How To Get The Most Out of Solar | Solar Fast

[Applause] [Music] I'm Chris I'm lead solar technician at solarfirst I've been involved in the company since 2022 as an ex-science teacher I've always been interested in in energy and how our energy is generated but particularly in the in the Renewables Revolution and our response to climate change and and having a cleaner cleaner forms of energy so getting involved in solar was it was quite a natural step for me I've got a 4.8 kilowatt system I've got a 13 trainer panels on my roof as an East-West split so I've got one set of one array of panels here one array of panels on the other side of my roof so I get a nice amount of generation in the morning nice amount of generation in the afternoon with that I've got a 3.6 kilowatt inverter which charges my 2 3 3.2 kilowatt hour batteries and on top of that I've I've got a solar eye boost which means that when the batteries are full and I've got more electricity that I'm generating which is particularly the case at the moment with the lovely weather that we've got I've effectively got another battery which is my immersion heater so once the batteries are charged that will send any excess electricity to that immersion heater so I've effectively got another 7.5 kilowatt hour battery there on the roof all my panels have solar optimizers which means that each individual panel is optimized to the best of its power giving ability at any time and it means that no panel can affect the other panel which means all the panels are constantly working at their best I chose to do it what I want I wanted to create the system a little bit differently to how people would normally do it so no normally with two roof faces you would have um one array of panels in one string into the inverter in one input and then the other array of panels into the other string but I wanted to maximize the voltage that the panels were giving off at any time and the more panels you have in one string The More Voltage there is the reason why that is beneficial is because it starts up a little bit earlier in the morning because it's the voltage that is the signal for the inverter to start up and then it lasts for a little bit longer into the evening so I can ease out any little bit of power that I can that they're generating by keeping that inverter running for as long as possible at the moment I am generating between 20 and 30 kilowatt hours a day to put it into context the average home would probably use about 11 to 12 kilowatt hours a day the way I'm managing the electricity means that for most days I'm just paying standing charger a little bit over that but I'm not using any Peak rate electricity the only electricity that I am sometimes importing from the grid is 9p per kilowatt hour and it's on an EV tariff at night I mean I want to address a bit of a misconception about these tariffs to start with so a lot of electricity companies are offering cheaper rates at night or at certain times of day in exchange for a slightly more expensive tariff at peak times sort of when people come home from work or when people are getting ready for work now the misconception is that these tariffs are a way of enticing people um to join the energy that particular energy supplier and that those tariffs won't last forever and they're sort of like an introductory rate and people think that they won't last very long that's not the case at all if anything and this is exactly what we're seeing these tariffs will become more and more common the reason for that is there are certain times of day when energy companies want your solar and there are certain times of day when energy companies don't need your sailor because they've got plenty of solar being generated or nuclear or whatever already they've got cheap forms of electricity that they can use so really the energy companies want your solar during the evening when electricity wholesale price is more expensive and they want you to use electricity from them when it's cheaper for them and cheaper for you so that's at night or in the middle of the day when you've got plenty of solar generation Etc so as much as those cheap tariffs are beneficial for you they're also beneficial for the energy companies because if they're giving you a cheap rate say a third of the price of what you'd be paying at peak times they may even be being paid to take that electricity off the grid at certain times energy providers are either generators want to keep those electricity generators running particularly if they're ones that spin like nuclear and if they stop it it will cost them money so they want the energy companies to take it so the Energy company might be being paid 5p per kilowatt hour to take their electricity off the grid and sell it to you for nine people kilowatt hour everyone wins you're getting cheap electricity they're getting paid to take it off the grid the grid is greener as a result because you're using more renewable energy or low carbon energy rather than expensive sources of energy like gas and coal so everybody wins in those situations so the way mine works between half past midnight and half past four in the morning my electricity is nine Pence per kilowatt hour to put it into context the average home at the moment is paying 34 people kilowatt hour so this is really cheap electricity and that's for the reasons that I said before there's wind energy and nuclear in low carbon forms of energy that need to keep going during that time so the energy companies want you to use it it's low carbon it's cheap wholesale for them and it's cheap for you so I use that electricity if I need it if if there isn't enough solar so it's you know earlier in the year and there's not quite so much sailor generation I use that to charge the car I use that to charge my batteries I use that to heat up my water and I use that to preheat the radiators in my house it's a fully electric house so pretty much at least two-thirds of my electricity demand is met by that cheap low carbon electricity at night um so that's great in the in the summer when I've got loads of generation I might not always need to use it but the thing is it doesn't really matter what tariff I'm on at that time because my needs are being met by the solar so really that that cheat tariff is mainly for the winter when the solar isn't enough to supply all my needs I mean I still get an export tariff as well so what I do export I do get paid for is not as much as some specific solar and Battery tariffs I mean I get paid about five people kilowatt hour for what I export which is something I don't export very much because I tend to use it all myself there are certain other tariffs like this these smart tariffs where they encourage you to use electricity at the right times where if you export your electricity at these peak times I.E sort of four o'clock till seven o'clock when people are cooking dinner and coming home from work and everything you can get paid more for your electricity than what it costs you to import there's a tariff where the maximum cost of import is about 30 people per kilowatt hour but you can get paid almost 37 people per kilowatt hour for exporting at the right times now in the past that would have been really difficult to do predominantly until fairly recently people were only installing solar and they weren't having batteries with it so they didn't have much control over when they exported and what they can do with their electricity now with a system like this you can just set timers for when it's exports and when it charges the batteries so we've got someone in our department who gets paid so much for the export of his electricity that he doesn't actually have to take any of the solar for himself he charges his batteries at night from the cheap rate to 100 they're there fully charged everything he generates from the solar goes back to the grid but he's getting paid 30p per kilowatt hour for that whereas anything he he's paying a lot less to charge his batteries at night so he's making a net profit on anything he generates during the day and then his battery is set for four o'clock till seven o'clock in the evening to discharge at the peak rate of 30 7p per kilowatt hour so he's making a huge amount of money on his electricity that he otherwise wouldn't use because he's generating too much for his own needs anyway now he's making money he's making more money from his electricity than he's spending on electricity he's making a net profit on his electricity but he's also making the grid Greener and from that he's reducing wholesale prices on electricity so he's contributing to lowering the price of electricity for everyone now we're actually seeing the results of that and people moving over to these smart Towers particularly people with EVs and solar and batteries we're seeing the result these smart tariffs it's coming to fruition a major energy supplier who I'm with at the moment recently lowered their prices of their smart tariff prices by between 7 17 and 21 for their customers because their wholesale price of electricity was lowering because the smart tariffs are working so well and the collective action of people with solar and EVS is working so well to flatten the curve as much as possible for when electricity demand is happening we're using less of the expensive forms of electricity fossil fuels and we're getting a lot more of our electricity from solar and the suppliers are getting it when they need it and not just when the sun is shining foreign

Channel: Solar Fast

Views: 7,759

Keywords: solar, solarpv, solar fast, solar panels, solar panel, solar energy, solar system, energy, green energy, green living, eco living, eco house, climate, climate change, seg, segs, tariffs, how to

Id: tSp_92fQtnI

Length: 11min 12sec (672 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 10 2023