Here is my monthly report on how our solar panel system did in May 2026. We have:
- 20x400W panels = 8kW, facing west
- 5kW GivEnergy inverter
- 9.5kWh GivEnergy battery
The house is in the UK at about 52° north. The system was installed in February 2024. The system was installed by Octopus who also supply our power and gas.
This is the year so far, all in kWh:
| Month | Generated | Used | Exported | Imported | Cost import | Paid export | Axle |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 110 | 518 | 106 | 522 | £88.53 | £14.91 | £0 |
| February | 237 | 592 | 226 | 580 | £79.08 | £33.97 | £0 |
| March | 590 | 484 | 599 | 507 | £74.47 | £68.30 | £0 |
| April | 937 | 283 | 927 | 326 | £37.71 | £112.71 | £0 |
| May | 1001 | 315 | 950 | 312 | £45.14 | £113.99 | £0 |
| June | 1009 | 465 | 954 | 405 | £60.83 | £112.05 | £12.02 |
| July | 1213 | 408 | 1209 | 414 | £57.47 | £140.16 | £10.00 |
| August | 918 | 549 | 818 | 452 | £75.09 | £95.88 | £14.14 |
| Totals | 6015 | 3614 | 5789 | 3518 | £518.32 | £691.97 | £36.16 |
2025 figures here.
As of August I am splitting out the Axle payments I get for letting them export from my battery. That happens a few times each month when I get £1/kWh with a guarantee of £10 over the month.
I got a bonus from Axle last month as they did a two hour export during the solar eclipse. That would have had a major impact on solar generation for a while. They did a video presentation recently where they said that they have 19,000 customers with about 30MW capacity. They are aiming for gigawatts. They operate as a virtual power station and I assume they can command premium prices like the gas plants that fire up in times of high demand. Wind and solar are variable, but all these batteries can help to smooth that out and reduce the need for fossil fuel generation.
We were just in Scotland where I saw a big wind farm that appeared to have some associated battery storage. I know some will object to these large structures, but in a large landscape I do not see them as doing much harm, especially compared to fossil fuel installations. We are likely to need much more power if all the planned data centres get built. A fair few of those are in Scotland where they have lots of wind power.
Late August saw the legalisation of plug-in solar in the UK. That has been a thing in other countries for a while, but it needed changes to electrical regulations. There are some systems available already, but they seem expensive. Competition should drive prices down. You are limited to an inverter of up to 800W, but you can have panels that generate more as that can give you peak power for more of the time, as I have with my system. Pay-back times should be just a few years. Of course you really need an outdoor socket, but a lot of people have those. I have seen some comments about risks of overloading the circuits, but it will only be putting in about 3A, which is not much. If your wiring can not handle that then you have other issues.
Production is noticeably decreasing as summer ends. We had it really dry here over summer so there were few clouds. We are getting some rain now and the days are shorter. We have built up some credit with the utility company that could get us through the winter with our reduced payments. They increased the payments when we got into debt, but I hope they can be adjusted down again next year. I just need to keep enough credit in there.
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