Energy chat

By the way, as you have a Zappi you can get on Intelligent Octopus Go and rake in that sweet 15p export from Outgoing Octopus.

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Yep, that’s the plan.

Our’s just has the basic view, no battery or solar, I guess this is what the CT clamps are for?

For reference, the Zappi was installed in December 2022 so not setup at the time for Solar/Battery operation.

Yep, they send readings into the Zappi. You might also need a harvi if the Zappi is sited some distance from your RCD box.

I have also found that turning off smart charging on Octopus Intelligent is necessary some times to stop it draining the battery during the day. The Octopus app doesn’t have an option to not set up a charge which means that if you just want to let it sit and use the solar then you have to disable the smart charging. I have raised this with Octopus at the London Fully Charged so we will see if anything happens.

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EIther way, happy with the generation, overall today was 64.8kWh, not bad as its been only a bit of on/off sun and mostly cloudy until ~5PM when its been clear skies since!

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We’ve been on Outgoing Octopus for the last three months. I can see the amount that’s being exported in the Huawei app (both kwh and £) but we have an issue with their billing - there is no export shown on our bills, only consumption.
So after receiving the last three bills, I’ve had to call their Customer Services. They then read our smart meter remotely (while I wait) and issue a credit. On the last one it was £152.
But, since the begining of May, we’ve been on the Flux tariff, which has an export rate of 25.85p from 4pm-7pm.
During the call, I asked if the £152 credit included the higher rate for Flux. The answer was no, all of the refund was @ 15.15p per kwh.
So, I asked why the higher rate had not been used.
Not sure sir, came the reply, I’ll have to talk to a metering expert and come back to you by email.
That was about a week back but not heard anything yet. :confused:

Best day so far was Monday 10th where there was still plenty of scope for extra generation as it was on/off cloudy till the late afternoon. At this point there was still some niggles in the reporting (hence the high consumption figure, the export was being counted into that).

Worst so far was this Thursday 13th where it was OK in the morning but mostly overcast and then very dark/rain in the afternoon.

Starting to use the Air-Fryer more for cooking off the battery rather than our old gas hob/oven hence the spikes in the evening for example. Most mornings the batteries are fully charged again by ~08:30 after the evening/night usage.

So far this month, we have exported 412kWh back into the grid although still waiting for the Octopus Outgoing Fixed tarrif to switch over.

Only remaining niggle is the Zappi still draining the battery on Eco+ mode, even with the Solar CT Clamp installed. I’ll try a firmware update tomorrow and see if that helps.

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Have you got an AC or DC coupled battery? If the battery feeds DC into the SolarEdge inverter then there will just be one reading (which younwould probably set as solar+battery in the Zappi CT menu).

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It’s DC Coupled so sounds like its just got the single reading then.

EDIT - just had a look, the CT Clamp was down as ‘Solar’ not ‘Solar + Battery’ which I have now updated. I’ll see how it gets on tomorrow morning! Thanks!

Results for June are in, first 6-days we had an error in reporting where the export was being counted in consumption, I’ve been topping up the EV as and when odd days rather than one big charge. Peak generation days were 83-84kWh and so far, in the last 12 days of Octopus @ 15p/kWh we have earned just over £100. Pretty pleased for that!

On the Zappi, it has the data for the first few days of solar export, it thinks 1.17MWh of export!

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Impressive, but then you do have a solar farm on your roof.

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Anyone have experience of installing solar panels on a flat roof ? Looking at replacing the flat roof on the garage and thinking about solar panels.

Should be possible in theory as that is what you would do on office buildings, but you will probably need a frame to spread the load and to have the panels at the right angle.

Meanwhile, our first (and the second overall) Ripple scheme has come on stream with live generation data showing. Which would be brilliant if there was actually any wind there…

Looked in to a bit more and the options seem to be screwing in to the new roof membrane (goodbye warranty) or putting a lot of ballast on the roof to stop the panels blowing away.

Fine as long as it’s within the loading limit I guess. Otherwise that’ll be goodbye warranty too ?

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Have the chance to get a free solar installation on the government HUG scheme.

It’s a small 200+ year old cottage with a south facing slate roof (which was redone about 20 years ago) so a six panel array has been designed using Longi Hi-Mo5 400w panels.
I’m really worried about the installation causing damage to the roof with subsequent leaks - apparently slate is a real pain for installers.
I’ve already had to sign a damage waiver form for the scaffolding to be erected.:cold_face:

Also no idea how anyone can get into my loft space for the electrical connection stuff or where they are going to put the meter and inverter?

Just had a notification from Octopus of free energy 1-2pm tomorrow for us.

Same here.

The problem being that we are not there and nobody we know with a milk float is around to dump charge into.

It really isn’t easy and needs to be experienced installers. I would not sign a damage waiver