Good news! – Solar owners are saving more while #stayinghome because of COVID-19
#Stayinghome means we’re opening the fridge door every 20 minutes, flicking on the kettle, cooking lunches, boiling noodles, baking cakes, streaming shows, leaf blowing, hedge trimming and we’re all on devices.
No longer is our workplace paying for the air-con or the coffee machine. On the bright side, the iron and hairdryer are taking a break.
A recent study of smart meter data in the UK showed that where households had increased their weekday energy consumption, the increase was up to 30%. Ouch!
Lucky for us it’s not winter in Australia (yet) so we’ve been enjoying abundant sunshine providing light and warmth – and plentiful solar power in solar-equipped homes.
According to data from Solar Analytics, the good news is that energy consumption in households now housing more humans midweek due to Corona confinement is up only slightly, if at all.
And the great news is that the onsite consumption of free solar power in these households is up significantly.
Some solar houses are consuming 37% more of their free solar energy!
Solar Analytics has found that, since staying home, 20% of households in its 35,000 strong fleet of solar sites have increased their self-consumption of free solar power by 20%.
In dollar terms, this means an approximate extra saving of about $62 a quarter on top of the savings from solar already being made. And we’re still in balmy April.
Even better, 10% of households have increased their free solar self-consumption by at least 37% compared to the beginning of March.
That translates to an extra $1.70 in savings per day (based on average tariffs), or a further $153 in savings over three months.
When the colder, darker months arrive in a few weeks (depending upon where you live) we’ll be turning on the lights and the heating for more hours every day.
We suspect that while solar energy production will have its usual seasonal reduction, the potential value of solar energy to households could be just as big in winter, offsetting much larger household energy consumption.
Households with Solar Analytics energy monitoring have their solar self-consumption data served to them on a platter.
To read the full story on RenewEconomy sister site One Step Off The Grid, click here…
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