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Solar Exported Today

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That's a shame. Today, I'm still on Self-Powered mode... and probably should have topped up the Powerwalls overnight on Low Cost Grid Power.

But instead I'm playing the House Range Anxiety game.

I've rolled the dice and it's now a race between the Sun waking up and filling the Powerwalls, or the Family waking up... and draining them into peak rate

... Exciting isn't it :D 😀😃

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At least your background drain is just 400W, mine is 3x that and I had to pay for 25kWh at 5p / kWh last night. 🙁
 

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Started the day flying very low... 😀

'Terrain, Terrain... Pull Up... woop woop'
Ditto here; 1% above the reserve (15%) when we woke up at 6.30am. Adequate for a couple of coffees. The sun's shining though, so got enough in the tank to run the grill at 8.15am for our daughter's bacon roll before college.

Still, that's getting a bit too close for comfort! On the upside, only used 0.6 kWh from the grid overnight. Seems the Gateway realised it was going to be a close call so took a breather for a few minutes while the immersion heater was on.

Back on topic - 29.8 kWh generated yesterday. Exported 1.2 kWh while we were out. The joys of 6 kW solar with a Powerwall capped at 3.6 kW charge/discharge.
 
Reading everyone’s posts shows the appalling incongruous restrictions placed by DNO’s nationally.
I wrote to my MP a while back and long story short there is shed load of work to be done to harvest the potential domestic solar capacity that is presently restricted. Individually it doesn’t amount much but nationally is becomes a disgrace!
 
Reading everyone’s posts shows the appalling incongruous restrictions placed by DNO’s nationally.
I wrote to my MP a while back and long story short there is shed load of work to be done to harvest the potential domestic solar capacity that is presently restricted. Individually it doesn’t amount much but nationally is becomes a disgrace!

When we had our kit installed, I had access to the planning diagrams and Grid Cabling of our Housing Estate... about 100 houses in total with private driveways. Most of them were on looped supply.

That's going to be a nightmare if they all want Heat Pumps and Ev Chargers.

Which is why I jumped in early and got my 3 Phase charging & export authorisation.
 
I wrote to my MP a while back and long story short there is shed load of work to be done to harvest the potential domestic solar capacity that is presently restricted. Individually it doesn’t amount much but nationally is becomes a disgrace!
I suspect with the current lot, one could lubricate the wheels of the system by enclosing a cheque alongside the letter to one's MP... Cynical? Moi?

Moving on. To set the scene, our house is part of a small development, built around 25 years ago, comprised of 7 detached and 7 terraced private houses, along with about 6 retirement bungalows and 8 small housing association 3-beds. The development is served by a small substation at the entrance to the street.

I recently had a longer discussion with the local DNO rep, who stated that because of the small size of the development, the impedance of our supply is relatively high - there aren't enough properties to soak up excess local generation. So our installed solar/Powerwall generation is capped to prevent the local AC voltage rising above the limit (about 253 volts).

Our only option would be to go 3-phase, along with splitting our house circuits, and solar/Powerwall evenly across the three legs.

This is simply not cost-effective; the law of diminishing returns comes into play.

Still, our grid use is way below pre-Powerwall/solar levels, even with two EVs, so I guess we can't complain too much.
 
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When we had our kit installed, I had access to the planning diagrams and Grid Cabling of our Housing Estate... about 100 houses in total with private driveways. Most of them were on looped supply.

That's going to be a nightmare if they all want Heat Pumps and Ev Chargers.

Which is why I jumped in early and got my 3 Phase charging & export authorisation.
Phase 3 quote for me was £3,800.

I wonder how most are ever going to be able to afford the transition...

Solar, heat pumps, EV's, 3 phase = tens of thousands of pounds
 
Phase 3 quote for me was £3,800.

I wonder how most are ever going to be able to afford the transition...

Solar, heat pumps, EV's, 3 phase = tens of thousands of pounds

3 Phase / Infrastructure (increase in Energy Costs for everybody)

Solar (Medium Term ROI)

Heat Pumps (Grant or Incentive Loans)

EV's (Rent or Hire)

... what concerns me more is the poor state of some low-income homes. Landlords are ditching them, and leaving the sector.

Who's going to pick up the costs for improved Energy Performance Certification? Insulation etc

On top of inflation, interest rate rises, Energy price rises, fuel price rises, lack of supplies & materials...
 
shoudl be able to set up inverters to limit solar load to never exceed X KWh export to grid per DNO requirements but still be able to ramp up to support local consumption (direct and battery). Seems a heavy handed approach to limit you to eg 3.68kw if your roof can support 7kw and your house can consume what you generate over the course of 24 hours (with help from a battery)
 
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Tesla AI worked ok last night with me taking in 13.7kWh at 5p/kWr and that only just saw me through until 8am when I was generating 1.4kW to power our place. You guys with 400W background draw and 2PW are in such a strong position. Anyway, all is good and our cost for today should be 95p incl the daily 25p charge, but no grid contribution 😁 so I’m ok with that especially with fudge brownies being cooked for free. 😍
 

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We can just about get away with single phase with 2PW, 12.5kW Heat pumps (drawing 3kW max), immersion heater and a 7.4kW car charger, granny charger. However, we have to be careful running induction hobs, ovens, washing machine, dishwasher etc during the off-peak times. Another problem with 3-phase is that is our circuits are split, our mains-borne signalling wouldn't be on all 3 phases.