A year with panels

On the morning of 13 July 2022, an electrician from PGE Obrót turned up at my działka to connect the solar panels, installed in June, to the grid. Since then, I have been benefiting from electricity from a renewable source. This post is about the practicalities of panels.

At the end of 12 months' operations, my eight panels covered just 72% of my electricity usage. This includes bleak mid-winter during which the heating was on 24 hours a day. As an experiment, during those 12 months, I have made no effort to conserve electricity. I was interested to see how the numbers would look on maximum load. In midwinter, I had heat inside turned up to a constant - and comfortable 21C. Comfortable for year-round living in the countryside.

The investment was 27,500 złotys (£5,300); I received a cash subsidy from the Polish government of 6,000 złotys (£1,150) which reduced the capital expenditure to 21,500 złotys (£4,150). My annual electricity bill for April 2022-April 2023 was 401 złotys (£77). This could be reduced (as I wrote above) by taking greater care to switch off radiators, lights, immersion heater, laptops etc when not in use.

So: over a 12-month period, I have consumed 3,477 kilowatt hours (kWh) while my eight panels have generated 2,496 kWh, which have been exported to the grid. Without the panels, my consumption would have cost me around 2,700 złotys for the year (£515). So - a saving of 2,300 złotys (£443). A payback time of around nine years - at current prices (0.77zł/kWh). Should electricity prices rise (which they will), the payback time will shorten.

By the way UK readers... UK electricity price  costs 52p per kWh, but with the Energy Price Guarantee, it averages 34p per kWh. Polish households pay around 15p/kWh. Less than half. Me? I'm paying (effectively) 4p/kWh.

How will this look next year? I have no control over hours of sunshine, but I could take a lot more care about using less electricity - learning to live with 19C in the house in winter, for example.

However, there have been are times when the grid is overloaded; I first noticed this on Monday 15 August - a public holiday in Poland; with factories and offices closed and a sunny summer's day, the grid couldn't swallow the load. Too many panels producing too much energy that users were not taking up. There have been more such days since - days when the Solis app on my phone alerts me the grid isn't taking power from my panels. [Solis is the company that manufacturers the inverter.]

Would I make this investment again? Yes indeed - and remember this is already my second investment in panels, the first being in Jeziorki. 

There is an "if not now, when?" argument. Will the price of panels fall - or rise? Will Poland's inadequate grid mean that new solar panels will be discouraged?

This time last year:
Powered by the Sun

This time three years ago:
Poland's town/country divide explored

This time seven years ago:

A long walk to Czachówek

This time nine years ago:
Half a mile under central Warsaw, on foot

This time ten years ago:
Dzienniki Kołymskie reviewed

This time 11 years ago
Russia-Poland in Warsaw: the worst day of Euro 2012

This time 13 years ago:
Thirty-one and sixty-three - a short story

This time 14 years ago:
Warsaw rail circumnavigation

This time 15 years ago:
Classic Polish vehicles

This time 16 years ago:
South Warsaw sunsets

Too busy running around and making cider!

On my 65th birthday, I woke at 4am to be in Gliwice for 9.30 for our HR workshop for the automotive cluster there; I was back in Jakubowizna at 7pm for supper and writing the previous blog post. On Friday I also woke at 4am to be in Kraków for 9.30 for the 3rd Carbon Footprint Summit and was back on the działka at 10pm. I spent all of yesterday engaged in making cider (a demijohn for Moni) and the same today - apples that aren't harvested now will rot by next weekend. Cider-making takes up much time, but hopefully it will all be worth it when bottled for secondary fermentation.

My first demijohn popped its cork some time today, leaving a frothy mess of apple pulp on the cellar floor, fortunately the apple juice hasn't spoiled or developed a vinegary taste. It's dry, and at present about 0.3% alcohol by volume. I have used copper wire to 'cage' the corks shut - all the CO₂ goes through the airlock tubes that passed through the corks, as you can see below. In total I've made 40 litres, plus another five litres with Moni, a total of 90 half-litre bottles-worth. And the cellar smells great!

There are still apples left on the trees, hopefully I'll find time to make another five litres. In the meanwhile, no walk today, only a short walk yesterday morning, little time for photography and writing. So - a few local snaps.

Below: path between the apple orchards that leads from Jakubowizna to Grobice. Fruit-picking is in full swing, the sound of apples going into pails is all around. Daytime highs have been around 18C when the sun is out, falling a bit next week.

A propos of sun - the tipping point in the year has been reached at which the shorter hours of daylight and colder temperatures mean that I am now using more electricity than my eight panels generate. I have a large surplus built up since the panels were connected to the grid in July, with August and September producing much more power than I consumed. This should keep me going until mid-winter, after that, I'll be drawing credit from the surplus generated in April, May and June. It's all calculated to balance out precisely over the year.

Below: late afternoon on my rear balcony. Leaves are starting to turn, by mid-November, they'll have all fallen. To the left of this shot is one of my two grapevines; I hesitate to try my hand at wine-making (cider being the main focus now), but I am juicing the grapes daily. They are the Concord variety, known in America in all manner of grape-flavored things. And the taste of Mogen David kosher wine. Not my favourite grape variety (central Poland's too far north for all but the most robust), but the juice is good when drunk fresh - sharp and sweet.

The cottagecore aesthetic is taking off as an antidote to the hectic city grind; a trend that I believe will pick up as more folks choose to cut their carbon emissions and adopt a simpler lifestyle.

Left: Is this Nevada? Are we at a nuclear test site? No. This is where the DK50 crosses the Warsaw-Radom railway line, the tower holding mobile telephony aerials (hence such good reception in Jakubowizna). Across the DK50, still Warsaw's de facto ring-road, despite the opening of the S2 tunnel under Ursynów and the new bridge across the Vistula, is Sułkowice, famous for its police-dog training school. I must say that I cannot discern any reduction in heavy goods-vehicle traffic along the DK50 - I thought that the S2 and sanctions on Russia and Belarus would have led to the road being noticeably quieter - it isn't.

Below: peak apple. By the end of next week, most of the apples will have been harvested, the collection points (punkty skupu) are piled high with large crates of apples. It turned out (after a dry spring) to be another good year for the farmers.

I owe you all, my readers, some photos of Kraków - I walked to the conference venue and back (21,000 paces in one day!) and the weather was perfect. Will post if there's time this week...

This time last year:
All together, saving our planet

This time four years ago:
W-wa Zachodnia Platform 8 to reopen

This time five years ago:
Learning to fly (swan pics)

This time seven years ago:
Scotland's answer to the Hoover Building

This time nine years ago:
In which I don't vote in the mayoral referendum, thus helping to save HG-W's job

This time ten years ago:
Gorgeous cars from Czechoslovakia

This time 11 years ago:
Donald Tusk and Co. get re-elected 

This time 12 years ago:
Poland's wonderful bread

This time 13 years ago:
An October Friday in Warsaw