Solar panels with no smart meter?

The balancing game is complex, I remember talking to department managers about projected down time for machines, which would change their decision as to if worth moving labour to another machine, but to project how long it will take to locate a fault is hard, once fault is known OK, but once fault is known often just a couple of minutes until running again.

OK we can work out that during the adverts in the world cup the power use may go up as kettles are switched on, but with batteries even that is absorbed locally.

Talking to neighbours it seems this area smart meters don't work, the reception required is simply not there, so they are not being fitted in this area, so I will just need to use the two meters, one import and one export.
 
StephenStephen said:
Hi John, here's a starting place: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-sum_game
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Fair enough, and thanks. Much of my life involves maths, but not in fields such as gaming or economics, so I was not familiar with this bit of jargon. However, now that I know what you were referring to, I have already acknowledged that it is not a "zero sum game", when I wrote:
As things are ('in the current situation') the primary means of inducing people to shift demand to a period when supply otherwise would exceed demand is to provide 'financial incentives' (mediated via TOU tariffs) - and, as you say, if that shift of demand can (in the sort of circumstances you describe) result in a reduction in generation cost at that point in time.
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However, as I went in to say ...
However, that does not alter the fact that those who have (and 'take advantage of') the TOU tariffs are then paying less for their electricity at that point in time than they would be paying if everyone was paying the same for electricity at that point in time, whereas those not using such tariffs would be paying more than they would be paying if everyone was paying the same.
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StephenStephen said:
Here's an analogy: .... -I sell tomatoes Monday to Friday ... -On Friday I can either sell them cheap to people with tomato soup makers (TOU), or I have to pay to have them disposed of (curtailment) .... -Being able to sell them cheap on Friday, instead of paying to have them disposed of, means I don't have to charge as much on Monday to Thursday to make the same money.
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Indeed. However, if, without any human intervention, an automated system automatically diverted any tomatoes remaining on Friday to soup manufacture, then, again, you wouldn't have to charge as much on Monday to Thursday (and Friday) as would be the case if you had to pay for disposal of leftovers - but that could be done in an equitable fashion, with everyone paying the same (at all times), rather than some paying more (on some days) than others.

However, as I've said, unless/until such systems exist, such that we have to rely of human responses to financial incentives, the inequalities are probably something that we have to inevitably live with.

Kind Regards, John
 
StephenStephen said:
I would love to live in a world where supply and demand were balanced by availability and need, I really would.
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I'm sure that we all would. It obviously will never be totally attainable, but one imagines that 'systems' will gradually move us in that direction.

One of the inevitable problems of an automated system is that it has to take into account the 'requirements' of individual consumers, requirements which can't necessarily be changed by any amount of incentivisation. For example, if (the timing of) all the EV charging in the country were 'under central control', I imagine that could go a fair way to balancing supply and demand - but that would quite often not correspond with the actual 'charging requirements' of consumers.
StephenStephen said:
However, the suggestion that TOU tariffs become increasingly redundant as automation matches supply and demand more closely, carries the same weight as the suggestion that price differences and fluctuations become increasingly redundant in the cost of tomatoes, or milk or bananas or X-boxes or televisions etc.
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I don't really understand that comment. It surely is the case that more balanced supply and demand become (by whatever process), the less need will there be for prices to vary according to TOU isn't it? At a crude level, with my E7 tariff, the difference between 'peak' and 'cheap' rate electricity prices has diminished dramatically during the 35 or so years I've had it - and I can but presume that reflects a reduced need to incentivise night-time usage?
StephenStephen said:
I really don't like the inherent inequality and inhumanity in this system of exchange, but it doesn't apply to electricity any more than it applies to any other set of goods or services.
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As I've said, influencing human behaviour/decisions by means of financial incentives (which inevitably creates the 'inequalities' is the primary approach available to us at present, and I see no practical way of avoiding that for the time being. However, as I've been trying to say, I would hope that things will change in the (very) long term.

Kind Regards, John
 
Well, British Gas said I needed a smart meter to be paid for export, so smart meter fitted on third visit, no payment for export, they said form in wrong format, which did not make sense, as it was their form, tried many times to get it sorted, including returning to the installers, who said move suppliers, but by that time, I had an off-peak supply, and to leave early would cost, so waited until finished and then moved to Octopus on 10th April 2025, the payment for export started around 1st May 2025, so paid £336.77 for export since May.

As said, we did start to take notice of electric usage once panels were in, and we also doubled up on battery size, we are saving at least £100 a month, but changing electric cost makes it hard to give an exact figure.

Total cost of electric since moving to Octopus £50.13 and that includes the standing charge.

I run out of power at 4:50 pm today (27th), yesterday (26th) did not run out, have considered a third battery, but it is only really needed in Winter, so not sure it worth it.
 
Sounds like they are working well!
Good to hear your export is now being paid. It makes those days using grid a little better.
Do you charge the batteries overnight on a cheap rate and dump excess later?
 
SpecialK said:
Do you charge the batteries overnight on a cheap rate and dump excess later?
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I charge overnight, but do not dump excess later.

It seems some inverters are smart, and you can relinquish control to the energy provider, and they reward you by giving you special rates. But mine has an option to set it to do things at a set time, but the batteries are only just big enough. So with 6.4 kWh of battery, there are days when I have to use peak power.

So I looked at Agile and Go non-smart tariffs. The Agile is designed for solar panels, and you can make money exporting at set times, but 4 pm to 7 pm, in winter, I often run out of power, so each day before 4 pm I would need to charge the battery, and also decide how much to export. Also, the off-peak cost more than the export rate, so need to be careful not to import too much.

The Go tariff, off-peak, is less than export rate, so you can fully charge batteries overnight without loosing capacity later in the day mattering, if import at 8.5p and export at 15p then sooner you start exporting more money made, so can set to charge 00:30 to 5:30 and let it do its own thing.

And if I do run out of battery, 31.94p/kWh is not that high, and we can see at a glance
1767806161661.png
most of our use is off-peak, I want a tariff I can forget about, must admit it has gone from 30.17p to 31.94p without my realising the cost had gone up. But my wife deals with Octopus, so she may have had an email telling her the price had gone up.
 
have you seen todays Agile prices ? 50 - 60p most of the day
would not normally have charged the batter at 16p (true 21p) but did so, and now it looks like being a sunny day so probaly should not have bothered


just shows where all the wind power is, we're becalmed here in Scotland and the cost sky rocket.
 
Why Not Indeed said:
Yeah, this is the only time I can ever recall prices being high all day.
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one of those rare moments where the wind is not blowing anywhere - (a lul before a storm !)

annoying I charged my batteries up overnight as it is clear skies here and I am now exporting at 5.24 kW
 
Down to 39% charged at the moment, missy dull day here in Wales. Worried me when I saw your charges with Agile, checked Go, and still 31.94p/kWh peak, this is not the smart Go, just standard.

It was the problem knowing when to charge/discharge batteries that made me move to "Go", I note my son's rate also with "Go" is far better, at 6p/kWh, due to smart rate and getting car from Octopus as well. But he pointed out, there is a sweet point in EV use, if you don't use the car enough it costs more, and if you use it a lot it costs more, 5 hours is not long enough to fully charge an EV from empty at 7 kW. He's use, does put him in the sweet point, but once you can't get enough in 5 hours, the cost goes silly.
 
Munroast said:
just shows where all the wind power is, we're becalmed here in Scotland and the cost sky rocket.
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I suspect that the upcoming storm will soon change that :-)

However, ironically, once the 'calm' turns into a 'storm' the wind speeds may become sufficiently high that the wind turbines have to be 'disabled'!
 

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