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Solar Panels UK - is it worth it?
- Thread starter jdwuk
- Start date
The mid peak was a suggestion from someone on here, used for saving sessions.
My super off peak will be the same as your off peak. Do you have that set artificially high too?
I dont see point for the intended purpose (but I could be wrong)
Ive got my peak rate set to sell at £4 just to be on the safe side and it works for me.
I did used to set a super off peak but 1- I can forget things and 2- its an extra task to do besides setting the alarms to toggle between export all and solar only.
What’s your off peak sell price set to?
Now I’ve seen how it works first hand, I can see that switching to export “Everything” will do the job so probably don’t need the mid peak setting. I do a fair bit of automation through Home Assistant so need to see which option works best with that.
Mine is set with the actual rates for my tariff (30p peak, 7.5p off peak import/15p export) and it does what yours is doing. I only adjust the tariff settings to add a mid peak with a higher export rate when we have a savings session. I also leave the exports on solar only unless we have a savings session. I think it decides whether to export all solar or use some solar to charge or use some solar for the house load depending on the level of charge and what it thinks you will use before the next off peak window. Mine is currently showing 400w coming from solar all of which is being exported and 300w house load which is coming from the battery with the battery at 86%. I guess it thinks 86% is more than enough to see me through to 11:30. It could sometimes show the same 400w coming from solar with 300w for the house and 100w export or 100w charging the battery, I assume depending on what it thinks you need later that day. I find it’s correct most of the time and I use very little peak power now. I use about 10,000kwh per year of which about 4,500kwh goes into the car. My 1 Powerwall and 5.5kwp solar is just about perfect for me.
.... depending on where you live of course
…as actual as I can get it…7p
ElectricPolice
Member
Some light-hearted input...
Perfect solar curve today in mid-winter (red line) with the charge curve below it replenishing my battery until full with the latter light blue line the resulting export. Managed a whole 2.3kW export which almost pays back the overnight charge in filling it up (11.7kW usable).
Net zero almost
Hope you all had a good day too!!
Perfect solar curve today in mid-winter (red line) with the charge curve below it replenishing my battery until full with the latter light blue line the resulting export. Managed a whole 2.3kW export which almost pays back the overnight charge in filling it up (11.7kW usable).
Net zero almost
Hope you all had a good day too!!
What do you have your backup reserve set to and do you leave it at that setting?
I use Home Assistant to change the backup reserve to 100% at 23:30 to ensure it’s always full by the time the IO off peak rate finishes. Home Assistant then switches the reserve to 10% at 05:30.
This has probably messed with the Powerwall AI though and it perhaps thinks the battery needs more than it does in reality.
I leave it at 10% all the time. Mine always starts to charge at 11:30pm without altering the reserve and charges to 100% everynight. It then stays at 100% until 530am. The small amount of house use in the offpeak hours comes from import. I look at what it's doing regularly but dont really ever change anything (savings sessions excepted) so it's probably learned my usage patterns quite well.
Mine will start charging at 23:30 without altering the reserve but in the first few days after installation it didn’t always charge to 100%. One morning I woke up and it had only charged to something like 77% which wasn’t quite enough to get through to the next 23:30. Maybe the AI was still learning as it was early days. I just got a bit nervous so set up the HA automation.
I’ve just switched off the automations and will leave the reserve at 10% to see how it goes tonight.
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Yes a good day here too, 6.7kWh of generation of which I exported 3kWh.Some light-hearted input...
Perfect solar curve today in mid-winter (red line) with the charge curve below it replenishing my battery until full with the latter light blue line the resulting export. Managed a whole 2.3kW export which almost pays back the overnight charge in filling it up (11.7kW usable).
Net zero almost
Hope you all had a good day too!!
View attachment 1007378
I've recently had solar and PW fitted (2 months). I am still learning all about it. As it was a nice sunny day today I decided to hit the "Go Off-Grid" button to see what happens. I had my EV set to charge from 60% to 70% as an experiment for today. My charging time is set at 11:30PM to 5:30AM. I am on Octopus IO. I have the NetZero app that has the nice dashboard that shows the state of solar, home, PW and grid status. But to my surprise it showed that my TM3 was being charged, at peak time, from the grid but I was off-grid on the Tesla PW app which showed no power coming from the grid or battery but my EV was charging? So, is it, I can still charge my EV even when the PW is set to off-grid? New to this, as you can see 
ACarneiro
Active Member
ACarneiro
Active Member
It would seem then that the charger is downstream from the Gateway.
If I’m not mistaken, that would mean that the Powerwalls will never feed the charger and you’ll lose the ability to charge the car during a power cut.
It also means that in “Off Grid” mode the house will be islanded and fed by the batteries but the charger will continue operating as normal
If I’m not mistaken, that would mean that the Powerwalls will never feed the charger and you’ll lose the ability to charge the car during a power cut.
It also means that in “Off Grid” mode the house will be islanded and fed by the batteries but the charger will continue operating as normal
I know some of you are exporting from your Powerwalls during Octopus Saving Sessions, but is anyone regularly exporting excess battery just before the next off-peak period? Any potential risks or pitfalls in doing this such as maybe invalidating Tesla warranty or Octopus not being happy with it not being direct from solar?
