patp Posted October 11, 2022 Share Posted October 11, 2022 Having had battles with all the other utilities why would the electricity companies be any different? We have 46 solar panels installed. During last winter we had an emergency 3 phase meter installed. It was an emergency because husband was undergoing cancer treatment which gave him heart failure and we were living in our caravan. Fast forward to now and we have only just been billed. It is Octopus and they have not allowed for any of the solar that we have been exporting. They say we do not have a contract to sell it to them. Is this right that they can collect our solar output with no payment for it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billt Posted October 11, 2022 Share Posted October 11, 2022 Yes, if you don't have an export contract they won't pay for exported power. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patp Posted October 11, 2022 Author Share Posted October 11, 2022 Crazy situation! I wouldn't mind but I had to chased them for an invoice. I had heard nothing from them since the installation. I heard recently that if you have not been billed for a year they cannot ask for retrospective payment. Of course I only heard this after I had chased them for the invoice. Over £1200 to find for them now. These utilities are a disgrace! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dillsue Posted October 11, 2022 Share Posted October 11, 2022 Did you have another thread about the install of this system?? I thought that some/all 3 phase meters did net metering so if you export on one phase and import on another, the units exported would offset those imported. Net result is youd only pay for any units imported that were more than those exported. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patp Posted October 11, 2022 Author Share Posted October 11, 2022 No, not me @Dillsue. It sounds interesting though! I am so tired dealing with these utilities :(. It puts me off contacting them. Took us a year to get Openreach to lay a line about a hundred yards. Anglian Water charged us £17K to move a water main. Now we have to fight Octopus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamyTea Posted October 11, 2022 Share Posted October 11, 2022 38 minutes ago, Dillsue said: thought that some/all 3 phase meters did net metering so if you export on one phase and import on another, the units exported would offset those imported It may have that capability, does not mean it is used. Hate to say it @patp, but I suspect you missed the boat on the last year's exports. Just bite the bullet and get a proper contract with them, they seem to be offering the best rates. There is ideology and there is pragmatism. Go for the latter when money is involved. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kelvin Posted October 11, 2022 Share Posted October 11, 2022 Email Greg Jackson (Octopus CEO) I did and my problem got resolved. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joth Posted October 11, 2022 Share Posted October 11, 2022 I'm afraid it's unlikely even CEO intervention will fix this, as you have the right to shop around for export contracts, there's no way for them to know retrospectively whether you spent the last year being paid by some other provider. Plus there's a bundle of paperwork to provide before they would start payments. It's pretty atrocious they didn't provide an initial bill for a year despite your chasing though 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kelvin Posted October 11, 2022 Share Posted October 11, 2022 Sure but worth a try. Explain your situation including the health challenges. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patp Posted October 12, 2022 Author Share Posted October 12, 2022 Thanks all. I will give ole Greg a go and then get on with my life. I do, however, feel a letter to my MP coming on about the atrocious service we get from all the utilities. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dillsue Posted October 12, 2022 Share Posted October 12, 2022 Before you spend time writing, you might want to explore net metering. If its as I think it could be you should be able to drastically reduce your bills by offsetting any export against import. Search for "net metering" on the forum. Also try asking your electrician to see what he knows and if your export and import are on different phases. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ferdinand Posted October 12, 2022 Share Posted October 12, 2022 I'd support the letter to the CEO. Octopus trade on good customer service and being nice - TBF they have achieved a Which top rated assessment 5 years in a row - so perhaps it may work. F 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patp Posted November 12, 2022 Author Share Posted November 12, 2022 Update on this thread. They have not chased the amount outstanding (£1200) and it is not mentioned on our recent bills. Now I have a different query from you wise ones. Remembering that we have 46 solar panels and live in sunny East Anglia do you think that a bill of 212.6 kwh from 10th October to 4th November and 94.2 kwh from 4th November to 10th November sound right? It is a three bedroom bungalow with a separate dining room. There are just the two of us. We do not have any hobbies that use electricity. Husband does have a mobility scooter that he uses daily to go the village shop. Otherwise we just use normal amounts of power. The heating has not been on. I try to use the washing machine and dishwasher when the sun is out. I am a fanatical scrooge over electricity and always turn off lights and appliances that are not necessary. I am wondering if the solar panels are not connected properly to be powering our appliances before the grid takes over. There is a little light that blinks all the time the solar panels are collecting power but is it being used to power our appliances? Octopus has asked us for a number from the Electrical Contractor so that they can start us off on a feed in tariff but the Contractor has not supplied it yet because they have to get it from UK Power Network (groan ) Not that this, I would have thought, has anything to do with our solar panels powering our appliances. Or does it? The sparky that did all our work tells us that they have had a terrible time with a duff office manager making all sorts of errors. No one ever came out, from the solar panel team, to give us the promised talk on the use of the solar and the installation of a battery. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted November 12, 2022 Share Posted November 12, 2022 At this time of year, solar PV output is very close to minimum,nothing like what they generate in the summer. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onoff Posted November 12, 2022 Share Posted November 12, 2022 41 minutes ago, ProDave said: At this time of year, solar PV output is very close to minimum,nothing like what they generate in the summer. As in even with a clear blue sky in winter the Sun is too low? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patp Posted November 12, 2022 Author Share Posted November 12, 2022 It is above the horizon! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dillsue Posted November 12, 2022 Share Posted November 12, 2022 Yep, winter generation is nothing like summer but a 46 panel array could be quite sizeable in kwp 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onoff Posted November 12, 2022 Share Posted November 12, 2022 6 minutes ago, patp said: It is above the horizon! Yes but the angle is much lower in winter. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Radian Posted November 12, 2022 Share Posted November 12, 2022 1 hour ago, patp said: 212.6 kwh from 10th October to 4th November and 94.2 kwh from 4th November to 10th November So average of 8.5kWh/day in October, 15kWh/day in Novemeber. Something's almost doubling your consumption this month - any idea what it might be? 46 panels on 3-phase sounds like 11.5kW peak coming from older 250W modules unless the inverter is throttled. Should still be generating enough to null some of your consumption. My little 3.2kWp array generated 8kWh today, down here on the South coast where it's been sunny all day. On an intermittently cloudy day like yesterday it only managed half that. That meant 12kWh imported from the grid plus 4kWh self generated = 16kWh = typical day for the three of us in a 4-bed detached property around 300m2 Your generation should be at least three times ours so 24kWh today, 12kWh yesterday roughly speaking. That should be covering your usage but we don't have a figure for your generation - only what you import. What metering do you have? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamyTea Posted November 12, 2022 Share Posted November 12, 2022 (edited) 2 hours ago, patp said: It is above the horizon! Shorter hours of daylight as well as the 'sunbeams' travelling though more out the turbid atmosphere. Solar power follows the product of 3 sine waves (or 3 cosine was depending on how you want to work it). In other words, it is not linear. What does PVGIS have to say about your setup? Edited November 12, 2022 by SteamyTea Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Radian Posted November 12, 2022 Share Posted November 12, 2022 55 minutes ago, SteamyTea said: What does PVGIS have to say about your setup? I already peeked with a huge set of assumptions: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patp Posted November 13, 2022 Author Share Posted November 13, 2022 It is not that I do not realise that solar will be much less during the autumn/winter but that I am thinking that it is not connected to our supply at all. As I said the contractor had problems and we have only had the sparky that does the house electrics here. He confesses that the solar is not his "thing". Once the solar was installed, therefore, could it be that it is not supplying us at all? We have a small box (emlite) that tells me that, since installation, we have generated 8500 kwh. Have any of those kwh gone to towards our consumption or could it be that it is not configured right and is just going straight to the grid? As I said above we were due to have their solar guy come out and talk us through all the ins and outs of solar generation but that did not happen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Radian Posted November 13, 2022 Share Posted November 13, 2022 20 minutes ago, patp said: We have a small box (emlite) that tells me that, since installation, we have generated 8500 kwh. If this meter sits between the Solar PV inverter and your house mains wiring, then it's showing the power you're generating - which necessarily supplies your house consumption, and any excess which goes out to the grid. Only if it were connected to the wrong (incoming) side of your utility meter could your Solar PV be not supplying you at all. This would be an unlikely mistake to have been made by the electrician, but not impossible. Can you post photos of the contents of your meter box? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted November 13, 2022 Share Posted November 13, 2022 Can you show a picture of your solar PV meter with as much of the visible wiring connected to it showing in the picture as possible, and a picture of your main incoming house meter and your house consumer unit. Then we might be able to piece together if it is wired correctly or not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billt Posted November 13, 2022 Share Posted November 13, 2022 If it's a 3 phase PV system but the house is only on one phase then you're likely to be only consuming 1/3 of the PV output. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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