In this video I'm going to talk you through the changes to our
microgeneration system at home. Which does sound rather grand. Alright, stay tuned...
Hi John Tisbury here. If you're interested in solar power,
microgeneration, renewables, that kind of thing and you want to learn more then hit
that subscribe button and that notification bell icon to be notified of
new updates as and when I upload them. I also cover photography and cinema
photography on this channel as well, so multifaceted. Anyway back to what this
video is about. I said in the intro that we've made some changes in July to our
setup here so I thought I'd go through them and give you an update on what they are.
And I thought they were significant enough not to just include them in a
normal update video which I normally do at the end of each month the following
month for my solar and Tesla Powerwall production. So what happened in July.
Well some of you may already know if you've been watching some of the other videos
on my channel, on the 1st July we picked up our 64kWh Kona
EV. And apart from the fact it's phenomenal, it did then trigger some thought process in terms of
some of the changes that we need to make at home to accommodate that. Around the
sort of charging, and the most economical use of that. And what I mean by that is
that we already had the the zappi charger in place, so that's fine. And if
you have a look at our stats video, link up there. Had to think about which side it
was, link up there for that. That takes you through the stats for July and
you'll see there that we've used the grid power quite a bit there. So I wanted
to be aware that that longer term, during the Winter months, Autumn months would
mean that we would pull more from the grid. So I needed to look at how I could do
that to the best economy and economically. Got some of the bits down
below, I've got some facts and figures to shout at you, so I'm going to use my phone
refer to it because I've got them written down here, and
so they misquoted them. So we've got Kona, and my other thought process then was
about swapping energy supplier. And I wanted to move to Octopus Energy because
they have a Go tariff which is 5p a unit between 12:30 and 4:30 in
the morning. Which is actually a phenomenal rate. So I want to take
advantage of that. But to be able to do that you need a smart meter. Op until
19th July had the old-style fashioned meters. Octopus Energy weren't
fitting in my area at the time and so I got my current, what was then my current
supply, E.ON to come and fit them. Which they did they were great no problem at
all, and you know, fitted them in the day. On that same day, he says laughingly, I
swapped supplier, initiated the swap to Octopus Energy. And that went smoothly
and was about a week and then I was an Octopus Energy customer. And one of the
reasons for leaving was the price really. I said already about that the 5p
a unit, but even the normal day tariff, as it were, the standard unit rate was
cheaper. So for instance Octopus Energy, at the time of recording this, was
14.69p per unit, whereas E.ON I was paying 17.26p
So yeah, 3p a unit. And the standing
charge was actually cheaper to, with Octopus Energy. So all in all it was a
no-brainer in terms of a move. So I had my SMETS2
meters installed, they all worked. Moving across to Octopus Energy to
take advantage of that Go tariff. Oh incidentally if you're interested in
swapping energy supplier I have put a link down below, a referral link which
will give you a £50 credit if you do successfully swap to Octopus Energy
from your current energy supplier. And in the spirit of full disclosure disclosure
I also get a £50 credit if you swap so it's a bit of a win-win really. So if
you want to do that and then please take advantage of the the link below, the
referral link. And you'll see when you apply online you just pop the link in
there and it gets you credited to your account. Incidentally, I'm not being paid
by Octopus Energy to promote or do anything like that. But the interaction I've had with so
has been really really good. Very positive, they get back to you which
is always a good thing. And they know what they're talking about. So what else
happened... that's two things of the car and the swap of the meters. I've also
bought the myenergi eddi. So I've got a full suite of their appliances at the
moment. The eddi, if you're not familiar with it, can be used to heat your hot
water by the immersion tank element. It sort of sits in line with that and you
can either use it two ways; as a manual bypass as an override, or you can use it
to heat by excess solar which is its intended purpose. Very easy to install.
That was installed on a 22nd of July so it hasn't been in that long it's just
the early part of August now when I'm recording this. And to date it's actually
already saved us some money in those a few days. So we've saved....
£8...eight pounds, no. It's 8.68kWh.
So that's all been generated by excess solar rather than
pulling from the grid. And that's the princely price of £1.49. Marvellous!
So that's what I've saved so far.
I have placed the deposit for my
super yacht now as well. So that's good, that's all been brought forward
with my £1.49 savings. What else.. oh yes at the same time I ordered that myenergi
hari device, which is a little box that
allows you to wirelessly connect your CT clamps and then configure them to be
able to be seen by all of the other devices. I've got the eddi set as a master
device, and the little harvi has got a CT clamp on the main grid cable coming
into the house, and the Powerwall, and the solar. So it knows what each one is
doing in terms of generating and pulling and pushing power. And that does that
wirelessly, so it's it's a really neat install. And with the app, the myenergi
app, the hub, I've also got, and the eddi, the eddi and there's the zap, they all work really well
together which is good news. I've set the eddi as my master device so
that controls everything and within that you can then set the priority of how you
want things to charge, in what order you want things to charge with the excess
solar. Mine is set currently to do the house first,
strange enough, so power the house from the solar. It'll then do the Powerwall and
charge that up. It'Il then do the hot water, so the eddi will kick in. And it
finally it'll charge the car. I've come to realise that there's just basically
too much plugged in there now to be able to effectively charge all of those
things consistently on a daily basis with my 4kw array. So we're
looking at extending the array getting a larger array. We'll cover that in a later
video, but the benefit of then moving across to the Go tariff with Octopus
Energy was that 5p per unit. So I can charge the car at the cheaper rate
overnight if I need to but I could also do the same with the Powerwall as well,
and also the hot water. So during the Winter months when there's less sun,
probably no sun in the UK. I can still use the benefits of that
cheaper tariff to charge those and it's going to be quite considerable saving. I
haven't sort of mapped it all out yet but I am recording it, the savings are
making when I'm using those devices. And we'll cover that in our normal month end
summary time video. So I think, I'm just looking at my notes make sure I've
covered everything. Yes I have. So that's it really, they're the key points.
So if you have got questions drop them down below. I always like to pick those up and
respond to those. If there's any thoughts or ideas. Remember the referral code I
talked about for Octopus Energy. Remember to subscribe, hit that notification bell icon.
And I'll see you on the next one. Alright, thanks for watching. Take care. Bye.