Is it worth our while?

unkel

Love that picture @slave1 😎

So you have set the zappi to have priority over the eddi? How did you do that?

slave1

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119662602#Comment_119662602

on the App, hold the Zappi (or EDDI) Icon for a second, then the app will move to another screen and allows you to "drag" either EDDI or Zappi to first priority

bullit_dodger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119654954#Comment_119654954

My mate here in the same cul-de-sac has an even slightly bigger setup than me.

Get da f... :-)

Padre_Pio

I'm buying a new build, fully electric, no gas or fireplace. I have a fairly large roof, directly south facing with no trees or shadows.

It seems solar is the way forward, but I don't know if it's worth waiting a year to figure out my use. Would anyone have any average use ballpark figures for two people, working from home in a new a rated house, no EV(yet)?

DC999

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119665336#Comment_119665336

Hey, no need to wait to see your usage I’d suggest. You can get close enough to that for now.

It's gonna be the exact same usage you have now. Bar add on electric heating if you don't have that now. Your heating should cost less but all other devices will use the same power. And add electric cooking if don’t have now. So that’s the bits you’re looking for. I’ve neither a warm house nor electric heating or cooking so others can answer that.

Call your electricity provider and tell then you’re looking at your usage and want to see how much you use per year. Or check your bills.

If new to it, WFT is around a constant 100W per device give or take for just the laptop + screen. But gaff needs to be warmer than before usually (but you're likely sorted there on a new build with good insulation).

New builds likely have some solar panels as boosts their BER. So ask about that and get the details of the system, not just that it's 'X panels'. But they tend to put on the bar min. to hit the BER afaik.

And start to track your usage a little more detailed from now. How much per day, per week, per month… Then you’re better armed for the best tariff for you (pre solar) plus for what ye would use on solar. If this is your forever home, get solar asap. Even try the solar as a service from 40 p/m – you’ll be stretched with new house costs of course so that could work.

EV wise we’ll use a little under 3000kWh a year for our Leaf. Only does 15k per year. That’s back of envelope stuff. So can use that as a crude multiplier for your annual usage. Factor in that for the poorer months for solar output you’d be charging an EV on a D/N meter. Excess from solar (of which there is plenty if car is at home during the day) is a bonus. 

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119654783#Comment_119654783

Interesting, and indeed surprising. I wonder how much you'd generate in the coldest months of the year, though.

Seems to me my choice should be between (1) using a battery to store what's generated in the day and push that into some small electric radiators (morning or evening) to reduce the load on my GFCH, or (2) no battery and using FIT to offset some of the cost of buying power from the network (presumably more excess in summer than winter). I need to do some sums, but it still looks like FIT makes more sense than incurring the extra cost of a battery.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119663003#Comment_119663003

It's not the size of your setup that counts, it's what you do with it. 😁

unkel

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119674310#Comment_119674310

Yep, the FIT is so generous that it makes more sense to send any surplus to the grid and not get a battery (unless you DIY and get the parts at relatively good prices - even then it doesn't make a lot of sense)*

You still generate quite a bit in the coldest months of the year. But there will be dark wet days with very little day light that you will generate only a 0.3-0.5kWh with a medium size system, so not a lot, in fact almost nothing on such a bad day. But you will also have very sunny days with temps around or even below zero that you will produce tonnes of PV and even very hot water from solar PV tubes!

*my own system is a bit of an outlier in that I have so much PV that if I exported all that I produced, I'd pay significant income tax on a lot of it, which would defeat the purpose for me and make it cheaper to store night rate and use it for heating during the day with my 20kWh battery (which I might further increase). Also I don't have a smart meter yet, and might not have one for years, so I don't get paid for my actual export. You see how the government is making a mistake here with that income tax policy and the CRU is making a mistake with their smart meter policy?

bullit_dodger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/119674311#Comment_119674311

There's a bit of a background story there that unkel would give Moneypoint a run for it. The fact that there is another person in his estate with even more PV totally shocks me......in a good way.

I'm on 7.6Kwp and hoping to expand to 8.8Kwp at which stage I'll be "done" at least for the next couple of years. It's great to see PV being aggressively adopted by a few nutcases. Even had someone ring my door last week, complete randomer looking for "how the panels working out?"

unkel

@bullit_dodger - I bullied him into it and he is very much of the "go big or go home" school of thought. Got it all in by the start of summer (all DIY) just before the real price hikes and material shortages and price hikes started, so he is delighted with it 😁 Further bullying him into getting one or more EVs now 😂

AndyBoBandy

Is it worth while?

Yeah, I'd say so.... my system went live on October 22nd 2021, so you can see my usage since then.... (forget about the cost comparison from 2021 to 2022 as the increases have messed up any comparison (though I'm still down on 2021 cost)). (And we have an EV).

In 2021 about 66% of usage was night rate, in 2022 about 97% is night rate.