[Technology] Advice sought, purchasing and installing solar panels

[drew]

Let me play devils advocate.

Your solar panel investment should repay in up to 10 years in the UK climate. After 10 years, there is every likelihood that technology has moved on to the extent that what you have on your roof is obsolete and you will need to pay to have it removed together with a further bill to make the the roof good. Do you think this will make the sale of a property more or less attractive.

Add to this further issues like ongoing cost of cleaning, breakages and maintenance of panels and electrics, removal of birds nests, weather damage, inability to get access and carry out repairs to the roof structure and collapse of installation firms during guarantee periods.

People should make decisions based on merit and not on slick sales talk.

We got in early and our 11 year old system costing £10k paid for itself in about 6 years taking into account lower bills. We now earn at least £2k a year in FIT payments plus all washing, tumble drying, dishwashing is done during the day when we are generating our own. As far as I can see, the only real advancement since our installation is in batteries which we'll be looking at shortly.

 

[Uncle C]

We got in early and our 11 year old system costing £10k paid for itself in about 6 years taking into account lower bills. We now earn at least £2k a year in FIT payments plus all washing, tumble drying, dishwashing is done during the day when we are generating our own. As far as I can see, the only real advancement since our installation is in batteries which we'll be looking at shortly.

Glad to hear a good story. Are the FITs the same for new customers?

 

[Daddies_Sauce]

Glad to hear a good story. Are the FITs the same for new customers?

Fit payments were ceased and are now replaced with SEG (no where near as generous as the FIT payment scheme). We are with OVO, and they pay a poor 4p/kWh that we export, what we import form the grid we are currently charged 28.08p/kWh, we try to use all that we generate and try to limit how much we export. We have a battery which is great, when the battery is full we send excess to the immersion first which saves on our gas costs to heat the water (we currently pay 6.97p/kWh for gas) only then do we export excess generation.

Our bills have reduced as expected, our standing charges at present meet or exceed our grid usage costs!

 

[Boroseagull]

We got in early and our 11 year old system costing £10k paid for itself in about 6 years taking into account lower bills. We now earn at least £2k a year in FIT payments plus all washing, tumble drying, dishwashing is done during the day when we are generating our own. As far as I can see, the only real advancement since our installation is in batteries which we'll be looking at shortly.

Had batteries added to our system last week. 2x5kwh for a total of 10kwh storage. Very sleek and modern looking, expensive for outright purchase but with the Spanish Govt. grants at the moment a no brainer.

 

[Nobby Cybergoat]

I'm looking at getting panels installed. No point having money in the bank at the moment the way I see it. Where i'm a bit hazy and could do with some advice, is, would the electricity generated be anywhere near enough to make an impact on charging an electric car?

Is it also possible to have a separate battery for times when the car isn't here in the day which could contribute to charging it overnight? Thanks, in advance.

 

[Daddies_Sauce]

I'm looking at getting panels installed. No point having money in the bank at the moment the way I see it. Where i'm a bit hazy and could do with some advice, is, would the electricity generated be anywhere near enough to make an impact on charging an electric car?

Is it also possible to have a separate battery for times when the car isn't here in the day which could contribute to charging it overnight? Thanks, in advance.

Which way do your roof spaces face? How many panels do you think you can install on your roof? as a guesstimate (all you can do at the moment), assume each panel is 2m x 1m, and 380w, find your property and plug your figures in here https://re.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pvg_tools/en/#PVP - it will estimate your annual generation and start from there.

 

[Grizz]

I'm looking at getting panels installed. No point having money in the bank at the moment the way I see it. Where i'm a bit hazy and could do with some advice, is, would the electricity generated be anywhere near enough to make an impact on charging an electric car?

Is it also possible to have a separate battery for times when the car isn't here in the day which could contribute to charging it overnight? Thanks, in advance.

Yes to all of that, you just have to make sure it's all compatible with one another and if it's a reputable company you're using they should be able to advice on all of that. Remember you don't have to commit straight away, get the quote, read up on the equipment they're going to install and if you're happy go from there.

When using the system you just have to be do a wee bit of research or trial and error to find the prime charging times. It doesn't have to be sunny for the system to be generating electricity. The only time we don't generate is when it's a full on storm or constant heavy rain. The growatt inverter we had installed has an app that shows exactly what you're generating at the time, so as soon as it hits enough I'll start bunging on the dishwasher, the washing machine, the tumble dryer, charging the car as appropriate (luckily I work shifts). If you use the car all day and would be charging at night, then think about a battery. You can charge that up during the day, then transfer it to the car at night. The only downside is that batteries are still relatively expensive.

 

[GOM]

I'm looking at getting panels installed. No point having money in the bank at the moment the way I see it. Where i'm a bit hazy and could do with some advice, is, would the electricity generated be anywhere near enough to make an impact on charging an electric car?

Is it also possible to have a separate battery for times when the car isn't here in the day which could contribute to charging it overnight? Thanks, in advance.

This is a very big subject when adding an EV into the equation. I would suggest looking for an EV forum where this sort of thing is discussed in great detail and doing a search there . It doesn't really matter which car.

 

[Baldseagull]

I'm looking at getting panels installed. No point having money in the bank at the moment the way I see it. Where i'm a bit hazy and could do with some advice, is, would the electricity generated be anywhere near enough to make an impact on charging an electric car?

Is it also possible to have a separate battery for times when the car isn't here in the day which could contribute to charging it overnight? Thanks, in advance.

I don't have experience of batteries but have been keeping a bit of an eye on developments as would have them if and when they make financial sense. I don't think the cost v life expectancy of batteries makes economic sense for me at the moment, it might do on larger installs of solar panels. Battery systems for charging the car are available, they also allow domestic usage of the stored electric. There are also systems which store excess electric from the grid, and you can either use it or export it back to the grid, you get paid a fee for being part of the battery network that balances the grid, and if you use it, you have bought it at cheap rate.
I have not looked at it for a while, but it didn't stack up for me personally, it undoubtedly does for large installs, I believe Arsenal have a system at the Ethiad that charges batteries from the grid when there is excess, keeps enough in the battery bank to power the stadium for a few hours, and exports any excess over that when there is demand on the grid. Commercial set ups get paid properly, domestic set ups when I last looked just paid an annual fee to you to use your batteries as part of the grid balancing.

 

[LamieRobertson]

I don't have experience of batteries but have been keeping a bit of an eye on developments as would have them if and when they make financial sense. I don't think the cost v life expectancy of batteries makes economic sense for me at the moment, it might do on larger installs of solar panels. Battery systems for charging the car are available, they also allow domestic usage of the stored electric. There are also systems which store excess electric from the grid, and you can either use it or export it back to the grid, you get paid a fee for being part of the battery network that balances the grid, and if you use it, you have bought it at cheap rate.
I have not looked at it for a while, but it didn't stack up for me personally, it undoubtedly does for large installs, I believe Arsenal have a system at the Ethiad that charges batteries from the grid when there is excess, keeps enough in the battery bank to power the stadium for a few hours, and exports any excess over that when there is demand on the grid. Commercial set ups get paid properly, domestic set ups when I last looked just paid an annual fee to you to use your batteries as part of the grid balancing.

Arsenal at the Ethiad? Cheeky

 

[drew]

Glad to hear a good story. Are the FITs the same for new customers?

Afraid not.

 

[carlzeiss]

We got in early and our 11 year old system costing £10k paid for itself in about 6 years taking into account lower bills. We now earn at least £2k a year in FIT payments plus all washing, tumble drying, dishwashing is done during the day when we are generating our own. As far as I can see, the only real advancement since our installation is in batteries which we'll be looking at shortly.

If your FIT payments are higher than your current unit charges then I can see no point having batteries as you will be paying money for the extra hardware and then having a net loss in payments . Or Have I missed something ?

 

[Tim Over Whelmed]

Had my solar panels installed last week as part of the Sussex Solar Together scheme.

The installing company was Infinity Renewables and whilst not everything went completely smoothly (not entirely their fault and nothing major) their customer service has been excellent and I am very happy.

Spent £11,000 on 18 x 365w panels and a 6.5kwH battery which seems excellent value - it's a bit early to be sure exactly how much they will generate over a year but on a clear day in June it might get close to 40KwH and I expect the whole thing to pay for itself in under 5 years especially if I can get a cheap over night deal to charge the battery.

So far, so good!

To the really dumb in this field, when you say generate 40KwHa day, how much, roughly would you use in a day, and, you may not have this, what do you expect to achieve on a murky January day and use?

 

[Grizz]

To the really dumb in this field, when you say generate 40KwHa day, how much, roughly would you use in a day, and, you may not have this, what do you expect to achieve on a murky January day and use?

They say the average household uses 8-10kwh a day, but ours was 5.5kwh the year we didn't have panels, as there's only two of us here. In January this year our system averaged about 4kwh a day. On the other end of the scale in June we generated on average 18kwh a day.

Edit: we have a ten panel system, so we will only generate a maximum of 25kwh a day with the orientation of our rooves.

 

[hampshirebrightonboy]

Our install has been operational since 1st December 2021, missed out on the zero VAT, sorry not willing to recommend the company though. If you have shading get optimisers. Our spec was:- 2 Separate arrays, 7 x JASolar 380w panels (2.66kWp) south facing, 4 x JASolar 380w panels (1.52kWp) east facing, 11 x Tigo optimizers & cloud, Growatt SPH5000, Growatt 6.5kWh Hybrid battery. We have generated 1.6 MWh in that time but the weather has been poor and we had a few issues in the first couple of months. If the battery is fully charged by the generation, then the excess is used to heat the hot water tank, only then will any spare be exported to the grid (no EV). Hearing that due to demand supplies are short (especially batteries), prices have increased. We're still waiting for our SEG payments to be approved. Based on the performance over the 6 months ours has been operational, ROI will be 8.5 years, that will shorten once the October and future electricity price rises have been calculated in.

Incredible that solar panels should ever be anything other than zero VAT

 

[Baldseagull]

If your FIT payments are higher than your current unit charges then I can see no point having batteries as you will be paying money for the extra hardware and then having a net loss in payments . Or Have I missed something ?

Yes you have missed something, you get paid for generating the electricity whether you use it or not, if you export it you get paid an additional 4 pence for it, then if you have to buy some from the grid, it is the same price as everyone else, 28 pence or so, as opposed to free* if you stored it in batteries. * obviously battery purchase and maintenance has cost, which is why for me it doesn't make financial sense yet.

 

[Baldseagull]

Arsenal at the Ethiad? Cheeky

Sorry Emirates, the other UAE airline.

 

[drew]

If your FIT payments are higher than your current unit charges then I can see no point having batteries as you will be paying money for the extra hardware and then having a net loss in payments . Or Have I missed something ?

The batteries means you use up what you've stored during the evening when the panels aren't generating. Can get away with it in the summer but in winter it's useful, or so I assume.

 

[Justice]

I’m building a block of four 1 bed flats for a client and toying with the idea of solars, I’m just not sure if it will add enough value to justify the cost plus it’s more space required in each flat for the control gear.
Also it would be an extra so it would have to be approved by the client which probably won’t happen.

 

[carlzeiss]

The batteries means you use up what you've stored during the evening when the panels aren't generating. Can get away with it in the summer but in winter it's useful, or so I assume.

Correct , and with the sunshine that we are currently getting the batteries will still have enough charge in the morning to heat the water before the sun makes an appearance again .

The batteries also enable the power output to be increased without having to draw on the mains supply when there is sufficient solar power and battery charge level combined as we have right now .