Having been notified by Octopus that my 2 year fixed tariff was coming to an end next month, it was time to try and work out what would be the best tariff to switch to for the coming winter months. The additional solar panels were working very well and together with the existing panels could produce a total output of over 40 kWh on a good day. Taking into account water heating via my Eddi diverter and other electrical loads during the day, the amount exported was also looking very healthy. The 5kWh battery was easily picking up the slack in the evening, even if we had the central heating on as the COP for the heat pump in the warmer months was easily over 4. The unknown was how would this change once the days started drawing in and the temperature starting falling.
My gut feeling was that there would still be some export on reasonable days, but on very cloudy days I might need some assistance from the grid. Octopus have several tariffs that allow access to cheap rate electricity at certain times of the night (and day). It would be easy to set up my hot water cylinder to heat up during one of these periods and it should be possible to charge the battery in the same way. Some of these tariffs are restricted to EV owners but two, 'Flux' and 'Cosy' are open to anyone and look like good options so long as you can avoid using energy during their peak rate time (16:00-19:00). I didnt have to make a decision till late September, so I decided to monitor the situation and see what happened to my production and usage.
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In order to be able to get an export tariff for my solar panels, I had been attempting to transfer responsibility for my solar panel FIT payments from OVO to Octopus. While this is not actually essential to be able to do this, my previous experience with OVO regarding trying to transfer the FIT payments into my name gave me no confidence that they wouldn't cock it up.
True to form, OVO completely ignored my instructions (and Octopus's notifications) to switch. It appears that their customer service department is so understaffed that they do not bother reading emails at all! Consequently after waiting the prescribed 8 weeks, I once again referred the matter to the Ombudsman. This time as well as asking for £100 in compensation for my time, I also asked for £3 per day, which is the amount I am losing by not being paid for my exports to the grid. Hopefully this will get the ball rolling at OVO! This test is to see how well your soil drains and hence how big your soakaway needs to be. Essentially it involves digging a big hole in the ground, filling it with water very quickly and timing how long it takes to drain from 75% full to 25% full. This is done three times in quick succession.
The test itself is eay to look up, but the method of calculation is a bit more challenging. You can send your results to firms and they will do it for you for a fee, but I know I have some Scottish ancestry so I managed to work out how to do the calculation by looking at examples of completed forms online. What the results should show is that the longer the rainstorm goes on for, the bigger soakaway you will need up to a point. After that point, if it keeps raining the size gets smaller. The rainstorm you have to calculate for is a 1 in 100 year event and add 40% on for the effects of global warming. My calculation is below and shows that a 240 minute storm needs a 2.89 m cubed soakaway, therefore a 3m cubed soakawat kit will be needed if I use the plastic soakaway crates that have a 95% void. |
AuthorEx Radiographer, Information Analyst, Teacher and Self-builder. Now retired Archives
December 2023
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