February 2023 Energy Use and Solar Generation

Another month has flown by, albeit the shortest month of the year. The good news is each weather forecast on the TV shows the daylight hours increasing steadily which means more solar generation and less need to put the house lights on!

Last month I referred to my decision to install solar panels back in 2017, you can read the post here – Are Solar Panels A Good Investment In The UK . What I failed to mention is that I had them installed just before the Government stopped the Feed In Tariff scheme. The amount of payment I receive for each Kilowatt Hour I produce and export is very small, about 7p per kWh but it does mount up over 12 months. In the dark cold months the FIT payment is small, I received just £63.62 for the September to December 2022 period which was paid this month at the end of February. Taken over the whole year I get just over £400 back from this Government scheme. This takes a major chunk off of my total annual electricity bill.

It was a bitter cold February in 2023 but also a very dry month. As can be seen from the chart below it was our second best February for solar generation since fitting the solar panels in 2017. This surprised me as I thought it a damp and miserable month weather wise.

The system produced 346 kW of energy for the month of February 2023

Electricity Use

The next chart shows the electricity consumption for February 2023 for my home. I am glad I chose to move to a time of use tariff and using the Tesla Powerwall II to its full capability. Only 29 kWh of electricity at the higher rate was used with 196 kWh at the very cheap rate has produced some considerable savings. I have also been able to charge both electric cars during the longer days on occasion from the solar panels and this is helping to reduce the off peak consumption.

Gas Use.

With longer daylight hours I will soon be able to start programming the Eddi solar diverter and start using the solar energy to heat the hot water for the home. This will significantly reduce my gas bills in the coming months and as the weather warms up I will stop using the central heating as well. I also like to monitor usage of energy via the Bulb App although it is not always accurate.