Just before Christmas, we installed 26 solar panels on the galvanised roof of a south-facing lean-to. We had been passed for a TAMS grant – the installing company did all the paperwork. I had previously got a TAMS grant on a new fertiliser spreader with GPS an obligatory feature and I found the paperwork really complicated.

In fact, in the end our Teagasc adviser finished it off and we got the full amount due.

For the solar grant we had to again demonstrate that we had done a farm safety course, as well as supplying a tax-compliant certificate.

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So all of that is in train. But over the Christmas period I was able to study the output from the panels, which varied hugely depending on the weather and the time of day. Thanks to the amazing app downloaded on my phone by the installing company, I could also monitor the amount of electricity being used.

At around midday, on some of the sunny days there was far more electricity being generated than was being used.

Some of this was being used to charge up the battery that was part of the installation and some was graphically shown to being going back to the grid.

However, no matter how hard I looked at the meter, I didn’t seem to be getting any credit for the electricity I was generating and sending back to the ESB. I mentioned a few weeks ago that after I had written about installing solar that I had received a number of letters about other people’s experiences. I rang one of them, whom I knew well, to discuss my dilemma of apparently giving away free electricity. He advised me to use Google. I typed in the details of my meter and my questions into the open AI ChatGPT site.

I received an incredibly detailed summery of why I wasn’t getting paid for my temporary excess electricity and was advised that I should install a smart meter as soon as possible, as my own old meter (1989) was not built to give me any credit for electricity being sent back to the grid. In fairness, the ESB had contacted me to install a smart meter but the day they had pencilled didn’t suit so we agreed we’d leave it for the moment.

But with the benefit of hindsight I should have juggled things around to have the smart meter installed. That has to be the next step in my solar journey.

Maybe ChatGPT isn’t entirely accurate, but the on-site evidence suggests that it is at least on the right track and at a minimum it has provided me with a series of questions to ask.