Smart Home Blog

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My gas tracker tariff was up for renewal and I couldn't find an easy way to renew it. So I opted for a 12-month fixed rate at a slightly higher price of 5.57p/kWh. This is looking like an inspired move though, given what that idiot Trump is doing in the middle east.

The porcelain slabs arrived for our new 'smart patio' project 😎

February has had a very bad start for solar energy generation with just 51.7kWh in the first 10 days. The lowest I've seen for February (just my south facing panels only) is 299kWh, the highest is 426kWh and the average is 354kWh.

Sunniest day of the year so far with 28.3kWh generated. At times we were generating 7.6kW. It is going to take a lot of sunny days to resuce February!

Using the OctoAid app, I can see that 95.8% of my energy usage last month was at the off-peak rate. In reality, it is slightly higher than this because of the way the Intelligent Octopus Go tariff tariff works and the apps interpretation of the data.

There are a few days when my Tesla Powerwall is not quite large enough to see me through to the 23:30 cheap rate period. This is normally because our usage has been heavier than normal, by using the tumble dryer, etc. Fortunately there are days like this and the battery still lasts well into the evening. In the coldest winter months, I set the backup reserve to 5% (it is normally at 20%). This gives me a little bit more usable power and helps minimise my peak rate usage. The chances of a power cut are small and the chances of a power cut in the hour running up to 23:30 are tiny.

The app can also gives a view over the last 12 months and this gives a similar figure. This is clear evidence that I don't need to invest in more battery storage capacity. Another PW2 would save me less than £100 per year and it would take many decades to recoup this extra investment. It is much better to save the money and buy another battery when my PW2 is out of warranty or it fails.

Today's solar energy generation was 30.8kWh, the highest so far in 2026. The sun is noticably higher in the sky and spending more time on the extension solar (which generated 6.0kWh). The solar zenith reached 64°, meaning the sun reached 26° above the horizon.

A perfectly sunny day to day and 41.2kWh generated. It could have been much more but, the Sahara dust storm across Europe is having a big impact on peak power generation. I have seen over 8kW already this month but, it barely crossed 6kW today.

9.7kW of this total was generated by my extension solar, which is making a decent contribution even this early on in the year.

We generated a total of 339kWh in February, with 38kWh of that from our E facing panels and 61kWh from our West facing panels. The worst day was 1.4kWh, the best 41.3kWh and the average 12.1kWh. The new extension solar has generated an additional 41% to our South facing roof.

We imported 758kWh. This includes EV charging and >99% of it was at the 7p/kWh cheap rate. We exported 243kWh at 15p/kWh. Of the 758kWh imported, 345kWh went into our CUPRA Born. Our home usage averaged 16.6kWh (high 21.8kWh, low 13.2kWh).