In January SunPower introduced the world’s first 400 Watt residential solar panels.

Utilising 104 Monocrystalline Maxeon Generation III solar cells, the panels have an efficiency of 22.6%. 

The panels have ‘standard’ panel dimensions of approximately 1.69m x 1.05m, giving an output of 226W per square metre.

As always with SunPower, the panels have a premium look….

The long-awaited Powerwall 2 backup capability is ‘on the water’, with the first wave of deliveries expected in April.  There’s a two stage roll-out, based on the type of earthing system required. Stage 2 will be in August.

If you are familiar with the Powerwall system, you will know that the system consists of the Powerwall unit itself, which houses the battery and the inverter, along with a ‘gateway’ which provides remote connectivity.

The original gateway, ‘GW 1’, was a plastic fronted box providing remote connectivity to the system.

From April this will be upgraded to a new gateway, GW 2, a stylish frosted glass-fronted ‘mini’ version of Powerwall 2, measuring 380mm wide x 580mm tall x 127mm deep, and weighing 9.8kg.  It is IP55 rated, so suitable for outdoors, and can be padlocked to stop any unwanted access.

The main purpose of the gateway upgrade is to enable ‘backup’ capability so that the homeowner can still power their home in a power cut.

So confident is Tesla that all customers will want the new backup enabled system, that they are actually expecting to discontinue GW 1 altogether, even though GW 1 offers a lower cost entry point into the Powerwall 2 system.

Tesla has certainly done its research. According to the company, in the nine month period 18/6/18 – 18/2/19 there were 93,965 unique power cut incidents in the UK, typically lasting between 15 mins and 4 hours and impacting 2 million customers. Anyone with a solar panel backup system in place would be smiling now....

[Apparently there are 22,200  online searches for "Schadenfreude" every month in the UK.  I wonder if Mr Musk has checked that stat out ....]

A few weeks ago we launched a Solar PV Calculator and wrote a blog about solar in a post subsidy world.

However, for many people looking at renewables, solar is only one part of the story. Increasingly, solar goes hand-in-hand with battery storage. And many of us are at least wondering whether we should switch to an electric car.

Finally, in 2019 we expect to see a proliferation of ‘time-of-use’ electricity tariffs from the utility companies, all aimed at transforming electricity demand and supply.

To handle all of this, we’ve been busy developing the all-singing-and-dancing calculator which looks at the package of solar, battery storage, electric car usage and choice of tariff. And of course if you are building your dream home, you'll probably be wanting a heat pump...

Soft Launch of Version 1 Today

Call me a nerd but I love a mathematical model…

The government says it wants the UK to be the best place in the world to build and own an electric vehicle.

To support this, it needs the National Grid to be Smart, with a finely tuned set of tools available to balance demand and supply.

With this in mind, the government has announced that from July 2019, the grant of £500 per charge point available for home and workplace charge points will only be given to people installing Smart Chargers to charge their electric car.

What's a Smart Charger?

When the government announced in 2018 that it would close the Feed-in Tariff scheme with effect from 31^st March 2019, it failed to put in place any replacement for the Export Tariff.  Small scale solar PV systems installed after 31^st March were likely to end up exporting excess solar generation to the grid for free.

Not surprisingly there was uproar within the industry at this prospect.

In response, the government has this week launched a consultation on the Smart Export Guarantee (SEG). 

With 11 days to go until Christmas, Michelle Obama has launched her bid to join Christmas bestseller lists across the globe, Simon Cowell et al have launched their usual bid for the Christmas Number 1 song slot, and the nation prepares once more to vote in the Strictly Come Dancing final tomorrow.

A similar end-of-year flurry is taking place in the home battery storage market, all with a view to turbo-charging the market in 2019.

In the last few weeks:

Back in July, the government announced its intention to close the Feed-in Tariff Scheme to new entrants from 31^st March 2019.  The Export Tariff was scrapped at the same time, thus placing owners of small scale solar systems installed after 1^st April 2019 in a position whereby they could find themselves exporting excess solar electricity to the Grid for free.

Not surprisingly the idea of the homeowner installing solar only to find themselves subsidising the Big 6 with free exported solar electricity has caused something of an outcry in the solar industry…

"Can I go off-grid with solar?" is a question we are asked at least once a week. When the Big 6 hike electricity prices, make that once a day.

It's a particularly enticing proposition, especially if you are 'self-building' your dream home and aiming for PassivHaus standards and Grand Design prizes.

The Short Answer is "Yes you can go off-grid with solar."

A Better Answer is "Don't do it unless your grid connection is REALLY expensive."  Instead, make the Grid work for you by taking full advantage of time-of-use tariffs (off-peak charging).

To illustrate our Better Answer, we've modelled an off-grid residential property with an annual electricity consumption of 5,000 kWh.

As you may know, the Feed-in Tariff solar subsidy scheme ends in March 2019.

After that, Solar PV (solar electricity) has to stand on its own two feet.

The question is, can Solar PV stand on its own two feet? 

And more to the point, if you can’t make the March 2019 installation deadline, should you still consider solar for your own property?

Equally if you want to extend your system (which wouldn’t qualify for subsidy even if you were to extend before March 2019), should you do so?

To help you work that out, we’ve launched a brand new Solar PV Calculator....

We hear more and more about Blockchain technology.  The technology creates a transparent public ledger that records series of transactions, facilitating a fast, low-cost, trusted transfer of value without the involvement of traditional intermediaries.  

Already used in the financial sector, it’s only a matter of time before Blockchain hits the energy sector in a major way, particularly with the explosion of micro-generation of electricity, the ending of solar subsidies, and the advent of smart meters.

With Octopus Energy claiming to have paid customers to use excess electricity at night on four occasions in the last 12 months, real time peer-to-peer trading of electricity is surely just around the corner. Other potential applications include authentication of renewable generation and trading of emissions permits.