The Solar Thread

Not a lot as I think octopus go back quite a long way to get your average use.

Direct from the FAQs I read to understand how it works.

We first look at your meter readings from the same time as the Session over the past 10 weekdays (excluding any days with a Saving Session). We use those to find the average amount of electricity you typically use then.

Actually I think it’s only 10 days history. Can’t remember where I read that. Will try and double check but it looks like your perception is a bit off. They seem to be pretty keen to get people to load shift. You even get credit just for opting in even if you don’t manage to save. Maybe it’s about conditioning folk to adapt when necessary?

Ha. Thanks for the immediate (indeed, previous, not sure why that post didn’t appear…)  fact check

November update – 5.5kWp array, S facing in the SW.  20kWh of battery storage.
237kWh Generated
353kWh Imported
67kWh Exported

Running total for the year is ~5650kWh of generation.

Results are in with one session still be be counted.

You saved 10.53 kWh, earning you 33696 Octopoints – worth £42.12

Was that exporting?

We managed 0.17kWh 😃

8kw exported over the 2 sessoons here 32quid along with the previous export session. The 4 sessions so far will just about cover all my import for the month. They expect more sessions in January also.

You saved 21.23 kWh, earning you 67944 Octopoints – worth £84.92.

Not too shabby.

I feel I am missing out here, does anyone know a way to make a Tesla powerwall II discharge to the grid? I’ve googled but found very little UK-specific info.

Wow.  Kinda wish I’d charged and then discharged now.

Yeap me too. Need to work out how to force the solar edge battery to discharge.

@Fueled I found this on Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/Powerwall/s/JWzS4HhQ3I

TLDR message Tesla using the app and ask for the ‘energy exports’ option to be turned on [edit] or get in touch with your installer [/edit].

I have not, yet, asked for this to be done.

^^ the powerwall, I know nothing about them, but I assume you have DNO setup to be allowed to export to grid when it was installed?

re the saving sessions, pretty epic so far on my little 10 kwh battery:

Thanks for being part of our Saving Sessions on 29th November and 1st December.

You saved 14.86 kWh, earning you 47552 Octopoints – worth £59.43

easily worth doing, although i doubt the figures as i can only export at 3.6kwh and at most those two sessions are 3 hours combined

“You saved 5.59kWh, earning you 17904 Octopoints – worth £22.38.”

Accurate I reckon, GivEnergy app says 5.60kWh over the two sessions. House load was 2.20kWh during those 3 hours. Battery discharge is capped at 2.6kWh unfortunately.

@nixie

I had to pester solar edge chat to enable the manual control on my battery profile. They also need to push a firmware update to your battery and inverter, but once that’s done you get an extra layer of control. I can now force export, but am limited to 5kw so any demand in the house reduces this.

I didn’t have the firmware upgrade at first so the first couple of saving sessions netted me a total of 27p. Not the bonanza i’d hoped for! fingers crossed for some sessions soon.

Thanks @lodger I think I have the manual control option in the app already so will have a play. Do you know what firmware version you were upgraded too?

no sorry. cant work out how to check the version.

The manual control (on mine at least) seems to have a glitch where it doesn’t save the changes so you have to keep closing the app and trying again until it registers.

That’s a good point. I also can’t find it via their app or the web interface. Got ‘SMCU 1.0.67 DCDC 0.0.79 BMS 0.6.’ from home assistant though.

So, the savings events are coming thick and fast, but the model means there are rapidly diminishing returns. If I keep exporting, my 10 day average shifts to negative and my ‘savings’ are reduced – or eliminated completely. Starts to be worthwhile using as much as possible at peak times on non-savings days to shift the average.

I waste way too much brain time on this!

Hah Lodger, I was thinking exactly the same thing. It does encourage the wrong behaviour moving usage to 5-7 on a non savings day if your tariff allows.

I’m surprised they’ve not in some way stopped people discharging to game the event but I guess if this is all about maiming the availability in the network at peak times then the discharge of energy back into the network is beneficial

So, the savings events are coming thick and fast, but the model means there are rapidly diminishing returns. If I keep exporting, my 10 day average shifts to negative and m

Who’s tariff are you on ? Octopus specifically does not include savings days in your 10 day average .

Also for those of you on apple octoaid tells you your baseline for the sessions

Im setting my batteries to charge 5-6 on non event days. They are only small so its used up by the morning in winter but increases usage. Im 60 quid up atm.

it seems you can use the points to buy a t shirt or something in the future

Think i’m 100 up over the saving sessions, last couple still calculating.

As a above, they ignore previous saving sessions in the calcs. However, my export time, if i have nay spare, is usually within that window so my baseline is ~-1.5 to start with, on flux it would be less than ideal to charge on those times for me.

Mine is all automated through home assistant and predbat anyway, opt in, maintain a charge if needed and then dump

Hey all…

This post will be in the ‘solar thread’ and the ‘electric car thread’..

Basically, looking for some advice/charger advice..

I’ve a nissan leaf – doesn’t YET do car2home..

At present, I only charge it at work (have a charger installed there)..

We’re currently with UW, and pay about 28p/kWh at ALL times. Our electricity useage for November was… 550kWh. this isn’t including gas CH (2 combi boilers)….!

Our bills are, as you imagine, quite big.
I’m thinking about switching to Octopus EV tarriff..

Standing charge is the same.. Day rate is 31.21p, but overnight would be 7.5p. Not just for EV charging, but all electricity.
We could run the dishwasher/tumble drier/washing machines (yup, pleural) overnight…

Those are ‘big money items’ and would hopefully offset the higher daytime cost.

I could also get a Zappi charger installed (£1000) which could potentially future proof the house for a solar array..

Big question… as I don’t actually charge my EV at home (as said – I charge at work, but ultimately I’m the business that pay the electricity at work at 20p/kWh) will i see major savings??

DrP

I can’t add much DrP beyond not baselining against your existing rate or the standard variable rate (svr), rather against alternatives like octopus tracker which comes out historically about 30% less than svr without having to overly worry about pushing usage off peak. Just my tuppence

cheers – will look into that too…

My dream would be to have a whopping south facing solar array, with batteries, and to produce most of our electric energy. However, install costs need to be looked into.

DrP

Your plan might be scuppered from the beginning as you can’t switch to Intelligent Octopus without a compatible car or charger, and they make you do a test charge during the switch. You can check this on their website if you click the “I’m not an Octopus customer” button.

You can go onto generic Octopus Go without a compatible car, which I believe is 9.5p for a shorter period. Would recommend doing the maffs to see if it’s worth the hassle of getting up early to shuffle wet washing into the tumble dryer. If you’re only saving 20p/day by doing stuff overnight then that’s going to be flattened by the increased unit cost during the day.

It’s a gem of a tariff if you have batteries – I’ve paid 7.5p/kWh for all my electricity use for the last year – but doesn’t sound ideal for you. If you do decide to switch, make sure you use a referral code because you get £50 back.

You can go onto generic Octopus Go without a compatible car, which I believe is 9.5p for a shorter period. Would recommend doing the maffs to see if it’s worth the hassle of getting up early to shuffle wet washing into the tumble dryer. If you’re only saving 20p/day by doing stuff overnight then that’s going to be flattened by the increased unit cost during the day.

This is the big issue..

Our house is like a Chinese laundary at times..and in all honesty, despite my winging and moaning, I appear to be the only one who would actually put a washing machine etc on timer…

Will give it some thought.

Batteries (or a leaf that does c2h) and solar would be the ideal.

In fact… if they DID upgrade the leaf to c2h, i’d pop to Lidl and fill it up at 14p/kWh, then power the house from that~!!!!

DrP

Eon Next Drive is slightly more expensive than Octopus Go but has a much longer cheap period, from midnight to 7am. This means you can put stuff on timers to finish just before you get up so you can sort the washing out as it finishes instead of it sitting in a puddle from 4:30am, that kind of thing.

Saving session on Octopus between 5 and 6 today. Battery seems to be discharging :D. Tried to configure at lunch time but kept getting errors and gave up. Then came back a bit later on and tried again and it worked.

👍. I’m doing this too.

Slightly random q…

I don’t have a roof that I can put panels on (listed building, any areas I could potentially get permission are North facing).
I do however have a 7ft high beech hedge running 40m up the side of the garden (in direct sunlight all day).

Would I be able to mount panels on top of the hedge (on some form of pole / frame)?

Would this likely kill the hedge?

@trail_rat

I didn’t know that, thanks.

Still pays to waste on the other days, but not quite so much!

Frustrating/weird how long it takes to work out your usage and savings. Octopus and my inverter never agree either, which is a bit annoying. But I’m not sure who I trust more. We can use 90KWh on a bad winter day so the fine margins make a difference!

re panels on a hedge….

just consider how much panel; space you need to make it worthwhile, then you’d need a frame that can support the panels AND keep them secure in strong winds… not going to be easy or practical..

it’s not uncommon for people to put panels on ground frames if you have the space

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67494082

I have a bad habit of oversimplified thinking but would houses having batteries even without solar be a way of soaking up this excess energy for later use? Judging by the above article they would need to be in the right area…

Not sure if it is the demand locally, or something akin to the cable coming out of the wind farm not being fat enough.

But it is frustrating that the aspects that feel like they should be easy are not being addressed. Lots of people have smart meters now, but most people have no way of being given cheap electricity and being told “now is a really good time to charge your cars up!”. How hard can that bit be?

Thanks to advice from @prettygreenparrot, I’m now all set up ready to discharge from my battery. So now there probably won’t be any more saving sessions again knowing my luck!

Could be one today. There has been notification of a test event sent to suppliers today, normally a saving session follows later on  

Looks like a session will be between 5-6pm today check your provider for notifications as they always dont sent out in time