Electric Consumption Net Metering

[Anarita John]

I put this on the Paphos Chat Facebook page. A number of people found it interesting so I've posted it here.
Our winter, January and February electricity bill is always the highest of the year. This year especially so, as it was one of the coldest on record. We have a 5kwh Photovoltaic system.
During January and February we used, through our meter, 2561 kwh.
I calculated that we used a total of 376 solar units which are free.
Our bill, from EAC was €110.
Without solar units and net metering, our bill would have been €743, a saving of €633.
One of the reasons our bill was so high was it included approximately 1150 kwh of power for heating our pool.
I have enclosed an attachment of our total consumption for the year. For those concerned about what size system to get intalled, if we did not have a swimming pool heater, a 3kwh system would be just about sufficient if we did not heat the bedrooms and the system was producing to its full potential. We had problems with the EAC and power outages on Phase 3 which did not show up on the solar edge app but we diagnosed when comparing our production to a neighbours. During the winter, we maintained a temperature of between 20c and 22c in our living areas during the day and 18c in bedrooms, using our LG invertor air conditioners. Ours is a 3 bedroom bungalow.

Electric Consumption. Household. (800 x 450).jpg (66.38 KiB) Viewed 2481 times

[Paul]

How are they applying the 1.6 per kw factor is it an up or down factor.

[Anarita John]

Really sorry to hear that. I've written an email to the Greenparty but had no reply. Just crazy when Cyprus are being fined for their huge use of fossil fuel for generating electricity.
I suggested earlier, one way round this is to get a solar pump for your pool. Our developer fitted a 1.6kw pump as our pool pump, as the pump room was a long way away from the pool. Even if your pool pump is 800 watts, just an average of 4 hours a day throughout the year on an 800 watt pump would save you 1168kwh a year. On recommended pool pump use, the saving would be more. 8 hours use and you double this so a 3kwh system becomes 5kwh.
I'm sure there will be many people challenging this, from people who are concerned about climate change and what they can do to help, to the installers of photovoltaic systems, and also the EU.

[Anarita John]

Would love to know exactly how this 90% and factoring of 1.6 per kwh worked out in practice and what size system eac would allow for various past rates of consumption.

[jeba]

What does this factor of 1.6 mean? Maybe that they assume 1 kWp to generate 1600 kWh/year?

[jeba]

What does this factor of 1.6 mean? Maybe that they assume 1 kWp to generate 1600 kWh/year?

That’s exactly what they are basing it on. They claim that each 1KW PV will produce 1.6KW which for the majority of instillations is none sense. Plus they are only allowing 90% of your usage over past two years.

What if your usage is likely to change? E.g. because you want to have a pool, and a warm one at that? Or because you're planning to switch from oil-fired heating to electric heating?

[PolemIan]

Can’t dor the life of me see the logic of this approach given the less the brilliant record with renewable energy. When a private consumer is paying for the infrastructure to produce cleaner energy and has stuff left over that the grid can use, they should be encouraging everybody to install double what they use. Or am I missing something? Are they worried about the network not being able to cope?

1600 is pretty much spot on, well it is for us, we have a 3.12 kw system and our average production over the last 5 complete calendar years is 5018 kw so 1602 per installed kw.

Ian

Ian

[PolemIan]

Can’t dor the life of me see the logic of this approach given the less the brilliant record with renewable energy. When a private consumer is paying for the infrastructure to produce cleaner energy and has stuff left over that the grid can use, they should be encouraging everybody to install double what they use. Or am I missing something? Are they worried about the network not being able to cope?

1600 is pretty much spot on, well it is for us, we have a 3.12 kw system and our average production over the last 5 complete calendar years is 5018 kw so 1602 per installed kw.

Ian

Ian

As I understand it, to get 1.6kw the system would need to be perfectly installed with panels facing directly due south, at the right angle from the roof and all panels working at close to 100%. Not every installation can be like that.

The short sightedness of this beggars belief.,Cyprus faces increasing fines over its electricity generation and yet they are doing all they can to hinder renewable sources, funded by the consumer. It can only be AIK not wanting to lose revenue and nothing more

Wensbury,

Yes, our roof is pretty much SE which I was told by our architect is pretty much spot on when we were discussing orientation to get max free heat in the living room with a low sun in the winter. The roof pitch is a bit lower than ideal for PV and there are no trees casting shadows. The panels were installed in 2016 so still appear to be performing pretty effectively.

Ian

[cyprusmax47]

I put this on the Paphos Chat Facebook page. A number of people found it interesting so I've posted it here.
Our winter, January and February electricity bill is always the highest of the year. This year especially so, as it was one of the coldest on record. We have a 5kwh Photovoltaic system.
During January and February we used, through our meter, 2561 kwh.
I calculated that we used a total of 376 solar units which are free.
Our bill, from EAC was €110.
Without solar units and net metering, our bill would have been €743, a saving of €633.
One of the reasons our bill was so high was it included approximately 1150 kwh of power for heating our pool.
I have enclosed an attachment of our total consumption for the year. For those concerned about what size system to get intalled, if we did not have a swimming pool heater, a 3kwh system would be just about sufficient if we did not heat the bedrooms and the system was producing to its full potential. We had problems with the EAC and power outages on Phase 3 which did not show up on the solar edge app but we diagnosed when comparing our production to a neighbours. During the winter, we maintained a temperature of between 20c and 22c in our living areas during the day and 18c in bedrooms, using our LG invertor air conditioners. Ours is a 3 bedroom bungalow.

Electric Consumption. Household. (800 x 450).jpg

Interesting statistics, Thank you John.

If it was not the worse winter in decades with much less sunshine than normal you would have produced much more than the 8283 kWh that year with your 5 kWp system. Specially when it is so cold the PV modules producing much more than in boiling hot weather, however it needs also the sunshine hours which this year did not happen as usual. These past weeks with plenty of sun but cold temperatures still, are perfect and perhaps make up the losses of the past period. With the climate change we should get more sunshine in Cyprus not less.... lets see.....

Max