Do you sell back to the grid, what does the grid pay now that FITs have gone. letters not necessarily in the right order

Yes I do sell back to grid if Ive failed to use all of my power. You are free to sell to any supplier of the grid, it doesnt have to be the same one that supplies your power. The amounts vary, I get 4.5p kWh which is as low as it goes but my aim isnt to sell to the grid. Some of the agile / intelligent suppliers will pay 35-40p at peak times, money can be made if you have battery storage. BMW i3 Electric Car
2012 Full Fat RR 4.4 TDV8 (now gone)
2006 VW Touareg 3.0 TDi V6

I know it’s not the same, as I live in a slightly sunnier place, but, my experience of going PV has surpassed my expectations. Especially given be short time we’ve had it.

June 24th 2022 we had 12 x 450 panels installed and a 5kw battery.

Motivated by the 47% government grant and the need to increase our available power. We were only able to use a max 2.2kw at any time, before the power would trip. So, that’s the kettle and oven on and then pop, it’s lights out. Struggled on with that for 5 years…

We can now run as many household appliances as we like and never trip the switch. And we are also saving a lot!

One thing people are not generally told, here anyway, is that if the main power grid goes down you also loose all your power. Even if you have a battery. The grid don’t want you sending (selling) electricity back to the grid when it’s disabled and may have repair teams physically working on it - that poses a huge danger to crews, the inverter just disables you too. Makes sense. We have an additional device coming that will switch us over to battery and severs the grid connection, to avoid this issue. Makes no sense to have a battery and not be able to use it if there’s a grid outage. But that bit of kit, costs a few hundred euros.

The last image shows a dramatic drop in grid usage from June.

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AJGalaxy2012 wrote:

End of April this year my Solar PV & Battery was installed. I was on Octopus GO for EV etc and my monthly outgoing was £178. Octopus wanted to increase it to £565 but looking at my previous years use and using the new tariff prices £465 was the right amount.

I couldn't stomach this rise so researched solar, I got loads of duff information and recommendations I then received a call from the people who eventually supplied my system. The people on the phone for a change were not sales people, they were technical and that made a huge difference.

The net result is our payment are less than £70 per month, this will go up as winter approaches but by modelling theSolar generation and our use, our bills shouldnt hit much more than £80 per month. Our payback time is circa 3 years or so. If electricity prices go up in October and January that will be even shorter.

I can put you in touch with the company and the design consultant I used if wish. The system is fully guaranteed and is exceeding all predicted performance.

I am now at the research stage humming and arghhhhing Ready to pick out 3 installers for survey/quote. I bet you remember it well.
And I wonder if you were to install it all from new again, having had 6 months experience of your current system, would you use the same system again or did you ever consider the Tesla Powerwall 2 with the backup gateway during your research, it seems to be the complete deal with the much higher return for exported energy? again using special Tesla deal with Octopus.
I use about 800KWh in winter per month and 600KWh in summer per month (swimming pool ) so dont expect to export much lol but if I do, would obviously want the best rate possible. 2018 SE SDV8 4.4 Byron Blue

Tesla Powerwall you rely on Octopus and the relationship with Tesla, if theres a parting of ways youre vulnerable. Tesla powerwall is obscenely expensive and a very long waiting list, it doesnt give you solar integration either, apart from that it's perfect LOL.

Yes I would use the same supplier and I wouldnt change anything other than battery size if the price was better and inverter power again if the price was better.

I view exporting energy as a failure, I need to store and use all what I generate to get the best value. BMW i3 Electric Car
2012 Full Fat RR 4.4 TDV8 (now gone)
2006 VW Touareg 3.0 TDi V6

Well, I did a bit of research on my domestic energy bill.

I don't have gas, almost everything is electric - hot water, cooking and I have a ground source heat pump with underfloor heating. The only thing we 'burn' is wood. We have two wood burners. Generally in winter we have the house at 19-20°C using the heat pump and then in the evening we have a nice fire. We don't burn through a lot of wood though.

My house is an old one but has been subject to an extensive refurbishment by me. I added quite a bit of insulation and every window/door is double glazed - some very good new glazing, some old and not so efficient.

By UK standards it would be categorised as 'large' - 200 sq m of floor space. I also live 440m above sea level. The winters here are substantially colder than in the UK

Over the last three years I've averaged consuming between 18 and 21kwh per day.

Looking at the energy price cap data, even a small uk home is consuming 26kwh per day. A comparable home to mine (ablate with more people) is consuming almost three times the energy.

Wtaf🙄👆

I found this useful calculator: https://www.pvfitcalculator.energysavingtrust.org.uk Sold - Bell a 2015 MY16 Loire Blue Autobiography 4.4 SDV8
Previously George a 2007 MY07 Java Black VSE 3.6 TDV8
Previously a 04 MY04 Defender 90