5 hours ago, Stonekeeper said:

So charge a 2kwh battery up over night and the next day save 34p

£600 for the battery

3,000 days later (over 8 years) you save £400........... 13p a day if the battery did last that long

It is at least £1 a day on the 5 kwh from solar and nighttime loaded electricity which is free or 8.5p per kwh. Almost every day since the vernal equinox I have managed to supply all of what would have been the use of the expensive daily electricity at 28p per kwh but used a combination of nighttime and free solar and free Octopus sessions so an average of about 5p per kwh so saving around 23p per kwh or about £1.15 a day or put another way £100 a quarter.

Usually get additional solar generators ie the combo device of battery, solar input circuitry and invertor for AC output, 1 kw, or 2.4 kwh in one of the devices case, at the Black Friday events. Did order one a few days ago that wad £299, 1.2 kwh with 1.5 kw ac supply and good 12v output to and could take 650w solar input to charge the batteries during the day. But they failed to supply but accidentally sent me a 100 Ah, 12.8v lithium battery in error. Have credited me for the solar generator bur not sent me a returns label, may have forgotten to do so so this would be my first decent sized battery. I happen to already have a 1 kw 12v DC to AC convertor so that may pair well.

Pay back probably a couple of years but this is diminishing quarter by quarter and I have High Hopes that Next month Black Friday will have some awesome bargains judging by the high rate of fall in lithium battery prices and massive competition between Allpower, Bluetti, Ecoflow, Jackery and other big players in this market.

Edited 14 October, 202514 Oct by lol-lol

7 minutes ago, lol-lol said:

It is at least £1 a day on the 5 kwh from solar and nighttime loaded electricity which is free or 8.5p per kwh.

My comments were regarding a 2kwh battery for £600

Not your home power station which if i had the savings for and the time left to make it economic I would be doing.

9 hours ago, Graham Butcher said:

I bet your energy supplier is frothing at the mouth, seeing the lengths you go to to avoid paying for power all day unless of course it is in the free period and they will see your demand shoot up to a massive peak in order to cram every single watt of energy into your storage and cars.

They encourage it by their pricing and their margins will be even bigger perhaps on the free sessions when giving it away for free but being paid 42p for taking tge power tgen, very nice margin.

Win for supplier win for users who can flexible use tge power when free.

Losers are those who pay a day long flat rate for not playing the electricity market and pay the sucker All Day rate.

Just now, Stonekeeper said:

My comments were regarding a 2kwh battery for £600

Not your home power station which if i had the savings for and the time left to make it economic I would be doing.

They were that £600 and more but usually not just a battery but a combo device of battery, invertor for the DC to AC plus the solar input typically up to 60v or 80v so 3 or 4 solar panels, or 6 or 8 in parallel and series combo, or even more of course 9, 12,15 etc.

150 Ah 12.8 Lithium battery ie 1.92 kwh, is £300, Ecoworthy, good stuff have bought their batteries and solar tracking arrays. So actually about what you were saying above. Lithium Iron Phosphate so thousands of charges before it stop to even 80% capacity. Wish my Allpower was LFP but my Bluetti EB180 is but invertor and solar input not quite a good as the S2000 pro. Be interesting to see the how low the new Apex 300 system, want to see it under £1k and with that beast even air fryers, kettles, oven could be run from it.

50 minutes ago, lol-lol said:

They encourage it by their pricing and their margins will be even bigger perhaps on the free sessions when giving it away for free but being paid 42p for taking tge power tgen, very nice margin.

Win for supplier win for users who can flexible use tge power when free.

Losers are those who pay a day long flat rate for not playing the electricity market and pay the sucker All Day rate.

Thats the problem, right there of course, besides the time taken to pay for itself. and the installation etc, but of course, once again, not everyone has the free capital laying around in the bank etc in the first place to pay for the required gear to take advantage, so once again there is a multi-tier system in place. When it should be the least well off and pensioners get the benefit of the free/cheaper power and lift them out of fuel poverty, but once again, it is the better heeled in society that are getting all the benefits.

1 hour ago, Graham Butcher said:

Thats the problem, right there of course, besides the time taken to pay for itself. and the installation etc, but of course, once again, not everyone has the free capital laying around in the bank etc in the first place to pay for the required gear to take advantage, so once again there is a multi-tier system in place. When it should be the least well off and pensioners get the benefit of the free/cheaper power and lift them out of fuel poverty, but once again, it is the better heeled in society that are getting all the benefits.

Me neither. Pay for on Am to get some kick back, move the debt over to Lloyds at 4.9 pa APR and use the lower electricity bills to gradually pay it off.

Over a fifth of pensioners are Higher rate tax payers and that percentage is increasing due to the £70B pa of avoidance with salary sacrifice and massive drawdown of tax free lump sums and six figure crystallised Drawdown funds.

Whilst I don't want to see pensioners either cold or hungry there are plenty of systems where they should have saved up for their retirement and now bleating for more handouts seems a bit of a cheek, how much tax and NI did you pay in your working career.

That said I think the UK government should stop excepting NI for salary sacrifice ie the 2% over £50k pa rate, and maybe reduce the amount of percentage of income exempting for the 40% and 45% levels to say 39 and 44 and gradually bring it down and possible reduce the 25 % that can be tax free, down to 24% and then even lower to perhaps 20% in a few years time. Not until I have drawn mine out later this month of course.

More tax receipts and we can give more handouts to pensioners, disabled, mothers etc.

1 hour ago, Graham Butcher said:

Thats the problem, right there of course, besides the time taken to pay for itself. and the installation etc, but of course, once again, not everyone has the free capital laying around in the bank etc in the first place to pay for the required gear to take advantage, so once again there is a multi-tier system in place. When it should be the least well off and pensioners get the benefit of the free/cheaper power and lift them out of fuel poverty, but once again, it is the better heeled in society that are getting all the benefits.

I didn't pay any upfront capital for my Powerwall. 0% finance: they turned up, installed it, I started paying the month after, pay for 3 years.

https://heatable.co.uk/

If after 0% VAT, 0% loan and so many cheap options, you still think this is worthy of complaining unfair playing field.........

1 hour ago, wyx087 said:

I didn't pay any upfront capital for my Powerwall. 0% finance: they turned up, installed it, I started paying the month after, pay for 3 years.

If after 0% VAT, 0% loan and so many cheap options, you still think this is worthy of complaining unfair playing field.........

If the suppliers are being paid something like 42p a kw to take this excess power then they should be prioritising the less well of in society or, give everyone so many hours of free power per month etc, because although you used 0% finance to fund your gear, you are still better heeled than millions of others are, as there is zero chance of many of them, me included in getting any sort of finance even at 0% interest. In my case the only source of income I have is my pension which barely covers my commitments, and I know that there are many others out there, who aren't pensioners, and are in employment, but still only able to earn the national minimum hourly wage, and many who work in the retail sector for instance are either still on zero hours or 6 to 12 hour per week contracts, surely you must be aware of that?

Anyway, this is all getting off topic, so I think we should try and bring it back around to being more in line with that.

15 minutes ago, Graham Butcher said:

If the suppliers are being paid something like 42p a kw to take this excess power then they should be prioritising the less well of in society or, give everyone so many hours of free power per month etc, because although you used 0% finance to fund your gear, you are still better heeled than millions of others are, as there is zero chance of many of them, me included in getting any sort of finance even at 0% interest. In my case the only source of income I have is my pension which barely covers my commitments, and I know that there are many others out there, who aren't pensioners, and are in employment, but still only able to earn the national minimum hourly wage, and many who work in the retail sector for instance are either still on zero hours or 6 to 12 hour per week contracts, surely you must be aware of that?

Anyway, this is all getting off topic, so I think we should try and bring it back around to being more in line with that.

Sounds a bit Marxist ?

1 hour ago, lol-lol said:

Sounds a bit Marxist ?

Nope, not in the slightest, think about it, loads of pensioners have lost their £200 winter fuel payment, energy companies have had massive windfall profits and yet those that could clearly well afford to pay are enjoying massive savings, something not right there.

9 hours ago, Graham Butcher said:

If the suppliers are being paid something like 42p a kw to take this excess power then they should be prioritising the less well of in society or, give everyone so many hours of free power per month etc, because although you used 0% finance to fund your gear, you are still better heeled than millions of others are, as there is zero chance of many of them, me included in getting any sort of finance even at 0% interest. In my case the only source of income I have is my pension which barely covers my commitments, and I know that there are many others out there, who aren't pensioners, and are in employment, but still only able to earn the national minimum hourly wage, and many who work in the retail sector for instance are either still on zero hours or 6 to 12 hour per week contracts, surely you must be aware of that?

Anyway, this is all getting off topic, so I think we should try and bring it back around to being more in line with that.

How do you propose this prioritisation happen in a way that makes sense financially for the energy suppliers?

They do give everyone hours of free energy (not power, kwh not kw) when there is excess.

Key here is excess. Having more and more people able to time-shift their demand according to grid variability makes sure the average price of electricity goes down. Then, everyone's price of electricity goes down because there's less demand when production is being strained. Simple economics 101.

Truth for EV (and other connected battery) is that they can help shift grid demands, enabling more renewable installation.

7 hours ago, Graham Butcher said:

energy companies have had massive windfall profits

Correction, fossil fuel based energy producing company had massive windfall profit.

Whilst being the most expensive source of electricity generation.

BBC News

What is the windfall tax on oil and gas companies and how...

The government is increasing the windfall tax on oil and gas companies and extending it to March 2029.

Office for Budget Responsibility

A more comprehensive measure of the costs of energy - Off...

An estimate of the full cost of different energy sources to the power system needs to reflect more than just the construction and operating costs of energy generators that are captured in the level...

11 hours ago, lol-lol said:

Over a fifth of pensioners are Higher rate tax payers

That means nearly 80% of us are not! Please do NOT make the incorrect assumption that pensioners are well off!

Despite having worked exclusively in the allegedly important high tech industries I was made redundant 4 times during my working life and had to restart from a lower salary each time, so my private pensions do not match those of someone lucky enough (like my father) to work for one firm for 40+ years.

So my pensions income does not meet the suggested level for a "comfortable" life style and I have to carefully consider every outgoing.

9 minutes ago, wyx087 said:

Having more and more people able to time-shift their demand according to grid variability

This requires the customer to have the means to invest in the equipment to store the energy,why don't the energy companies buy the equipment to store the excess then they could charge the average price throughout the day.

Because it's too expensive? Will affect their profits?

We will end up being mandated to plug cars in every time we are home whether needing a charge or not, the energy company will then drain and re- charge "our" batteries for the departure time we set. Optimizing the energy but transferring wear and tear to the customer.

Another idea would be help everyone to have battery storage in the property so the time shifting could happen automatically and again it could be same price per unit throughout the 24hrs.

The current system is an economic divide.

Energy should be a National asset.

In other news my gas has gone down 0.054p per unit but the standing charge rose 4p per day. Another fiddle.

Keeping the standing charge high means lower users can save proportionately less and less by reducing usage – that disempowers them – and is a disincentive to energy reduction generally, which is not great for the environment.

6 minutes ago, Stonekeeper said:

This requires the customer to have the means to invest in the equipment to store the energy,why don't the energy companies buy the equipment to store the excess then they could charge the average price throughout the day.

Because it's too expensive? Will affect their profits?

Energy producing companies are investing in grid scale batteries or other form of storage.

For example: https://electrek.co/2023/04/12/uk-largest-ever-grid-scale-battery/

As well as giant interconnects to mainland.

8 minutes ago, Stonekeeper said:

We will end up being mandated to plug cars in every time we are home whether needing a charge or not, the energy company will then drain and re- charge "our" batteries for the departure time we set. Optimizing the energy but transferring wear and tear to the customer.

I think that's a good thing. EV have embedded production carbon and batteries have calendar aging, it's a case of use it or loose it. So getting more out of these battery is ultimately good for everyone.

But I think it will be just like free sessions or off-peak pricing, financially driven rather than mandated.

9 minutes ago, Stonekeeper said:

Another idea would be help everyone to have battery storage in the property so the time shifting could happen automatically and again it could be same price per unit throughout the 24hrs.

The current system is an economic divide.

Energy should be a National asset.

That's a very good idea. get battery installed into people who needs it the most.

Sunday at Everything Electric, they did mention working with government to enable renters to install home battery and left at the property so that renters are able to take advantage of off-peak tariffs. But it was mentioned in passing and I can't find anything concrete online.

I agree, energy should be a national asset. Building renewables need to be done under a nationalised entity, aka. GB Energy.

But I don't believe there's an economic divide in the same way EV's are now no longer an economic divide with so many choices and cheap second hand options.

3 minutes ago, wyx087 said:

But I don't believe there's an economic divide

Do you not believe there are people with no central heating that still use 2kw convector heaters throughout the day?

6 minutes ago, Stonekeeper said:

Do you not believe there are people with no central heating that still use 2kw convector heaters throughout the day?

There certainly are. But I believe that is by choice if property owner, or forced to due to bad landlords. Latter should be reported to the council.

All rental properties now have a minimum energy efficiency rating.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/domestic-private-rented-property-minimum-energy-efficiency-standard-landlord-guidance

Resistive heaters (inc oil based radiator which we have one from many years ago) are the least economical way to heat.

58 minutes ago, PetrolDave said:

That means nearly 80% of us are not! Please do NOT make the incorrect assumption that pensioners are well off!

Despite having worked exclusively in the allegedly important high tech industries I was made redundant 4 times during my working life and had to restart from a lower salary each time, so my private pensions do not match those of someone lucky enough (like my father) to work for one firm for 40+ years.

So my pensions income does not meet the suggested level for a "comfortable" life style and I have to carefully consider every outgoing.

There is a distribution curve of course and interesting the UK Government came out with 3 figures for subsistence, comfortable and luxury which wax 19k, 33k and 50k pa from memory. Based on two retirees but as we know many of us are single retirees and expenses are not half those figures above ie 10k, 17k and 25k as many costs are same if single or pair.

What many have not realised is that the golden, but not perfect, 4% pension rules means one needs to achieve a pension pot of 1.25m to be in the luxury ie couple of holidays and nice car zone and even 800k pension pot (s) single or combined for comfortable living.

Again the figures are there that half are not making any real savings and the other half have an average pension pot of around 150k, nowhere near enough for comfortable or luxury living.

It is true that using a little money, for a cheap EV or solar panels, batteries xan really reduce those big outgoings of running a car or home. Be pleasantly surprised how many Renault Zoes there are running around here around Lisbon. Mine for the last 4 years had been such a cheap transport car.

44 minutes ago, Stonekeeper said:

Do you not believe there are people with no central heating that still use 2kw convector heaters throughout the day?

And now can't afford to run those 2kW convector heaters so they wear multiple layers of clothing and sit under blankets - BBC West showed several people having to do this last Winter, and I don't see any reason to believe it won't be the same for them this Winter.

1 minute ago, PetrolDave said:

And now can't afford to run those 2kW convector heaters so they wear multiple layers of clothing and sit under blankets - BBC West showed several people having to do this last Winter, and I don't see any reason to believe it won't be the same for them this Winter.

Going back a long time now but when i started work in the late 70s, I was employed at a 2 screen Cinema open 11am to 10:30pm ish depending upon film length.

We had 25p admission for OAPs before 6pm.

A few came at 11am and stayed all day, the Manager even allowed them to switch screens.

Never thought that they were just choosing to do this, who would choose to watch the same films at least ten times in a week.

1 hour ago, wyx087 said:

There certainly are. But I believe that is by choice if property owner, or forced to due to bad landlords. Latter should be reported to the council.

All rental properties now have a minimum energy efficiency rating.

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/domestic-private-rented-property-minimum-energy-efficiency-standard-landlord-guidance

Resistive heaters (inc oil based radiator which we have one from many years ago) are the least economical way to heat.

You really do not have a clue how some people are forced to live and many are wondering where their next meal is coming from.

29 minutes ago, Graham Butcher said:

You really do not have a clue how some people are forced to live and many are wondering where their next meal is coming from.

I don't believe this minority is represented in this car ownership forum.

And I believe this climate crisis will only exacerbate the problem for the poorest in every society across the world. We, with privilege of personal mobility, should do our bits to ease climate change.

2 hours ago, wyx087 said:

But I don't believe there's an economic divide in the same way EV's are now no longer an economic divide with so many choices and cheap second hand options.

2 hours ago, wyx087 said:

There certainly are. But I believe that is by choice if property owner, or forced to due to bad landlords. Latter should be reported to the council.

Wow!!! - those statements are very naive as a minimum and show that you appear to be quite 'out of touch' in relation to how many people in this country live on a daily basis and are hand-to-mouth in terms of finances. Mind you, and please don't take this as a personal insult, it is typical of the attitudes of many people who are generally well off and also of people who constantly 'promote' or 'evangelise' about 'EVs' and 'Environmental / Green' initiatives.

Of course there's always a spread.

But let's lay the facts out, what percentage of people are "hand-to-mouth" in terms of finances? Within those percentage, how many actually owns vehicle?

People speak as though they are speaking for the poorest, yet drive around in their personal transport on the roads designed to be car centric and punish those who are not able to own cars.

People view 'Environmental / Green' initiatives as too expensive. But it's not much different likes of Costco, where the well off are economically "rewarded" for buying in bulk. Are you pretending you've never taken advantage of 3 for 2 deals to stock up on stuff? The economy of scale in capitalism has always been built this way from day one.

Free electricity that anyone can participate (as long as have freely fitted smart meter)

https://www.uswitch.com/mobile-app/power-hours/25-hours-free-electricity/?lid=aezqoejwk55u