Here is my monthly report on how our solar panel system did in September. We have:
- 20x400W panels = 8kW
- 5kW inverter
- 9.5kWh battery
This is the year so far:
| Month | Generated | Used | Exported |
|---|---|---|---|
| January | 78kWh | 468kWh | 38kWh |
| February | 192kWh | 554kWh | 146kWh |
| March | 619kWh | 503kWh | 535kWh |
| April | 927kWh | 288kWh | 790kWh |
| May | 967kWh | 292kWh | 845kWh |
| June | 1044kWh | 332kWh | 1037kWh |
| July | 878kWh | 309kWh | 858kWh |
| August | 769kWh | 424kWh | 810kWh |
| September | 560kWh | 421kWh | 576kWh |
This is when you really notice the days are getting shorter as it gets dark so early. That means less time to collect solar energy, but we are still generating more than we use, but you may also notice that we exported about as much as we generated. That is down to charging the battery up on cheap rate every morning so we can export all day, but now there may not be enough sun some days to keep the battery charged. I think the EV got charged up less this month, but we will be using more lights.
The breaker for the solar panels has not tripped out all month, so we did not lose any time from that. I did have to sort out getting the inverter connected to our new router as we have switched from Virgin Media to youfibre to save us a significant amount each month. This was a fiddly job as you have to connect to the wifi of the inverter itself and log in to change settings. I had to contact the installers to check what password they set. I have made some changes now to make it more secure. There was an issue getting the inverter online to do with the wifi encryption it uses, but I managed to figure it out in the end.
What we got paid for exporting by Octopus was not quite enough to cover our electricity and gas prices, but as I still pay them a little each month we still built up more credit that I hope will carry us through the winter. I think we are saving well over £1000 per year compared with before we had the solar, but we only got the electric car just before then as so we will be using more power than before. Our tariff lets us charge that off peak for just a few pounds. That is a lot less than filling up with petrol.
I will happily tell people that solar is a good investment. How quickly it pays for itself depends on what deals you can get. Octopus are very pro-solar and pay a decent rate for what you export. Getting a battery was a good idea for us as it means we hardly use any peak time electricity.
Switching internet providers is also saving us money. That is an essential service these days, but Virgin put the price up after the last deal I got from them expired and so it got really expensive. We did not want their basic TV service that gave us much the same as Freeview and get plenty of other shows from Netflix and Disney+.
I see Elon Musk is trying to get people off Netflix as they had a trans character in a show for kids. He has real issues since his child transitioned, but kids need to be aware that sexuality is not as simple as some would like it to be. They probably watch shows like Drag Race anyway. I would worry more about those who try to encourage distrust of people who are 'different'.
We have other Hivers enjoying the benefits of solar around the world. See the updates from:
- @cryptoandcoffee in South Africa has a report on September.
- @holoz0r in Australia on a year of solar.
- @solominer had good results last month in Virginia.
Shine on!
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