2022, well, what a year it was…. We’ve had some whacky things happen to the country and the world this year, let alone the energy price chaos that we have still.
The guidance from OfGem is that the first quarter of 2023 will see a Price Cap increase to a level of £4279* – Quite frightening for many homes who have limited ability to make the change or reduce their consumption. (*for the average home – the Average home is deemed to use circa 2900kWh of Electricity and 12,000kWh of Gas.)
So, how did our household do with our energy consumption for the year 2022? (electricity)
As previously said, it’s very hard to quantify the actual cost savings with our setup, as we have so many variables. These variables are the likes of… If we did not have Electric cars, we would not be using as much electricity and the availability of the Electric Car Tariff. If we didn’t have the Batteries, would we be looking to Load Shift more? How much could we load shift with a family of 5 in the house? So many variables, it’s difficult to fully quantify.
December Stats First.
December 2022 was our highest electricity consumption month ever. This is probably due to a few changes in our household. We have a ‘Boyfriend’ that has come to live with our daughter, so previously a house of 4, we are now 5. We are lucky enough to have a separate area where they can sit/lounge and play Xbox etc, so ensuring that area is heated is important. We also drove a few more miles in our Electric Cars visiting family etc which is probably more of the reason for the increased consumption than Boyfriend.
Earlier this year, we chose to have a log burner fitted as we had a very expensive to run gas fire that we used as a booster for when we felt it was not worth putting on the heating and the Log Burner has been our main source of heating along with the Gas Central Heating as backup/timed heating But where I can, I have opted to use a Portable Oil Radiator on a timer for our second lounge rather than the GCH.
So, December Electricity import from the grid was 920kWh – around 97% of this energy was Off Peak, therefore, costing circa 8.25P kWh the residual is at the Off-Peak rate of 31.5 (sadly we only have this tariff till the end of March when we have to decide what to do next.) our Electricity bill for this equated to be about £90. As a guide, we traveled about 1500 miles in December and used a calculation of 3.5 miles per kWh, which allocates about 428kWh to driving. (a little less than ½)
Annual Consumption/Generation:
Over the year our stats look a little something like this:
- 6104 : kWh Purchased from Energy Supplier (Costing us £627 for the year – Average Price per kWh = 0.1027)
- 333 : Exported to the Grid (Due to full batteries or not being able to use it (Paid a total of £13.27 )
- 3598 : Produced by our Solar Panels (38% of the overall consumption)
- 9369 : Total Consumption for 2022
2022 Energy Consumption
(We are currently on the ‘Go Faster’ Tariff from Octopus Energy. This gives us energy from 21:30 to 02:30 at 8.25p per kWh. Outside these times, its 31.5)
We have 2 x EV’s and their AVERAGE daily miles are:
- 20 per day for the Hyundai Kona (7300)
- 16 Per day for the Seat Mii (5840)
13140 total EV Miles for the year.
2 Electric Car Family – Seat Mii and Hyundai Kona
SO… the WHAT IFS (because there are so many variables):
If we did not have EV’s and we traveled these miles in a 50-mpg car our fuel cost would have been circa £1792 assuming a cost of £1.50 per litre. (Working on the price per kWh of 0.825 and 3754kWh used, this has reduced to a cost of £309 for the year, but hang on, we got free solar, 38% of our energy was from the sunshine and free) – again more variables here as I have assumed a 3.5 miles per kWh for both cars. The EV’s in Summer easily do 4/5 miles per kWh on many occasions)
Our house used circa 5615kWh in the year (which is the residual balance of the full consumption) and if we did not have the Electric cars, then that energy at the 31.5p per kWh would be £1768 per year…
Equipment Cost:
Yes, we obviously have some investment made to make this work, and to be 100% clear, here are the costs and specified equipment:
- 4.5kw Solar PV System
- 12 x 375w Longi Black Panels
- 12 x Enphase IQ7+ Micro Inverters
- 1 x 3kw AC GivEnergy Charger
- 2 x 8.2kwh GivEnergy Battery (10-year unlimited cycle warranty)
- Zappi Home Charger
Supply & Install cost in June 2021: £12,000
Even with our house shaded, Solar and Batteries make sense to us.
- Hyundai Kona 150kw Electric Car : Lease at £269 per month for 3 years (9 months upfront)
- Seat Mii 60kw Electric Car : Leased at £134 per month for 3 Years (9 months upfront)
We estimate that Leasing the EV’s are about 10/25% more expensive than their counterpart Petrol Equivalent. Subject to the car/deals at the time
Like I said above, the true cost is actually quite difficult to work out, but perhaps these facts, can help to make your own mind up?
View LIVE data of my solar system