{"id":1077,"date":"2025-04-07T14:54:02","date_gmt":"2025-04-07T13:54:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.hslracing.com\/myhome\/?p=1077"},"modified":"2025-05-08T10:28:24","modified_gmt":"2025-05-08T09:28:24","slug":"solar-and-storage-march-2025-energy-usage-saver-sessions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.hslracing.com\/myhome\/2025\/04\/solar-and-storage-march-2025-energy-usage-saver-sessions.html","title":{"rendered":"Solar and Storage \u2013 March 2025 Energy Usage + Saver Sessions"},"content":{"rendered":"

There were a number of Saver Sessions during the month of March, but more on those later.<\/p>\n

March Electric:<\/p>\n

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I managed to maintain a 24% Peak\/Off-Peak ratio, which is an improvement on last month’s 39%.<\/p>\n

Electricity costs for the month of March: \u00a3148.76 for 2025, \u00a3438.81 for 2024 and \u00a3676.87 for 2023 – some great on-going savings.<\/p>\n

Electricity demand for the month of March: 1715kWh for 2025, 1759kWh for 2024 and 1798kWh for 2023.<\/p>\n

The additional savings for this year are almost entirely down to the Solar and Battery as I was on the same tariff last March as I am now, I used about the same amount of electricity, yet it cost me about 70% less.<\/p>\n

The off-peak\/peak\/SC values for March were \u00a30.075\/0.310\/0.420 for 2024 vs \u00a30.07\/\u00a30.271\/0.488 for 2025, so not a huge difference.<\/p>\n

This can also be seen in the month on month usage vs cost graphs<\/p>\n

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March Solar:<\/p>\n

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Actual production for March far exceeded the forecast for every day, often by way more than double.<\/p>\n

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The various arrays produced the following levels of energy: Garage 236.97 kWh, Office 294.59kWh, East 127.46kWh, West 154.78kWh for a total of 713.79kWh which was only exceeded last year by July and August<\/p>\n

A very good month for solar production, I also managed to export 83.89kWh for a total saving of \u00a312.58<\/p>\n

The import costs of \u00a3148.76 less the export savings of \u00a312.58 means my net cost for March was \u00a3136.18 for 1715kWh of demand making my average rate \u00a30.0794\/kWh.<\/p>\n

March Gas:<\/p>\n

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Gas costs for the month of March: \u00a3100.80 for 2025, \u00a386.54 for 2024 and \u00a3363.48 for 2023.<\/p>\n

Gas usage for the month of March: 1,677kWh for 2025, 1849kWh for 2024 and 3615kWh for 2023.<\/p>\n

\u00a320.00 more than last year, less gas consumed and on the Octopus Gas Tracker tariff vs the Octopus Standard Gas Tariff.<\/p>\n

Gas prices have been steadily rising over the past year, I would have paid a lot more had I still been on the Octopus Standard Tariff, which was \u00a30.0603 per kWh for March \u00a3116.24 ((1,677 * 0.0603) + 15.124) or an additional \u00a316.00 for the month.<\/p>\n

I turned the heating off on the 6th, but ended up turning it back on on the 12th before turning it off for good on the 19th, I actually turned the heating off later last year.<\/p>\n

Again all visible in the usage vs cost graphs<\/p>\n

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Some of this may be down to the average daily temperature differences,\u00a0 2024 on the left, 2025 on the right, this March being a fair bit colder than last year.<\/p>\n

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I will continue to compare to my old 2023 E-ON Prices for ongoing savings which for this month amount to \u00a3295.15.<\/p>\n

There were five Saver Sessions this month, 03\/03, 04\/03, 05\/03, 12\/03 and 19\/03, my Home Assistant automation signed me up to all of them automatically<\/p>\n

I received notification about all of these sessions via emails sent round midday of the day in question.<\/p>\n

The first one was between 18:00 and 19:00 of the 3rd March, offering 104 Octopoints (13p) per kWh saved.<\/p>\n

The second one was between 18:00 and 19:00 of the 4th March, offering 104 Octopoints (13p) per kWh saved.<\/p>\n

The third one was between 18:00 and 19:00 of the 5th March, offering 104 Octopoints (13p) per kWh saved.<\/p>\n

The fourth one was between 18:00 and 19:00 of the 12th March, offering 104 Octopoints (13p) per kWh saved.<\/p>\n

The fifth one was between 18:00 and 19:00 of the 19th March, offering 104 Octopoints (13p) per kWh saved.<\/p>\n

Since these were all offering less than my export guarantee and way less than the peak rate, I made no effort to charge the batteries beforehand, or discharge them during the sessions<\/p>\n

As a result my savings were somewhat low.<\/p>\n

I saved 2.15kWh on the 3rd, which netted me 224 Octopints (\u00a30.28).<\/p>\n

I saved 2.15kWh on the 4th, which netted me 224 Octopints (\u00a30.28).<\/p>\n

I saved 2.15kWh on the 5th, which netted me 224 Octopints (\u00a30.28).<\/p>\n

I saved 1.62kWh on the 12th, which netted me 168 Octopints (\u00a30.21).<\/p>\n

I saved 1.31kWh on the 19th, which netted me 136 Octopints (\u00a30.17).<\/p>\n

The savings were really not worth bothering with, beyond earning a free hour of electricity.<\/p>\n

There was an additional ‘Earth Hour’ saving session on 22nd March between 20:30 and 21:30, although this had no incentive whatsoever beyond the ability to donate some of your points to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There were a number of Saver Sessions during the month of March, but more on those later. March Electric: I managed to maintain a 24% Peak\/Off-Peak ratio, which is an improvement on last month’s 39%. Electricity costs for the month of March: \u00a3148.76 for 2025, \u00a3438.81 for 2024 and \u00a3676.87 for 2023 – some great…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1078,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[9],"class_list":["post-1077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorised","tag-solar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.hslracing.com\/myhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.hslracing.com\/myhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.hslracing.com\/myhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.hslracing.com\/myhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.hslracing.com\/myhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1077"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/blog.hslracing.com\/myhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1077\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1202,"href":"https:\/\/blog.hslracing.com\/myhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1077\/revisions\/1202"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.hslracing.com\/myhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.hslracing.com\/myhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.hslracing.com\/myhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.hslracing.com\/myhome\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}