Philip Steele

Most home solar systems will export on sunny days; our system regularly exports 20+ kWh on a summers day. But solar systems in the UK generate 15% to 20% of their summer output in the winter and obviously our electricity use is much higher in the winter. A customer asked me how could they save that lovely spare summer energy for the winter. They were asking if there's a way we could 'bank' their solar generated energy to then draw from in the winter. Yes, it's an AI generated image of solar...

On a Sunday evening you get one of these to exercise your brain. The issue here is that if you want to charge an electric car using any energy supplier's smart tariff low rate period often the wiring means the car will first draw energy from the home battery rather than the grid as the battery is simply doing what it's designed to - meet your home demand. Yesterday (Sunday 12th Oct 2025) this came up on the panel session at Everything Electric too.  I get asked about once a fortnight to look...

But only with a solar system. Our home battery has stored and supplied almost exactly a quarter of our annual electricity use to the 1st October 2025. We've also exported surplus solar, and run some grid-trade during March to September too. Our system is a 5kWp solar system with 13.5kWh battery and we have an electric car (almost exclusively charged at home) & an air source heat pump. Our home is a 4-bed 1960s house (reasonable insulation) with 3 teenagers that enjoy long hot showers. Our...