Life with solar panels

Now that I have solar panels, I want to use them to the max! Whenever the sun is not shining, I draw my electricity from the grid, and I want to avoid that. So the more I can do during daylight hours, the better it is! 

I can, of course, guess when I am generating; I can see if it's daylight, I can see how cloudy it is, and I know what time it is so from which direction the sunshine is coming. And I can always look at my electricity meter to see in what direction it is moving. But I now also finally have the app! I can just check on my phone what my panels are doing. I like that! I can't see my electricity use; I suppose I can only do that once I get my smart meter. But I can keep an eye on when my panels get the first sun in the morning, and when it starts dropping off. Very useful!

Graphs! 

When I am in the office during the day, the possibilities for maximising my panel use are of course limited. But if it is weekend or I am working at home I can move a fair amount of my electricity use to when I am generating. Months ago I bought some extra big thermal flasks; I tend to fill these up in the late afternoon. I then drink the tea later in the evening when it is dark, or I still have hot water that doesn't take much energy to bring back to boiling point of the next morning. At the time of writing, I don't start generating enough to power a kettle until way after breakfast. My roofs point SWS so I generate more later in the day. And I can use the water for doing the dishes as well.

I also bake my bread during daytime now. Before the panels, I often baked it during the night, so I would have fresh bread in the morning. But it seems silly to not use renewable power. Never mind that the bread might then be a little less fresh!

I also have a dehumidifier; I need that as otherwise the salt doesn't want to come out of the shaker in the kitchen. I bought that thing in Menai Bridge and it has served me well. But I now only run it during daylight hours.

My other (relatively) big energy slurper is the washing machine. I don't use that very often, but good thing about the washing machine is that you can use it on a timer. That doesn't work so well with kettles! So that will only get used during daylight hours.

Then there are the infrared panels, of course; but it is still summer and I don't feel the need to heat my house. They have not been used yet!

I suppose in winter I will have to live with the fact that I am not home during daylight hours, so I can't boil a single cup of water with renewable power. But at least the continuous use, from things such as the fridge, will come out of the panels during the short day. We'll see how it goes then!