating £5,500 Savings are around £8,500 currently excluding oil saving which would be about another £1,000 It would be scary doing it all in one go for sure . Final pieces this year hopefully

[@sun-sea-solar]

@@EVPuzzle I think people need to have those own personal reasons for getting into it. The outcome isn't going to be the same for everyone. 👍

[@EVPuzzle]

@@sun-sea-solar I agree with grants and subsidies to encourage more use

[@southwestsellers5475]

Surprised you have never, up to now, had a month where you are in credit. We have gone a different route to you changed back from Go to Flux on 18/03/24. Have not imported anything since and have been running the ASHP during the day as opposed to mainly night when we were on Go. Technically we were £2 in credit for March 2024 but the bill is produced on the 24th/25th of each month (£17.88) as not been credited for the export for that last week of March. Our direct debit has been set at £1 since February 2024 and still £64 in credit.

[@stuartburns8657]

Too miserable in Lincolnshire to change from Go to Flux just yet. Also, I prefer to keep my DD to cover the standing charges for both, but exported £650+ last year. Expecting £450-500 this year due to later start and lower export rates

[@Joe-lb8qn]

Do you think chargers like the Zappi are now redundant for anyone with battery and solar?

[@terrymackenzie6784]

I don't use solar divert with my Zappi now but tariffs could change and I like the Zappi because it has a nice bit to wrap the cable around

[@peterjones6322]

Why ? if you have an EV you should want to charge at home if you have that possibility.

[@terrymackenzie6784]

@@peterjones6322 I think he means the solar divert feature is mostly redundant because it's cheaper to charge overnight and export in the day on IO Go cost us less at the moment

[@steve_787]

I primarily picked the Zappi as neither my car or existing charger was compatible with IOG. I don't have solar yet (just finalising a quote now) but like the idea that I have the option to divert should tariffs/export rates all change once I get solar.

[@steve_787]

The divert feature could be useful for anyone who gets an export limit from their DNO.

[@BROOMEngineeringTMIET]

Can you really claim something is 'profit' before you have recovered all your expenditure?

[@cockasnook]

agreed

[@stuartburns8657]

No. You are chipping away at the ROI obviously. Then, assuming the typical expenditure is 10k, balance that against putting that in an ISA or shares etc for the same expected break even period with your PV / battery. I got mine when interest was lower than a snakes belly, and benefited from the 18 months of crazy energy prices. Now you are looking at a high % loan if you don't have the cash, and comparing energy saving vs decent interest rates

[@EVPuzzle]

Absolutely, especially when I acknowledge it helps pay back the purchase sooner

[@BROOMEngineeringTMIET]

@@EVPuzzle Profit........'a financial gain, especially the difference between the amount earned and the amount spent in buying, operating, or producing something.' I believe you are still a considerable way from this point, and there will be likely additional expenditure along the way.

[@mikebarry229]

@@BROOMEngineeringTMIET I think Nigel is totally in profit, by any accounting calculation that writes down the capital cost over a number of years. Even by your definition he must be close. How much do you spend on heating, petrol and electricity every year? Nigel spends nothing. Having batteries and solar must be saving him £4000 a year on all those costs if not more, and Nigel purchased at a time when prices were much higher than now, and in multiple stages which isnt the cheapest way. Payback time for most solar and battery systems correctly sized to your needs would likely be around 7 years at a guess, and energy prices are only reducing the payback time further still.