Great vid john, I had similar problem when solar fitted last year with bird protection the reel rolled off and hit our car, £1k damage got it fixed sent invoice to company paid up no problems, also john £50 from you referral code on the way to you, I joined octopus energy on 11th March only took 30 hrs to swap over, I’m going on agile when they link my smart meter up.
Great to hear you got your damage sorted and reimbursed. Thank you for using my referral code too, that’s very good of you. Speedy service from OctopusEnergy and your exiting supplier.
Thanks for the detailed information! Our PV installers told us it was a matter of professional pride and respect to inform home owners of any broken tiles! Had to replace 3... There are generic and model-specific dust extraction attachments for angle grinders of all shapes and sizes. Available from most big online retailers.
Thanks John, another great update. Now had my ASHP fitted for one year, detached 1970's house 171 cubic metres. We used 3333kWh for heating and hot water, with home set at 18c and drop to 16c overnight. We have now had old cavity insulation removed and newer up to date bonded beads added. They stated the old insulation was as good as having none!! Already seeing my use 30 to 50% less, especially when we had the recent -6c overnight. So hoping to reduce my ASHP requirement to 2,220kWh or less. As a simple test a thermometer leaning against an outside wall was showing 4c less than interior room temp, now only 1c. As now fully electric, home use was 1530.3kWh, solar for my 7.56kWh solar PV on E/W split gave 228kWh and net grid use was 1335.8kWh. Now ordered extra solar for south facing wall to help ASHP in winter and give spare energy to be able to charge the EV in the Summer months. My Kia E Niro did 1008 miles and used 298kWh of energy at a cost of £34.83. So 3.45pence per mile and average of 3.38 miles/kWh. Currently still on Tesla Energy Plan at 11.7p but probably will swap to Intelligent Octopus
Great stats as always John shame about the tiles but nothing for a good handyman. Feb was good for me to 642 kw those extra panels paying dividends been on self power since 19 feb but very challenging not to have run out a couple of times in the first week of March. Got through winter only used 4.6 kw of peak ( October 1 until today ) all the best Glyn 👍👍👍
Interesting one John. You have muchbetter weather than me in Feb. Generated only 366.8! Down 10% on last year. March the way it is going will be even worse as of 21st only 248 so far. Good news on gas though. Managed to change to Octopus tracker which is currently running at less than 5p per kWh!
John, in the spreadsheet around the 8:06 mark, surely the savings you show are £0.09 (POUNDS) rather than 0.09 PENCE per kWh, and same again for £0.27 == 27p per kWh. that way, the Ripple "average" annual UK consumption of 3000 kWh would save around £800 at the 27p savings rate.
Thanks, John. Looking closely at your stacked "Solar pv totals ..." graph, 2019 had a much better February if just looking at your original array, which matches what happened here. This year was a good "second equal" February for us. We've also had to deal with cracked tiles. For us, it was after a roofer walked on the roof to power-wash the tiles to eliminate moss and lichen before spraying to inhibit their return. Our style of tiles are now hard to get, but fortunately we did have two spare lying around behind the garage. It did lead to some leakage during the very heavy rain the other month, and consequential ceiling re-painting.
It's been eventful for sure John, such a shame they added some more hassle with those broken tiles. Hoping my Solaredge lasts longer but if it even developed a fault needing scaffolding I'll be doing the same
I guess at least I've reduced the risk and cost of future failures, plus I know there's no broken roof tiles and they are very easy to change. DIY if you can as you do a better job it seems. Fingers crossed your SolarEdge optimisers play ball and don't go awol. It may have been pigeons that sabotaged mine once they knew they were getting evicted.
Thanks for the update john certainly looks like your string inverter is more efficient than you micro inverters/optimisers ) I will Get my usage update done this week
Perhaps a little too early to say, however they won't be less efficient. The Solis does appear to kick in at lower light levels which will be a benefit in the winter months. The major benefit is less to go wrong and with my setup there was no major benefit of optimisers due to good location with no shading. I look forward to your update.
Does removing your optimisers and installing the panels as a string not have the negative effect that if one panel fails then all the string falls to that value?
Yes and no. Any component failure can have the impact of needing to turn off the complete array due to potential fire risk or current leak. With one faulty optimiser my complete array had to be turned off until it was fixed as it was producing a current leak which could damage the other optimisers accruing to SolarEdge tech team, they disabled it remotely without my permission. It lead me to believe whose system was it!
Hi John, another great video, thanks for putting it together. Shame about the broken tiles, often the case something gets broken and annoying people try and hide it. Do you get a figure in the powerwall impact section that tells you how much you have saved? Are you selling the solaredge inverter out of interest? Glad your system is now fixed. All the best.
Thanks for watching. Yes I do get that figure, lifetime savings are £8,550 however it works that our based on your current tariff I believe and then carries that back over the years. In 2022 our savings were £2,535 apparently. Yes I will be selling the SolarEdge inverter and 6 optimisers (one of which does not work, but not sure which one).
Thanks Mike for watching. The new inverter is slightly smaller than the 2.2kW it replaced. It will result in some cut off at peak, however it tends to perform better in less favourable conditions when you need solar more to offset grid usage. Our other original array is 4kW with a 3.8kW inverter, this second array is now 2.34kW with a 2kW inverter. Not sure yet if the Solis will overclock, the SolarEdge used to. The SMA 3.8kW sticks rigidly to its 3.8kW max, it is German made after all!
On the new tiles weathering in over time I have been told that if you were to paint them with yogurt on a dry day it would speed the process of weathering (I have no idea if this works but just thought I would pass the info on).
Hi John, have you seen the new octopus flux tariff that pays well for exporting and has three rates, off peak, peak and super peak. I am thinking of moving now that my Go contract is coming to an end. already I am struggling to use all the energy I am generating, having the power wall topped up by 11 and around 10Kw going into the car, I am still exporting and that will only go up now we are getting better weather. would value your views on the tariff. maybe an idea for a video or a Q&A vlog. cheers John
Hi John, thanks for the suggestion. Not sure if you've seen Michael de Podesta's spreadsheet he has just released that allows you to estimate the costs based on different tariffs' with Octopus. Can highly recommend. protonsforbreakfast.wordpress.com/2023/03/05/tariff-calculation-spreadsheet/ I've not looked too deeply into Cosy, Flux or Go as my renewal is not until early August 23. By then there's going to be changes to our home heating setup (more videos on this yet to come) which will need to be factored into any decisions so it's a little too early for me to start comparing at present.
I’ve not looked at it in detail only a cursory glance at the rates and time-slots. Cosy and Flux give variety which is good. My rates change in August, so will investigate in detail then. With all these tariffs if you can shift your usage then they work out well.
Thanks for another really informative video, John 👍 I'm looking at Ripple at the moment, and it seems you get paid via your utility bill. Given that you've got solar/battery too, does that affect your payments, or is your utility bill simply the means to get paid by Ripple? And overall, would you say your investment there is worth it? I quite like the idea of having wind as part of your setup 🙂
Thanks for watching Gary. Yes Ripple have teamed up with a number of suppliers and you get paid via your utility bill directly. With Octopus you can also use their API and see your usage in Ripple's dashboard on daily usage. You can purchase up to 120% of your annual electricity bill consumption in kWh. Having solar, battery etc has no impact on that. We have invested in Projects 1 and 2 both of which are wind farms. Project 3 which has just been announced is a solar farm. Costs and therefore investments for this are higher than the wind farms. However, the lifespan is 40 years worth of payback payments where as the wind farm is 25 years. It is an investment so like any type of investment there are risks. For us it has been worth it and Projects 1 and 2 will cover 100% of our electricity usage. We don't need to go with Project 3 and therefore won't be investing in that, but that does not mean it's a poor investment. There are factors outside of your control though, eg the government recently decided to tax energy producers and there was not bottom limit. Small co-ops like Ripple were at risk of being taxed, thankfully letters to MPs and general awareness being raised brought about an amendment to remove this risk. That said you don't know how things are going to pan out over the lifetime of the project in terms of policy changes and so on. However, you would expect that green renewable energy which covers ones own costs will be seen as a benefit by the government and policy makers.
@@johntisbury Thanks for this extra detail - much appreciated 👍To get a handle on things, how would an investment into projects 1 and 2 compare that with say a typical home solar investment that might payback in 7-8 years? Or is it a completely different type of investment? Thanks!
I'm back home! It's tricky to forecast the ROI because the contract price for wind power is negotiated every year. If you recall Year 1 was 0.09p/kWh whereas Year 2 is 0.27p a three fold increase. This brings the payback timescale down tremendously. For me it will be a difference between saving £164 in year 1 to £835 in year 2. I invested £2,000 in Craig Fatha, so that will pay back under 4 years tops if the year 2 rate continues. Payments continue for 25 years.
Hi John, hope you had a great time away! Thanks for the numbers - ok, this sounds like a great investment for you. It'll be interesting then to see what offer looks like for Project 3 (in light of stabilised higher electricity prices and the longer timeframe). In general then, if it allows a typical household, for a given level of investment, to generate a similar financial return (perhaps discounted slightly given zero maintenance and overall hassle) as a household installing solar directly, then this is surely a game-changer for consumers, no? 🙂
Great vid john, I had similar problem when solar fitted last year with bird protection the reel rolled off and hit our car, £1k damage got it fixed sent invoice to company paid up no problems, also john £50 from you referral code on the way to you, I joined octopus energy on 11th March only took 30 hrs to swap over, I’m going on agile when they link my smart meter up.
Great to hear you got your damage sorted and reimbursed. Thank you for using my referral code too, that’s very good of you. Speedy service from OctopusEnergy and your exiting supplier.
Thanks for the detailed information! Our PV installers told us it was a matter of professional pride and respect to inform home owners of any broken tiles! Had to replace 3... There are generic and model-specific dust extraction attachments for angle grinders of all shapes and sizes. Available from most big online retailers.
It does help to highlight companies one would recommend and those you wouldn’t.
Thanks John, another great update. Now had my ASHP fitted for one year, detached 1970's house 171 cubic metres. We used 3333kWh for heating and hot water, with home set at 18c and drop to 16c overnight.
We have now had old cavity insulation removed and newer up to date bonded beads added. They stated the old insulation was as good as having none!!
Already seeing my use 30 to 50% less, especially when we had the recent -6c overnight. So hoping to reduce my ASHP requirement to 2,220kWh or less.
As a simple test a thermometer leaning against an outside wall was showing 4c less than interior room temp, now only 1c.
As now fully electric, home use was 1530.3kWh, solar for my 7.56kWh solar PV on E/W split gave 228kWh and net grid use was 1335.8kWh.
Now ordered extra solar for south facing wall to help ASHP in winter and give spare energy to be able to charge the EV in the Summer months.
My Kia E Niro did 1008 miles and used 298kWh of energy at a cost of £34.83. So 3.45pence per mile and average of 3.38 miles/kWh.
Currently still on Tesla Energy Plan at 11.7p but probably will swap to Intelligent Octopus
Shame TEP has finished as it suited many.
Amazing the difference you can quantify with a before and after.
Great stats as always John shame about the tiles but nothing for a good handyman. Feb was good for me to 642 kw those extra panels paying dividends been on self power since 19 feb but very challenging not to have run out a couple of times in the first week of March. Got through winter only used 4.6 kw of peak ( October 1 until today ) all the best Glyn 👍👍👍
Thanks Glyn. Agree about your extra panels they are working out well for you. Great news on your grid free stint too. 👌
Interesting one John. You have muchbetter weather than me in Feb. Generated only 366.8! Down 10% on last year. March the way it is going will be even worse as of 21st only 248 so far. Good news on gas though. Managed to change to Octopus tracker which is currently running at less than 5p per kWh!
Thanks for watching David.
Yes March is poor for us too. Great news on getting onto the gad tracker I hear there's a long waiting list for that!
John, in the spreadsheet around the 8:06 mark, surely the savings you show are £0.09 (POUNDS) rather than 0.09 PENCE per kWh, and same again for £0.27 == 27p per kWh. that way, the Ripple "average" annual UK consumption of 3000 kWh would save around £800 at the 27p savings rate.
Yup that’s what it should be Andy. £ rather than p. Thanks for mentioning it.
Thanks, John. Looking closely at your stacked "Solar pv totals ..." graph, 2019 had a much better February if just looking at your original array, which matches what happened here. This year was a good "second equal" February for us.
We've also had to deal with cracked tiles. For us, it was after a roofer walked on the roof to power-wash the tiles to eliminate moss and lichen before spraying to inhibit their return. Our style of tiles are now hard to get, but fortunately we did have two spare lying around behind the garage. It did lead to some leakage during the very heavy rain the other month, and consequential ceiling re-painting.
Ruddy roofers eh! I do recall 2019 Feb being crazy sunny, good pickup on the totals on the stacked graph.
It's been eventful for sure John, such a shame they added some more hassle with those broken tiles.
Hoping my Solaredge lasts longer but if it even developed a fault needing scaffolding I'll be doing the same
I guess at least I've reduced the risk and cost of future failures, plus I know there's no broken roof tiles and they are very easy to change. DIY if you can as you do a better job it seems.
Fingers crossed your SolarEdge optimisers play ball and don't go awol. It may have been pigeons that sabotaged mine once they knew they were getting evicted.
Thanks for the update john certainly looks like your string inverter is more efficient than you micro inverters/optimisers ) I will
Get my usage update done this week
Perhaps a little too early to say, however they won't be less efficient. The Solis does appear to kick in at lower light levels which will be a benefit in the winter months.
The major benefit is less to go wrong and with my setup there was no major benefit of optimisers due to good location with no shading.
I look forward to your update.
My 7kW array in Cambs yielded a highly satisfactory 259kWh 😎👌
Good to hear! 🙌
Just noticed a typo in my original post, was actually 359kWh, hence my 'highly satisfactory'!
@@roelvanes1711 ah yes that’s a upgrade.
Does removing your optimisers and installing the panels as a string not have the negative effect that if one panel fails then all the string falls to that value?
Yes and no. Any component failure can have the impact of needing to turn off the complete array due to potential fire risk or current leak. With one faulty optimiser my complete array had to be turned off until it was fixed as it was producing a current leak which could damage the other optimisers accruing to SolarEdge tech team, they disabled it remotely without my permission. It lead me to believe whose system was it!
Hi John, another great video, thanks for putting it together. Shame about the broken tiles, often the case something gets broken and annoying people try and hide it. Do you get a figure in the powerwall impact section that tells you how much you have saved? Are you selling the solaredge inverter out of interest? Glad your system is now fixed. All the best.
Thanks for watching. Yes I do get that figure, lifetime savings are £8,550 however it works that our based on your current tariff I believe and then carries that back over the years. In 2022 our savings were £2,535 apparently.
Yes I will be selling the SolarEdge inverter and 6 optimisers (one of which does not work, but not sure which one).
Thanks for the update very informative as usual ,my Question is the new solis 2kw is that a bit small for a 2.3 system
Thanks Mike for watching. The new inverter is slightly smaller than the 2.2kW it replaced. It will result in some cut off at peak, however it tends to perform better in less favourable conditions when you need solar more to offset grid usage. Our other original array is 4kW with a 3.8kW inverter, this second array is now 2.34kW with a 2kW inverter. Not sure yet if the Solis will overclock, the SolarEdge used to. The SMA 3.8kW sticks rigidly to its 3.8kW max, it is German made after all!
@@johntisbury Hi John. I thought you could overclock the SMA inverter in the settings by up to 10%?
You probably can if you have access to the installation menu. My inverter is 12 years old and there’s no remote access, data feed etc.
On the new tiles weathering in over time I have been told that if you were to paint them with yogurt on a dry day it would speed the process of weathering (I have no idea if this works but just thought I would pass the info on).
Thanks Mark. Yogurt or milk works as it starts the fungi growth process.
Hi John, have you seen the new octopus flux tariff that pays well for exporting and has three rates, off peak, peak and super peak. I am thinking of moving now that my Go contract is coming to an end. already I am struggling to use all the energy I am generating, having the power wall topped up by 11 and around 10Kw going into the car, I am still exporting and that will only go up now we are getting better weather. would value your views on the tariff. maybe an idea for a video or a Q&A vlog. cheers John
Hi John, thanks for the suggestion. Not sure if you've seen Michael de Podesta's spreadsheet he has just released that allows you to estimate the costs based on different tariffs' with Octopus. Can highly recommend. protonsforbreakfast.wordpress.com/2023/03/05/tariff-calculation-spreadsheet/
I've not looked too deeply into Cosy, Flux or Go as my renewal is not until early August 23. By then there's going to be changes to our home heating setup (more videos on this yet to come) which will need to be factored into any decisions so it's a little too early for me to start comparing at present.
Hi John what are your thoughts on octopus flux ? Would you change?
I’ve not looked at it in detail only a cursory glance at the rates and time-slots. Cosy and Flux give variety which is good. My rates change in August, so will investigate in detail then. With all these tariffs if you can shift your usage then they work out well.
Thanks for another really informative video, John 👍 I'm looking at Ripple at the moment, and it seems you get paid via your utility bill. Given that you've got solar/battery too, does that affect your payments, or is your utility bill simply the means to get paid by Ripple? And overall, would you say your investment there is worth it? I quite like the idea of having wind as part of your setup 🙂
Thanks for watching Gary.
Yes Ripple have teamed up with a number of suppliers and you get paid via your utility bill directly. With Octopus you can also use their API and see your usage in Ripple's dashboard on daily usage.
You can purchase up to 120% of your annual electricity bill consumption in kWh. Having solar, battery etc has no impact on that. We have invested in Projects 1 and 2 both of which are wind farms. Project 3 which has just been announced is a solar farm. Costs and therefore investments for this are higher than the wind farms. However, the lifespan is 40 years worth of payback payments where as the wind farm is 25 years.
It is an investment so like any type of investment there are risks. For us it has been worth it and Projects 1 and 2 will cover 100% of our electricity usage. We don't need to go with Project 3 and therefore won't be investing in that, but that does not mean it's a poor investment.
There are factors outside of your control though, eg the government recently decided to tax energy producers and there was not bottom limit. Small co-ops like Ripple were at risk of being taxed, thankfully letters to MPs and general awareness being raised brought about an amendment to remove this risk. That said you don't know how things are going to pan out over the lifetime of the project in terms of policy changes and so on. However, you would expect that green renewable energy which covers ones own costs will be seen as a benefit by the government and policy makers.
@@johntisbury Thanks for this extra detail - much appreciated 👍To get a handle on things, how would an investment into projects 1 and 2 compare that with say a typical home solar investment that might payback in 7-8 years? Or is it a completely different type of investment? Thanks!
I’m away at present Gary, will type a fuller response this evening.
I'm back home! It's tricky to forecast the ROI because the contract price for wind power is negotiated every year. If you recall Year 1 was 0.09p/kWh whereas Year 2 is 0.27p a three fold increase. This brings the payback timescale down tremendously. For me it will be a difference between saving £164 in year 1 to £835 in year 2. I invested £2,000 in Craig Fatha, so that will pay back under 4 years tops if the year 2 rate continues. Payments continue for 25 years.
Hi John, hope you had a great time away! Thanks for the numbers - ok, this sounds like a great investment for you. It'll be interesting then to see what offer looks like for Project 3 (in light of stabilised higher electricity prices and the longer timeframe). In general then, if it allows a typical household, for a given level of investment, to generate a similar financial return (perhaps discounted slightly given zero maintenance and overall hassle) as a household installing solar directly, then this is surely a game-changer for consumers, no? 🙂