Chris

This summer we moved house to a super efficient new build with 1.3KW of solar panels integrated to the roof. Since the electricity meter was activated last spring it has exported about a third more electricity to the grid than it has imported … sadly as our wholesale market is rigged against the little people, Scottish Power can get away with paying me a small fraction of what they will sell that solar power on for. Nevertheless we get some benefit because the house consumes any available solar power before drawing from the grid so there are times when we’re using electricity at little or no cost. Add to that the construction of the house makes it like some sort of giant storage heater and we’ve still yet to switch the central heating on (a notable achievement in this part of Scotland in September).

All told I’m hopeful that despite the price increases, we’re actually going to reduce our energy bill compared to last winter, as our old house was so draughty. However as Scottish Power has been truly glacial in setting up our account and the counter-top smart meter doesn’t actually work, it’s still going to be a while before I know what it’s actually costing us to live here.