It's another home energy update video this time covering the month of March 2022.
We will look at what we generated from our solar panels. How our Tesla Powerwall 2 fared
charging our two EVs and heating our hot water from surplus solar. Plus
our electric and gas bills for the month. Also I'll share the performance from the first 17
days output from the wind turbine we part own in windy Wales via Ripple Energy. So stay tuned!
Hi John here and welcome. Let's get straight into it shall we? Oh and if you just missed the intro
stay to the end of the video for the wind turbine stats and data update which is very interesting.
The graphic on screen which you can pause the video and review if you want to it's all of our
components in our system. Alternatively have a look at the description down below in the video
as there's a complete list of all our components and specifications there too. So here's our solar
generation for the month 647 units from our south south west facing 6.34kW array.
We beat our 2021 March total and with 2 more good days we would have equaled our 2020 total. Only 48
units behind that total. And just have a look at that average daily solar for the month of March
2020 and march 2022, 21 units in March 2022 and 22 units in March 2020. So not that far behind.
Our total generation figure for the period divided by the size of our solar array
is 647 units for the period divided by 6.4 worth of panels works out at 100kWh/p. So
how did you all get on and drop your totals in the comments down below in the time-honored tradition.
Let's have a look at the split shall we for both arrays. Our 4kW array produced 402 units
and the newer 2.34 array produced 245 units a very similar split to March 2020 totals, as you
can see there. Let's have a look at the Powerwall contribution and the solar into our self power.
We've been in cost-saving mode with the Powerwall 2 and with solar and the Powerwall contributions
we were 63% self-powered for the month. Which is up from February as you would expect. And
you can see the impact that solar has had on that self-powered percentage comparing it
with February it's almost doubled. 32% versus 18% so that's all good news. PV yearly totals
let's have a look at the month of March through the years. So this is March through the ages.
March 2022 stacks up nicely against March 2021 and March 2020 as you can see there. March 2021
was really a poor month in terms of this data set for solar. Let's look at our Powerwall in and out.
The round trip efficiency for the Powerwall for the month was 86%. That means that we managed to
extract 86% of what we put into the battery and with the battery systems they're always losses as
you convert in and out. The norm for the Powerwall is around 89-90%. So we're very close to that
we put 426 units in and use 365 units over the course of the month. This chart looks
at the day by day for the month. It gives you a little bit more detail on what's happening
if you're familiar with this chart you'll know the house usage is shown in blue.
The peaks there in blue are typically when we have charged one of the EVs
and again if you're a regular we also run one of our glass kilns every day
during the off-peak period which adds 6 units to the daily total. And when the sun is out
we'll run one of the kilns during the day to get that firing for free from solar surplus.
Solar generation shown in yellow is lost at the start of the month and then starts to build
as the month progresses. Conversely as the solar improves then the red bars which is the grid pull
reduces. It's nice to see that contrast happening there. Well we did let a little
bit more energy escape back to the grid as export this month which is shown in orange.
We had the biggest single export day was 4.8 units on the 28th of March, 28th of the month.
It's actually interesting to look at the days from the 19th through to the 26th
where we had little pull from the grid, high house usage and high solar production.
You can visually see the benefit of having solar panels and a home storage battery there that's a
really good showcase for having that technology of self-generation at home. We scroll down look
at the overall totals. This is our 4 data sets that we've just looked at in the day by day
again. House use is shown in blue is the key one. So total of 1239.9 units
versus our solar production of 646.7 or 647. And the delta was provided by the grid at 651.1 units
with 47 seeping back to the grid. Let's have a look at those grid charts in a bit more detail.
This is our average daily house usage and our average daily grid
usage over the preceding months. Not surprising our average daily house usage was down at 40
units that's the blue line. And our average daily pull from the grid also took a plunge
down to 21 units which is the red line. Almost a 50% reduction on February's grid usage.
As mentioned a couple of charts ago we sent 47 units back to the grid of excess solar generation
and I really like to keep on top of that to be honest and have as little as possible going back
and use it on site. Scrolling down to what we consumed we consumed 650 units from the grid
again a big drop compared to February and again this should start to fall away even more now
as we get more into spring and summer. Fingers crossed. I've turned off our scheduled timer for
the my energy eddi for heating our hot water from the cheap rate overnight electricity.
We can almost guarantee now there's enough excess solar to heat our hot water via the
eddi on a daily basis. We probably use about 2kWh - 2.5kWh a day to heat our hot water keep it hot.
Actually that's a really nice segway into the eddi stats. Yes my rehearsals paid off!
Let's have a look at the eddi stats then. The myenergi eddi heats our hot water from surplus
solar. The eddi has diverted 25 units of solar duration to heat our hot water for the month.
Running totals for the eddi as you can see there 48 for the year and 870 since installation.
And the running costs / savings bring about are calculated at £63.05p
based on our cheap rate electricity of 5.5 pence per unit. Moving on to the cars.
The Tesla Model 3 covered 349 miles during the month bringing its overall total to 18,420. No
issues or problems with the car. We didn't do any public charging sessions with the Tesla in March.
All done home charging where we added 101.91 units. 48% of our total charge for the month
came from sunshine which was good with the remaining 111.468 coming from the grid.
Again this energy would have been at the off peak Octopus Energy Go Faster tariff of 5.5
pence per kilowatt hour, per unit. The little Zoe covered 450 miles so we're using that more
than the Tesla at the moment it would seem. And it now has a total mileage of 26,242 miles. No issues
or problems to report with a car. And we're averaging around 5kWh/m in the car. Which is
short journeys that it does which is actually very impressive because it has been quite cold as well.
And yeah just look at that speed and anticipation score too! You get that flash up on the
screen when you power off the car to give you a quick review of how you're getting on.
It's an accumulative figure rather than for that particular drive.
But I'm not sure what you have to do to get the perfect score of 100
because that is sort of very gentle driving, very little acceleration, lots of regen
and 50mph in maximum speed. So perhaps I have to go everywhere at 40mph!
Okay so in the spreadsheet there you can see the monthly running cost for both cars which
basically peanuts in terms of pounds per mile.
And that will get cheaper with more sunshine and home charging from excess solar.
We've just had in and today as I record this video our gas and electric bill. So
let's just have a look at those. Here's our electric bill which covers from March the 5th
through to April the 4th inclusive which is 31 days. Total usage was 568.5 units.
Just in case you're linking back to what I said earlier about units from the grid
and that was taken from the Tesla app and is for the month of March. So March 1st to the 31st,
but our electricity bill is from the 5th of March to the 4th of April so it just goes over so it's
not a like like comparison which is why the unit total is slightly different. Just in case you're
thinking i'm trying to pull a fast one. Honest I'm not! Total usage 568.5 units of that 542.8
units we're at the off peak rate of 5.24 which works out at £28.43 and just 25 units or 25.7
was at the more expensive 14.6. I say more expensive is actually cheap now based on the
current price of electricity and that worked out at £3.74. Including the VAT and Standing Charge
our bill for the money was £41.54. Our gas bill let's have a look at that. That runs again from
the 5th of March to the 4th of April inclusive, so same time period for 31 days. There was a
price increase there so actually I've got 2 bills if you like, they're split over the 2 tariffs.
The first bit is from the 5th of March to the 1st of April inclusive and that was 114 meters
of cubed of gas which is equivalent to 1,278 units of electricity at 3.58 pence works out of
£45.76. If you include the VAT and Standing Charge on that it comes in at £54.73. And then the second
bit of the bill on the higher rate is from the 2nd of April to the 4th of April inclusive.
Where we used 18 cubic meters of gas which is equivalent of 202 units of electricity
and that's at the more expensive rate of 6.93 pence per kilowatt hour, per unit. That's £14.04.
Including the VAT and Standing Charge comes out at £15.56. Giving us a total bill for the month of
£111.83 for gas and electricity combined covering everything. Now we already sort of
referenced the increasing gas price there so our cheap rate electricity is now cheaper than gas
and we've already been heating our hot water from electric rather than gas as it's more efficient.
You know electricity is 100% efficient whereas gas is well certainly our gas boiler is probably
70% efficient with losses on the way. So it always has been more efficient to heat it via
the immersion heater and either surplus solar or the cheap rate overnight electricity price
but certainly now cheaper and gas prices are only going to go one way in the future.
There's bound to be another rise in October and the second energy review
that's going to happen. So two reviews in a year. We certainly will be getting off gas
as a household but I don't know when it'll be. I suspect it probably won't be this year
and that said the heating season is almost over so we won't be using much gas anyway. Although we
will be still paying the Standing Charge. So the new bit then. Let's talk about wind. Wind power
so why do I invest in a wind farm? I wanted to expand my options for generating power. We didn't
really have any sensible space for more solar PV so that really was a bit of a non-starter.
I toyed with getting an additional battery but that didn't really seem like a sensible option
paying for more static battery power you know. It would have been useful for half the year in the
winter but not that useful for the summer months because we just wouldn't be able to use that extra
power. It would just be stuck in the battery and we'd never use it between sundown and sun up.
And I guess even more so because we've got 2 battery packs on wheels that we can't tap into
currently and we're really waiting for mainstream vehicle to house solution become reality which I
suspect won't be too long. And before you all jump into the comments I'm aware that there are
some options out there. You know the Hyundai Ioniq V2L, vehicle to load. A three-pin plug option but
that's fairly limited and then there's the options of using the Chademo adapter but again it needs
a specific model of EV to take advantage of that and a specific charge converter.
So you know currently they're all sort of fringe solutions rather than mainstream in my opinion.
I wanted to generate rather than store power and a technology that would work better in the
winter when the solar production was poor and sketchier. So you know wind power seems like
a sensible option as it works best in winter when it's typically windier here in the UK.
And I came across Ripple Energy and decided to invest in their first cooperative wind farm
ownership program in the UK. And that was back in July 2021. The first of the two wind farms
I invested in went live on the 15th of March 2022 at 7:00pm. This is Graig Fatha in Wales,
sorry if i've mispronounced that. And I purchased 1,158 watts for this particular wind turbine.
And this is the data I've recorded so far. My portion has generated 96.26 units and I have
earned £9.14 which is credited automatically to my Octopus Energy account. And you know
this is the first of its type so everyone is on a bit of a learning curve as we go along.
The data and the dashboard is evolving on a weekly basis and we're getting to see more and more data.
But if anyone is interested to learn more about this then I'll do a separate video and go into
deeper dive. Just let me know in the comments section down below and I'll cover that and pick
it up. Incidentally if you're interested here's my referral link again down in the description below
and if you decide to join we both get £25 credit for spends over a £1000.
As with any investment please do your own research before you decide to take the plunge.
So yeah there you go that's it. Quick update, any questions dive down into the comments and
i'll pick them up as usual. Please comment, like, share all of those good actions help
get this video shown to more people on YouTube. Which helps my channel grow. Thanks for watching
and I'll see you on the next video. Which actually is coming up almost back on the back of this one.
It's an update on the Tesla Powerwall and total costs of our system to date. We've basically
spent £28,000 and I'll talk you through that. So yeah that's coming soon. Enjoy take care bye.