I had solar panels fitted, as part of the job, also had a battery, not very big, only 3.2 kWh and I was told no need for a smart meter, however once fitted told rules have changed now you need a smart meter to be paid for export.
So a long wait and in the end smart meter fitted, this then opened up the ability to have a split tariff, instead of 29.57p / kwh + 62.21p / day standing charge, I went to off peak 8.95p / kwh peak 31.31p / kwh standing charge 59.14p /day and a IHD (in home display) and an app on my phone, so far so good.
What the problem has been, is an app which says so it does not show £ only kWh and the kWh showed as when I would have expected the IHD showed BST so I had assumed I was being charged using BST times, but it seems actually being charged using UTC (Unified time constant) was called GMT.
So midnight to 1 am 31.31p / kWh, so I have been loosing £7 over April, simply due to wrong time set to charge my battery, the battery charges at 2 kW so the battery state during the typical day shows it now recharging until 2:30 am now set to start at 1 am, and from 2:30 to 5 am battery simply not used, after 5 am I get a dip as to state of charge, but does not reach the 10% cut off time, before the sun takes over, 19th of April it did drop to 16% but most days I could have stopped having charge available well before the 5 am cut off.
I was given wrong info to start with, told midnight until 8 am it took some time before I found the mistake, but at and of cheap rate battery already charged so very little loss.
The main reason for battery is it also serves as a back up if we get a power cut, yesterday we paid the full 31.31p for 40 minutes before midnight, some days can run out by 6 pm. it does vary, as to if it pays for its self not sure, but it does mean this summer I will not hastate using the heat pump to cool the room.
But learn from my error, be careful with split tariff at when the tariff really changes.
Warning, check if UTC or DST on tariff change.
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- ericmark
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Warning, check if UTC or DST on tariff change.
At last found how to read smart meter, and I find smart meter shows BST it was 11:08 when I took picture, so only the app seems to go on UTC, so not sure what time the tariff rate changes?