Please provide a rough % of the amount of extra grid power you are using in winter.
Also a brief summary of your RE installation.
100% more power.
2 toppies with 1.2kW PV solar water heating
Gas hob
Heat pump for water heating.
My highest power usage is in summer, when using aircons, although they mostly run of solar in that time of the year. Winter, not using any heaters, we do have a fireplace we use in winter.
Do notice this graph is stacked, so the eskom bar will be smaller in summer stacked on top of the solar and look far bigger in winter because little sun in cape town.
Also, ignore my yellow lines, I switched solar forecast integrations in home assistant and I cant figure out how to smooth it out in the graph.
I use about double the amount in winter that I use in summer (or more). We have a cold house so we run aircons a lot in winter but not in summer.
A friend that lives close by has a warm house - his consumption is the exact other way round. Much higher consumption in summer.
For me, peak winter uses 50% more power than peak summer.
Thats pretty constant throughout the year.
RE: none
For me, I stopped recording numbers but winter electricity consumption will be less than summer due to less running of pool pump and all other electricity factors remaining fairly constant.
Total energy cost in winter I am too lazy to calculate but will need to add the cost of wood for the fireplace, max 2 x 9Kg LPG gas refills for a gas heater when it is not yet cold enough for the fireplace, and maybe max 2 x 4.5Kg LPG refills for a smaller gas heater. My jacket and beanie are paid for so they do not get included as extra heating cost…
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About 70% more in June than in January. Not quite double. Also, June was uncharacteristically (for the last decade) wet, which means a lot of that came from the grid and not solar.
But we also added a rather large new load: An electric vehicle.
Last year August is however 160% of January 2023, so an extra 60% to 70% more use… sounds about right.
We use somewhat less, but we’ve also added a heatpump in June, so naturally it will drop.
Summer we run the pool pump and aircons, and we don’t use heaters in the winter. Never gets cold enough for me to justify the energy usage. In winter we do use more lights and IR on cameras due to longer nights… (but that isn’t the biggest deal)
I have a rather constand total monthly usage. The only part that change is how much is from PV or the grid.
I think using a heat pump helps.
I didn’t specify but it’s grid power I am referring to (the one that needs $$!)
Oh, that’s a completely different question (or rather, a much more complicated question).
I use more grid in winter, but more power in total in summer.
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Please clarify your graph: The long (red) bar is your consumption??
The yellow is your PV input?
What is the beige bar above the PV?
Red & yellow - yes, as you described.
I think the blue shading represents battery min & max, and the blue line represent battery average, but I’m not sure. (maybe @plonkster can give his more informed view on VRM graphs 
)
Edit, looks like my guesses were right:
I would like to comment. Your answer should be based on province. In the cape you will use more grid in the winter, less PV, but in Gauteng you will use more grid in the summer less in winter.
Presumably due to air conditioners?
Due to cloud cover. Winter in Gauteng is usually devoid of clouds, but in summer you can easily have a number of consecutive days of very low yield.
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