Smart meters

[Alex321]

I'd love the ability to download the data, but not at the cost of the problems with them that I see being reported.

If you have solar panels or other renewable energy, and want to take full advantage, it works much better with smart meters, it isn't just about downloading the data.

Why do you need a smart meter to tell you when the cheapest rate is?

You don't need one to tell you when it is, but you DO need one to take advantage of it.

If you don't have a smart meter, the supplier doesn't know when you are using the electricity, so it is all charged at one rate (two if you have the old fashioned "night meter").

In the winter, we do the same and charge our battery between 1:30am and 5:00am, then use the power from that during the day, rather than from the grid.

But you need to have the half hourly readings to be able to do that.

One of the advantages is that some companies allow you to get a discount/reward if you reduced usage for critical hours during the week
Basically they are giving you a reward if you divert some usage from a busy time on the network to a less busy time

but to do that they need to have a smart meter sending a reading every x minutes (30 I think??)

personally I cheat and charge the battery for the solar system before the monitoring period starts then allow it to discharge during the period

sounds like cheating but the idea is to divert power usage on the network - which this does

This seems to be getting more common

That isn't cheating.

Octopus (and probably other suppliers) encourage you to do that. The whole point of this scheme is to shift usage from peak hours to off-peak times. Whether you do that by charging the battery off-peak, or by shifting your washing machine and cooker usage doesn't really matter.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

EDF seem to have a similar system where they encourage you to switch electric usage from peak times to other times


problem is that I have solar panels and feed energy back to them - so I have, logically, two connections to them

and their system can;t cope with that and the energy moving scheme at the same time
so I can;t use it

but if they actually want the energy usage to move - them people with batteries can help them do it more easily


weird systems

 

[dicko]

How are you finding this. It’s on my ‘possible’ list but not sure of the payback time. I might be dead before we see a profit. Would be interested to hear your experience.

We don’t look at payback times. We have had Tesla for almost two months now we top up Tesla between 2am and 5am it charges at 5kWh and the battery is full in about 2 hours on super cheap rate. The Tesla is linked to their weather satellites and if it’s going to be sunny it charges to say 70% so our solar can charge it up during the day but if it’s going to be cloudy 100% this is a real bonus we have to do absolutely nothing it looks after itself it’s also extremely accurate too.
Tesla can store 13.5kWh that’s more than we use on a cold winters day. Tesla is the Rolls Royce of batteries their expertise at manufacturing is world class. If it got stolen it won’t work again until Tesla configure it to work.
If you must look at payback times it’s going to be a very short time. One thing you must shop around there is some really greedy battery installers around you need to be paying around £7.5k. Good luck.
ps you program it using the Tesla app and your smartphone.

 

[Drago]

Tesla today use Panasonic and LG cells. Quality gear for sure, but nothing the likes of BMW, VW, etc, don't also use. Gone are the days when their batteries were half a generation ahead of anyone else.

They used to be the varsity for motor and motor efficiency, but that lead has also eroded

The one area where Tesla lead by a decent margin is in the system architecture. A model Y has a mile less wiring than a Ford Mach E,for example. It's going to take their rivals a while to figure that one out.

 

[All uphill]

We had a smart meter fitted years ago. The display was interesting for about ten minutes then it went into the box of shame with the other redundant tech - old phones, modems, kindles.

Now I use the dead period at the end of the year to review our utility tariffs and then just pay the bill.

 

[Tenkaykev]

We don’t look at payback times. We have had Tesla for almost two months now we top up Tesla between 2am and 5am it charges at 5kWh and the battery is full in about 2 hours on super cheap rate. The Tesla is linked to their weather satellites and if it’s going to be sunny it charges to say 70% so our solar can charge it up during the day but if it’s going to be cloudy 100% this is a real bonus we have to do absolutely nothing it looks after itself it’s also extremely accurate too.
Tesla can store 13.5kWh that’s more than we use on a cold winters day. Tesla is the Rolls Royce of batteries their expertise at manufacturing is world class. If it got stolen it won’t work again until Tesla configure it to work.
If you must look at payback times it’s going to be a very short time. One thing you must shop around there is some really greedy battery installers around you need to be paying around £7.5k. Good luck.
ps you program it using the Tesla app and your smartphone.

You have a 5 star battery there dicko. If I were looking at systems now then I'd certainly go for the new Tesla Powerwall 3. It's built in heating and cooling mean that you can utilise the full capacity of the battery even when the weather is freezing, whereas my Givenergy All in One has a reduced capacity below 20 degrees.
We're still seeing a great benefit from our solar and battery system, I'm on the Octopus Agile tariff and have it set up to charge at the lowest overnight rates even if we won't be using much electricity.

 

[dicko]

You have a 5 star battery there dicko. If I were looking at systems now then I'd certainly go for the new Tesla Powerwall 3. It's built in heating and cooling mean that you can utilise the full capacity of the battery even when the weather is freezing, whereas my Givenergy All in One has a reduced capacity below 20 degrees.
We're still seeing a great benefit from our solar and battery system, I'm on the Octopus Agile tariff and have it set up to charge at the lowest overnight rates even if we won't be using much electricity.

Yes agreed, it will be next spring/summer when we shall see its full potential. Our old batteries were fully charged by midday but now we can store the max of 13.5kWh. We will only be paying the meter rental to Octopus. To take full advantage of having solar and battery you must first have Smart Meters installed so you can take full advantage of the cheap or zero rates of electricity.