I thought I’d start to give performance data from our 3.6kWp solar system as that what most are likely interest to see. It should be noted that we are relatively low electricity users, consuming on average 1500kWh per year. According to the Photovoltaic Geographical Information System our 3.6kWp solar system should generate an expected 3644kWh annually.
Our Monthly Solar Performance
Our Solis Hybrid Inverter gives us some great data through both the app and website. It’s a great way to monitor how well our solar system is performing.
December 2022
Solar generation was actually better than I expected it to be as I’d heard that solar produces very little in winter. There were several days where it generated around 1kWh per day, but other days where we generated 8-9kWh per day. What was great to see was our generation was greater than our consumption even in the worst month for solar. That’s great to know we will likely produce more than we consume each month of the year.
Note: on 20th & 21st December our inverter data logger lost wifi connection so we don’t have data for those days.
January 2023
January was a much better month for solar generation, mainly from the perfectly clear bright but cold days towards the end of the month when we generated 10-12kWh per day. By this point we had started to work out how to make the best of our solar generation by running high energy use appliances such as the dishwasher and washing machine on sunny forecast days. This allowed solar generation to cover 27% of our electricity consumption this month.
February 2023
February solar performance was quite similar to January, but the longer days meant solar generation had increased and was often 12-15kWh per day. One day (20th February) generated a whooping 17kWh!
We also consumed less energy overall this month (85kWh compared to 110kWh). Our electricity use is generally quite static each month varying slightly between month. One reason why it is so different to January is likely due to February being a slightly shorter month. It was nice to see our self consumption of solar generation had crept up to 33% of overall consumption.
Generation Performance
I’ve been impressed by our solar generation. Winter is supposed to be the worst season for solar, but so far we’ve had some great clear sunny days which have produced two above estimated generation months in January and February. December was slightly down on estimated generation once I adjusted for the number of days as our solar was installed part way through December.
I’ve been impressed by our solar generation. Winter is supposed to be the worst season for solar, but so far we’ve had some great clear sunny days which have produced two above estimated generation months in January and February. December was slightly down on estimated generation once I adjusted for the number of days as our solar was installed part way through December.
Savings
Savings so far have been limited to electricity savings of £24.99 through self use of solar generation. Our self use energy savings aren’t ever going to be huge due to us being low electricity users.
Sadly we made very little through exported energy because our SEG payment wasn’t finalised until 17th February. SEG payment does take a while to apply for. Ours took longer than I expected as there was a delay to receiving the MCS certificate, and our installer applying for the G98 DNO approval. Once we had theses documents it took around 2 weeks for Octopus Energy to set up our export.
If our SEG payment had been set up from day one we would have earnt £62.34 from the 415.6kWh exported. That would have increased the total saving to £87.33 for just under three months. That’s not too bad for the worst season. The spring and summer periods should be much higher.
Summary
Key Statistics for Winter:
* 487kWh generated
* 415kWh exported
* 27% overall self sufficiency from solar
* £24.99 saved
So far I’ve been impressed with our solar system. It’s performed better than I was expecting it to considering it was winter. We’ve had some great days of generation, even on the poor generation days it’s still covered most of our daylight base load (which is pretty low).
I’d have liked to have seen some savings in February from SEG. I was expecting SEG to take a while to set up, but it probably took a month longer than I was hoping it would. I’m just glad our solar was installed in December and we didn’t have a late spring install which would have missed the whole summer peak generation period. At least we’ve missed the worst months rather than the best months!
I’m looking forward to increased generation of spring. Hopefully we should see generation and self use both increase.