{"id":1018,"date":"2012-02-10T19:43:15","date_gmt":"2012-02-10T19:43:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/paulaowenconsulting.co.uk\/?p=1018"},"modified":"2015-11-24T16:30:11","modified_gmt":"2015-11-24T16:30:11","slug":"pv-generation-and-electricity-meters-6-month-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/greengumption.co.uk\/live\/2012\/02\/pv-generation-and-electricity-meters-6-month-update\/","title":{"rendered":"PV Generation and Electricity Meters: 6 Month Update"},"content":{"rendered":"

FREE BRIEFING: due to overwhelming interest in the issue of ‘electricity usage meters going backwards after PV installation’ we have produced a briefing note on the topic. Click <\/span>here<\/span><\/a> to contact us to request your FREE copy<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

So, I’m now\u00a0over 6 months into my ownership of PV panels and the vagaries of the seasons, and their effect on electricity production, are becoming clear in relation to the issues with renewable generation.<\/span><\/p>\n

The first 3 months of production, roughly July through to September, produced approximately\u00a0311 KWh of electricity (and an income of about\u00a0\u00a3140), the second 3 months, October through December, produced a rather less impressive\u00a0129 KWh (and an income of about \u00a357).\u00a0 So for 6\u00a0months the total\u00a0generation and income for my 1.67KW peak system is\u00a0440 KWH and about \u00a3200.\u00a0 If this is projected for a full 12 months it will mean a total production of approx\u00a01000 KWh and a yearly yield of around \u00a3400-500.\u00a0 So payback on an \u00a38K system, based on those\u00a0generation rates will be nearly\u00a020 years, and that is with the 43.3pence tariff.\u00a0\u00a0I haven’t included my reduction on my electricity bill here as\u00a0I had the issue of\u00a0my backward running meter in place for the first 2 months of PV production (the highest 2 months of production so far)\u00a0so it’s hard to tell the true reduction in my use of grid electricity through those months. However, my typical annual\u00a0usage is low anyway (about 1700 KWh historically, compared with a stated national average of 3300 KWh per UK household) so I cannot expect a huge reduction in my yearly bills, \u00a3100 max I predict.<\/span><\/p>\n

Talking about electricity use meters going backwards, the number of searches that have brought people to my website using a variation on this theme is now in the hundreds, and the blog post has been read 230 times,\u00a0and I regularly get 5-6 hits a day on the topic.\u00a0 So this is a widespread problem.\u00a0 With 50,000 plus installations in already, and no-one systematically tackling the issue,\u00a0energy suppliers are going to have a merry old time trying to sort out very unusually low electricity bills in the summer months, and\u00a0I wonder how vigorously they will try to claw back that missing historical\u00a0electricity usage that has been lost to the backward running meters?<\/span><\/p>\n

Looking at other seasonal factors, the snow we have had recently have very much affected generation, on the days of snow fall we have produced exactly zero KW of electricity, it’s the first time absolutely no generation has occurred, as even on the cloudiest, most\u00a0overcast day we have still generated something.\u00a0\u00a0I had hoped that the panels’ surfaces\u00a0were sufficiently slippery and on enough of\u00a0an angle that would mean the snow would not settle too much and hence would self clean, but that obviously hasn’t been the case.\u00a0 So you can imagine that in a heavy and persistent snowfall all PV generation could come to a standstill.\u00a0 An issue\u00a0I wonder if the powers that be have taken into account in their forward projections.<\/span><\/p>\n

So,\u00a0I await with interest the next 6 months.\u00a0 We are now into a six month period with increasing daylight hours.\u00a0 I have even noticed a difference from January to February in terms of how early generation starts in the mornings.\u00a0 Given that our summer from July onwards was a bit of a wash out, I’m hopeful that the second 6 months will be more productive than the first., but only time will tell. Watch this space.<\/span><\/p>\n

Related blog posts:<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Being a PV generator: Lessons I have learnt Part 1<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Being a PV generator: Lesson learnt Part 2<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

PV systems and meters running backwards: need for clear guidance<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FREE BRIEFING: due to overwhelming interest in the issue of ‘electricity usage meters going backwards after PV installation’ we have produced a briefing note on the topic. Click here to contact us to request your FREE copy So, I’m now\u00a0over 6 months into my ownership of PV panels and the vagaries of the seasons, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1018","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-renewables"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/greengumption.co.uk\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/greengumption.co.uk\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/greengumption.co.uk\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greengumption.co.uk\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greengumption.co.uk\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1018"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/greengumption.co.uk\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1018\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1930,"href":"https:\/\/greengumption.co.uk\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1018\/revisions\/1930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/greengumption.co.uk\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greengumption.co.uk\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/greengumption.co.uk\/live\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}