Solar Power Report: April 2025

2 days ago (Edited)

Things are ramping up with the solar as the days get longer. That does not mean it is sunny all the time, but the panels can get a surprising amount of power even when there are clouds.

So far this year the yield has been:

January: 95kWh
February: 228kWh
March: 676kWh
April: 927kWh

This is from 8kW of panels with a 5kW inverter and we have a 10kWh battery.

We seem to be doing better than last year, but then the weather has been pretty good. I just read that we may get droughts as we have not had enough rain over winter to fill the reservoirs.

April solar gain

You can see that the bulk of it is exported. I charge the battery every night as I pay less for that power than I get paid for exporting. This is with Octopus (referral link) who really encourage customers to reduce their usage. They do deals for solar panels and heat pumps. I was just talking to my pension adviser recently and told him what we are saving. He may look into solar too.

Power spend

We drew a little less from the grid this month, but that will largely depend on how often the car gets charged.

Export

The export income is quite nice and can cover both electricity and gas usage for the month. We are starting to build up some credit. Last year we made a lot less, but the export tariff went up a lot. Last year the export went up again in May and stayed around the same level for four months.

It is interesting to see what experience others have around the world with solar. It seems other electricity companies are not so encouraging, but I think there are savings to be made in most places, especially if hardware prices continue to drop. It may not be so good in the USA as many panels will come from China and be hit with the ridiculous panels. The Chinese will just sell them elsewhere. Adoption is high in places like Pakistan. If you are running air conditioning then solar could save a lot even if you cannot get paid to export.

I wonder if the outage in Spain and Portugal will make people consider alternatives, but you have to hope that is a rare event.

Shine on!

solar green sustainability solarreport teamuk proofofbrain

0.000

8 comments

@videoaddiction 71

2 days ago

If you lived in a country where there are more sunny days, I think you would save much more.

0.000

@steevc 79

2 days ago

Well I'm not planning to move. If it were sunnier then I might spend more on a/c, that we don't have in this house.

0.000

@cryptoandcoffee 83

2 days ago

You are doing very well with the set up you have. Unfortunately sending back to the grid will end up costing us due to penalties imposed on still being connected and why it is more imperative to now get off entirely.

0.000

@steevc 79

1 day ago

It seems short-sighted not to encourage domestic solar. It reduces the load on the grid and could boost the local economy as people have more money to spend. We may be lucky in that department.

0.000