Yes, it’s really disheartening if you try hard and can’t quite make that crucial 4-7 segment count. I did do it in September and am looking forward to the October challenge! There’ve been some great suggestions on this forum re the precise measures people take.
My wife and I have rather an old PV system (10 years) but it’s still going strong, but it’s not big (nominally 3.2, but more like 2.6 kW): here in Sunderland we’re lucky at this time of year to generate a total of 4 or 5 kWh daily, maybe 700 Watts an hour if it’s really sunny, and that daily total will decrease to around 1 to 2 in December/January. But even so we’re really rigorous about trying to use heavy stuff during daylight hours; we’re both pensioners, so it’s easier for us than most folk, I know.
What I did do was get a small (24volt 100AH) LiFePo4 battery a year or so ago, and, boy, what a difference that makes! Yes it’s expensive to buy, but by charging the battery with a relatively simple variable amp charger (it can be manually set at anything up to 11 Amps) during daylight, even if the grid has to provide any shortfall, I run the house completely off the battery, between 1600 and 0800 hrs. In the summer it’s a much shorter night, only working between 2200 and 0500. That’s one small chest freezer, a medium ‘fridge/freezer combination, and all the other usual modern paraphernalia that are always on. To anybody who’s got solar panels, I would heartily recommend a battery…obviously not just for the relatively insignificant (for many people, certainly when contemplating a capital outlay of hundreds of pounds) financial returns of this particular incentive, but over the years you will notice the difference. And in fine weather we’re exporting a lot of our surplus rooftop generation anyway, which always annoyed me!
In our relatively small mid-terrace, for two oldies like us our average daily (24hr) electricity usage is very low, only around 3kWh, with average daily purchase from the grid of 0.15 kW in summer rising to 1.5 kW per 24 hours in mid-winter, so for us it’s doable with the battery to use very little grid at night. But we each have iPads, the house has 5 interlinked mains alarms, the usual boiler and room stats and router all the background stuff and lighting (LED) etc, but we rarely use our electric oven or air fryer or microwave or dishwasher or washing machine (never for those last two items!) or our electric chainsaw, (and we never use a tumble dryer, and can’t afford changing to an EV just yet) or outside bright sunny weather. We’ve been able to afford this small battery only in the last year or so, but for anybody who can find the pennies (or who actually has a battery now and can time it to run the house between 4-7) it’s worth asking the advice of a specialist installer or doing a bit of research yourself.
For small users like me this OVO incentive is a real boon, and I’m grateful for it: never thought I’d see the day when I admitted being grateful to an energy company!! But I am, actually, as it’s the first time ever that we have ever had a little bit of control and a concrete financial incentive for attempting to shift usage out of peak hours.
good luck this month everyone!…
