Situation
Barbara lives in Melbourne’s outer east with five children. She
increased the capacity of her pv solar system to manage her
spiraling electricity costs. However, her electricity bill
remained the same. Barbara was convinced that her solar panels
weren’t working.
Barbara wanted to understand how this was possible after all the
solar capacity she had invested in. She called her solar company
and they suggested she install carbonTRACK, so she could keep
see what was really happening with her solar.
How She Did It
Barbara’s solar provider installed carbonTRACK to reassure her
that her system was working, and to map her solar production
against her family’s consumption. With carbonTRACK installed, we
took a look at the data.
carbonTRACK showed that Barbara’s system was working and had
decreased her grid energy use by over 50%. But, we noticed that
she was using quite a lot of energy at night, when everyone was
asleep.
Barbara explained that her power company had advised her to run
the pool pump from midnight to 3:00 am to take advantage of the
Off-Peak tariff. Barbara’s electricity fees were 30 cents/kWh
for energy used during peak times, and 17 cents/kWh for off-peak
(and ‘shoulder’) electricity. Her solar feed-in tariff was only
8 cents/kWh – so it made more sense for Barbara to use as much
of her solar during the day as possible.
Result
We helped Barbara to identify what was increasing her
electricity bills, and she was able to implement a new schedule
for her pool pump. Using carbonTRACK, Barbara shifted her pool
pump schedule from a night off-peak tariff to the middle of the
day to take advantage of excess daytime solar production.
By running the pool pump from noon until 3:00 pm Barbara avoids
paying 17 cents/kWh and uses more of her solar. This simple
change saved Barbara 10% on her bill.
