MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
We will be in touch
We have solar panels on the roof but have not yet succumbed to the Smart meter. It's looking like the cheap prices are saying we should have a meter installed. I have heard that there have been problems running panels with meters. Does anyone know if this is still an issue with the new Smart meters.
Ta
Smets2 and export guarantee should work ok, I know someone with this set up supplied by bulb. Of course if you are already on fit, it should make no odds
My understanding is that at least some smart meters will be able to measure the power exported to the grid from your panels. Your FIT payment will be unchanged but the export payment will then be based on actual export, not a deemed 50% of generation. Depending how much your actual export is, you could gain or lose. I've just taken a new supply contract which required a commitment to accept a smart meter, and my calculation was that although I don't know how much I export, the saving on the supply contract was bigger than any possible loss on the export.
Thanks for the info guys
Npower said their meter was not compatible with our panels
I had a smart meter when I moved in.
Added a PV set up and a separate generation meter was installed. The PV is not connected to the smart meter.
The PV is not connected to the smart meter.
Are you saying the PV feeds into the main on the supply side of the smart meter? That would mean that you're being charged, on the smart meter, for using the power your own panels have generated.
Our PV goes via the generation meter into the main consumer unit, from where either we use it or it's exported back through the dumb meter to the main. The dumb meter only knows the current is going the wrong way, it doesn't measure it or wind the reading back. We get paid FIT on the generation meter reading and export on 50% of that.
When we get a smart meter I'm assuming it will work the same way, except that export (= reverse flow) will be measured by the smart meter.
Added a PV set up and a separate generation meter was installed. The PV is not connected to the smart meter.
The output from the generation meter should go to your consumer unit other wise...
Are you saying the PV feeds into the main on the supply side of the smart meter? That would mean that you’re being charged, on the smart meter, for using the power your own panels have generated.
Plus you're not even using any of the power you have generated
My mum had PV fitted at our holiday place and it was only when she died and I took it over that I discovered that the connection out of the generation meter had been made to the wrong side of the meter.
Even though it was three years old the installers sent someone from Norwich to N Wales to put it right - I did threaten them with court action though!
Here's an interesting thread about it!
Does anyone ever clean their panels? I was on a ladder the other day and thought mine looked a bit grubby. It must affect the efficiency.
Haven’t cleaned our solar panels since they were installed about six years ago.
Haven’t noticed any real deter action in output, we have a Solar Edge system which means we can monitor and compare each individual panel over time.
Ours are supposed to be 'self cleaning', the rain does it. Whether it's true I don't know but they are producing as much annual output as they did 10 years ago.
Thanks, that is useful info!
The panels are self cleaning in the UK - there’s enough rain that most places will be fine without any additional cleaning. If yours look particularly dusty, then so long as you can do it safely, there’s no harm in giving them a rinse. Soapy water, a soft brush and rinse afterwards - the coating is a Polycarbonate so pretty robust but scratches aren’t a good thing.
The panels will degrade over time - the usual guarantees are something like no more than 10% degradation over 20 years - I.e. in 20 years they will deliver 90% of their original power. It’s almost impossible to check without specialist equipment so not something fret over so long as the panel is free of debris.
What most installers do (well what we did) is oversize the panels relative to the inverter so that the inverter was the bottleneck - this gave additional peak power that would help offset the natural degradation of the panels to ensure the system delivers the maximum possible for as long as possible (eg fitting 4kWp of panel and a 3.68kW inverter would offset the first few years of panel degradation). There’s a few things to take into account based on the panels and inverter combo chosen, but you can usually achieve an oversized system.
I may have answered a question that hadn’t been asked.
Yup