If you have solar panels how much are they generating on overcast winter days?

[Usee8789754]

Ours just going in and Im curious as to real life experiences versus the spiel..

A lot less than summer, but still enough to trickle charge the cars on a sunny day for a few hours or run washing machine etc. I really notice the low production days on our smart meter!

The are so many variables. It will depend a great deal on your particular location and installation. At the moment ours are delivering about 4% of their theoretical maximum.

We have solar for hot water and they're doing bugger all at the moment but it has been really, really dull for days. We have free hot water between about April and late September though.

We are having 15 panels plus an 8kw battery and a solar immersion feed. I'm assuming we won't get much in the batteries for a few months and will just be using what we generate. Want to avoid feeding back into the grid at all of course since the export rate is so low.

This month, so far, we have generated 66kwh. We'd have generated that in two days in the peak of summer.

Depending on how much you typically use through the day, with an 8kwh battery, you might be better off with a day/ night tariff to recoup the outlay on the system through the winter.

My 11 panel system is generating about 140w at the moment, so hardly anything at all really. Its not quite covering the house load at the moment. On a particularly sunny day last week it peaked at around 900w and even charged the battery some. It really comes into its own from March- October

We might. We are high users. Currently using about 30kwh a day in this cold weather with DC home from school and both DH and I working from home.

Im not sure whether British Gas do one. They're our current provider.

As high users it's less likely to be worth it, unless you can shift that consumption to the off-peak time. The peak daytime rate is so much higher than the standard tariff that storing just 8kwh at the lower rate probably wouldn't make it a great deal for you..

Unless the bulk of that is charging an ev and you can do that at the lower rate, then you are winning.

We had ours fitted on the 8th Dec. 23 panels split across two roofs and two 5kw batteries. They were producing about 2kwh when it was cold but sunny and now that it's cloudy and rainy they are not even managing to produce 1kwh in a day. Our highest so far has been 2.8kwh on the 9th Dec and lowest 0.7 kwh yesterday.

I've been looking at Octopus Go tariff but you need an EV to get the cheap night rate and we don't have one. Anyone know of any other good cheap tariffs we could charge the battery on at nights?

I don't know, we are on a standard tariff which I fixed in Jan before we had the system installed and I'm clinging to the lower gas rate. There's a board on money saving expert which is hot on these details though, you might get a good head-up there.

We have an everhot (electric storage range) which accounts for a lot of our usage. We don't have an EV but are likely to get one when my current car finally dies.

Anyone know of any other good cheap tariffs we could charge the battery on at nights?

We are on Economy 7 with octopus. The day rate is higher but if you can supplement or replace grid power with PV during the day then it should save you money.

We have a 7kWh array which maxes about 40kWH in summer but single figures around now - might be nothing on a really overcast day, but heating is gas.
We are due to get batteries fitted and then I'm going recheck our usage and see if we could benefit from E7 at all.

Yesterday we generated less than 1kWh. On Thursday we generated over 10kWh. It really does matter how much cloud there is at this time of year.

It's basically negligible vs summer. Even on a totally clear December sunny day you only get a few hrs of moderate generation as the sun angle is so low. 4Kw system, On a 'bright' cloudy day like today it peaks at maybe a few hundred watts for a few hours.

We have 12 panels and a battery. We are not at home at present but this is what our app says we are doing today in South of UK

Right now, we are doing 941w, but it is swamped by my teen enjoying the 10kw shower. 🙄

Approximately nothing.

My house has a background usage of about 300-350 watts from fridges, freezers, things on standby. The panels are making around that, between about 10am and 3pm. Around 20p in the day?

When we had a few hazy sunny days about a week ago, they made a bit under half their rated power during the same hours. So not enough to run the tumble drier or oven, but enough to knock about 10p an hour off the bill.

I am on the South Coast so about the most sunlight in the country.

Hmm, I'll not get too excited for a couple of months then!

How much are the batteries roughly ? We've panels and I E just gone onto an EV tariff so dishwasher, washer etc all now run during the night,

I have had 14 panels fitted two weeks ago for 8k the batteries would have been another 7k. For very little gain as I understand.

It depends on how your house functions I think. I certainly think that solar immersion is more useful than batteries for many people. For us we have an everhot and so it will be useful to be able to power that from the battery in the evening.

We have 5.6 kw of panels with fitted optimisers and 8.2 kw of battery plus a solar immersion feed.

I don't know the broken down cost but the total cost was just under £13k.

There are a lot of scam companies out there. My friend has just signed a contract for 15 panels plus a battery for £32k after a high pressure sales pitch in her home! I've made her cancel it.