as I have solar panels a storage battery and a zappi charger which allows me to charge purely from solar all my motoring is virtually free now.
Can you expand on this a bit please. Sens a pm if you dont feel you want to publicly share money details.
I just dont understand the battery / zappi bit. I thought the leccy you produce had to go to the grid for you to get paid.
Hi Howard
I paid 8600 for 11 panels which can generate 3.1 kw/h. That cost also included a 2kw/h storage battery, Nissan supplied and installed a Pod-Point charger foc with the Nissan Leaf. I sold the podpoint charger on e bay for 150 quid and had a zappi charger installed for £812 and got the OLEV grant off that of £500 so net £312 less the £150 I got off e bay so £162 total cost.
The zappi has three settings, a) charge from the grid, b) charge from solar backed up by grid and c) charge totally from the solar when it’s generating sufficient power, which is the setting I use all the time. Ie no cost to my electricity for my motoring.
I also had two other bits of kit a harvi and an eddi which divert any excess solar power generated to my hot water tank, thus no cost to heat my water.
Although to be fair this worked well during the heatwave but since the autumn came I’ve had to use the gas boiler to supplement.
Before I had the panels or leaf I had a Merc CLK320 which cost me around £40 a month in petrol £285 a year road fund licence and £300/400 a year average in service/repair costs over the three years I owned it.
Since having the panels and the leaf I’ve halved my electric bill, reduced my car fuel costs to nil and just been told that I’ve generated around £90 back to the grid, which equates to around 1400 KWh during the quarter July -September. This is actually a lot less than I expected but on balance I’m happy. It’s early days but think it’s been worth it so far. I like the leaf and as I may have mentioned when swmbos toyota Auris hybrid gets changed next autumn I’m sure we’ll go for another electric car, probably the Hyundai kona.
