Solar panels advice

[VLC86]

2 hours ago, Milo said:

Thanks for sharing this, mate. 
 

So you reckon for about a £20-25k outlay you could be pretty self sufficient and have negligible monthly bills. 

 

I checked my annual usage over the weekend, and it’s around 7,000kw’s, so similar to your example. 
 

Is this an installation company that you’ve gone to, or an energy company? 

So yeah my consumption at the min is over 7k and it’s likely to be around 11k with an EV.

 

Thats with a company called Solar Project I think, if you are based in Leicester I can point you towards the guy that came round mine as he’s done an excellent job of helping me get my head around it.

 

I’m not trying to figure out if that’s expensive even for about 90% self sufficient.

[Wolfox]

44 minutes ago, Zear0 said:

Anyone know if there any cars with the capability, or bespoke solutions, to implement EV battery storage for domestic use yet? 

 

Tempted with solar myself, but only makes sense with the accompanying storage as we're rarely at home during peak generating hours. Seems ridiculous to pay for a 6.8 kWh battery for the house when I have a 64 kWh sat on my driveway (I'm a hippy who cycles to work so the car will be at home even if I'm not). 

That’s a smart idea!  It would mean your car would need to be onsite during peak producing hours, but I don’t see why that shouldn’t work?

 

Give Elon Musk a bell?!

[VLC86]

2 hours ago, Zear0 said:

Anyone know if there any cars with the capability, or bespoke solutions, to implement EV battery storage for domestic use yet? 

 

Tempted with solar myself, but only makes sense with the accompanying storage as we're rarely at home during peak generating hours. Seems ridiculous to pay for a 6.8 kWh battery for the house when I have a 64 kWh sat on my driveway (I'm a hippy who cycles to work so the car will be at home even if I'm not). 

Having a Zappi installed today. If you plug your car in it diverts excess to your car to fill rather than storage or back to the grid.

[VLC86]

22 hours ago, Costock_Fox said:

So yeah my consumption at the min is over 7k and it’s likely to be around 11k with an EV.

 

Thats with a company called Solar Project I think, if you are based in Leicester I can point you towards the guy that came round mine as he’s done an excellent job of helping me get my head around it.

 

I’m not trying to figure out if that’s expensive even for about 90% self sufficient.

An update, I think their quote is very expensive and would probably get me to about 80% sufficient so I’m currently trying to get more quotes to compare to.

[ian__marshall]

1 hour ago, Costock_Fox said:

An update, I think their quote is very expensive and would probably get me to about 80% sufficient so I’m currently trying to get more quotes to compare to.

Which smart battery system were you looking at? 

 

Also, have you tried getting a quote via the Solar Together portal? I initially went down this route and the quote was OK but lack of finance options put me off. Might be worth a try though if you haven't done so already. 

[VLC86]

5 hours ago, ian__marshall said:

Which smart battery system were you looking at? 

 

Also, have you tried getting a quote via the Solar Together portal? I initially went down this route and the quote was OK but lack of finance options put me off. Might be worth a try though if you haven't done so already. 

One of the alarm bells with the quote I got was he can’t tell us the battery type…

[Free Falling Foxes]

I noticed when visiting my son, I house nearby has 4 solar panels on the roof, all facing north.

The South facing front of that house does have a couple of tall trees just yards away, so I guess that's why, but how much does that affect efficiency to just have day light as opposed to sunlight all the time?

[VLC86]

2 hours ago, Free Falling Foxes said:

I noticed when visiting my son, I house nearby has 4 solar panels on the roof, all facing north.

The South facing front of that house does have a couple of tall trees just yards away, so I guess that's why, but how much does that affect efficiency to just have day light as opposed to sunlight all the time?

I would imagine 4 north facing panels probably don’t generate much energy at all but im by no means an expert.

[ajthefox]

3 hours ago, Free Falling Foxes said:

I noticed when visiting my son, I house nearby has 4 solar panels on the roof, all facing north.

The South facing front of that house does have a couple of tall trees just yards away, so I guess that's why, but how much does that affect efficiency to just have day light as opposed to sunlight all the time?

May as well not have bothered - their payback will be terrible.

[FoyleFox]

We've just had a quote from Solar Together, which is around half the cost of the quote from Octopus. 

The recommendation is for 4 panels and a 4.3 battery. You could only include one roof section in the survey but we've two we could use, one west and one east. We could therefore double up with panels and the 9.3 battery. Our consumption is about 5000 a year now with the EV, so just waying up if it's worth the extra £2/3kish outlay.

 

How are those with panels getting on and did anyone else go ahead with an install? 

 

 

[Stadt]

44 minutes ago, FoyleFox said:

We've just had a quote from Solar Together, which is around half the cost of the quote from Octopus. 

The recommendation is for 4 panels and a 4.3 battery. You could only include one roof section in the survey but we've two we could use, one west and one east. We could therefore double up with panels and the 9.3 battery. Our consumption is about 5000 a year now with the EV, so just waying up if it's worth the extra £2/3kish outlay.

 

How are those with panels getting on and did anyone else go ahead with an install? 

 

 

4 panels will essentially never fill the battery. Your daily consumption is approx 14 kWh and 4 panels will probably produce a few kWh a day - most of the install cost is in the labour, scaffolding, inverter etc so having so few panels isn't cost effective.

Edited 31 July 2024 by Stadt

[jgtuk]

40 minutes ago, FoyleFox said:

We've just had a quote from Solar Together, which is around half the cost of the quote from Octopus. 

The recommendation is for 4 panels and a 4.3 battery. You could only include one roof section in the survey but we've two we could use, one west and one east. We could therefore double up with panels and the 9.3 battery. Our consumption is about 5000 a year now with the EV, so just waying up if it's worth the extra £2/3kish outlay.

 

How are those with panels getting on and did anyone else go ahead with an install? 

 

 

 

4 minutes ago, Stadt said:

4 panels will essentially never fill the battery. Your daily consumption is approx 14 kWh and 4 panels will probably produce a few kWh a day - out of the install cost is in the labour, scaffolding, inverter etc so having so few panels isn't cost effective.

Agree with everything Stadt said. 
get as many panels as you can afford/have room for. 

[filthyfox]

44 minutes ago, FoyleFox said:

We've just had a quote from Solar Together, which is around half the cost of the quote from Octopus. 

The recommendation is for 4 panels and a 4.3 battery. You could only include one roof section in the survey but we've two we could use, one west and one east. We could therefore double up with panels and the 9.3 battery. Our consumption is about 5000 a year now with the EV, so just waying up if it's worth the extra £2/3kish outlay.

 

How are those with panels getting on and did anyone else go ahead with an install? 

 

 

OMG.

EVs have FINALLY made solar panels worth having!!!

[VLC86]

I second the above advice, I was told to

get as many panels as I could and it makes sense with the cost of each panel not actually being too bad.

 

As for how they are getting on, I’ve got a massive battery set up as well but probably pay about £1200 a year for energy with a hot tub and an EV that does about 15000 miles a year. As long as they last for longer than 5/6 years it will be well worth it for me.

Edited 31 July 2024 by VLC86

[fox_up_north]

Year of data through Octopus outgoing.

2.5kw array, single person household.

 

Raw numbers in £

 

Used - (july 23-july 24) £319

Exported - (as above) £269

 

Essentially it means my year electric cost works out at around £50.

 

Yes, it was worth it. 

[FoyleFox]

Thanks for the feedback. We didn't anticipate 4 to be sufficient, but unfortunately, the survey only allowed for one roof face. Although, it turns out that I measured incorrectly and that face will fit 8. We'd probably be happy with 8 panels and the 9.3 battery. We've definitely room for a lot more but even going to 12 panels with the larger battery ups the cost to £7k, which is above what we'd be looking to spend. 

We'll definitely be proceeding with solar, though. 

ETA - One option for more panels might be that we can claw back a bit of the quoted install/scaffolding cost as, most of where the panels will go is above the garage (it's a bungalow) so, won't need scaffolding. Might be a long shot but will be worth asking at the survey. 

Edited 2 August 2024 by FoyleFox

[fox_up_north]

One thing I will mention is that, mentally, you do sort of adapt your life a little bit to having solar. Not, loads but an example is I now check the weather a lot to see what sunny days are coming.

 

If I've got a wash that needs doing, I might wait a day or so to put it on and match the sun. This is especially useful in Nov-Jan.

 

My "solar window" as I consider it is about March - October. I get a solid 7 months where it pays for itself. 

[jgtuk]

1 hour ago, fox_up_north said:

One thing I will mention is that, mentally, you do sort of adapt your life a little bit to having solar. Not, loads but an example is I now check the weather a lot to see what sunny days are coming.

 

If I've got a wash that needs doing, I might wait a day or so to put it on and match the sun. This is especially useful in Nov-Jan.

 

My "solar window" as I consider it is about March - October. I get a solid 7 months where it pays for itself. 

Exactly this. 
Still trying to convince my wife that an EV would work for us. 

[FoyleFox]

14 hours ago, fox_up_north said:

One thing I will mention is that, mentally, you do sort of adapt your life a little bit to having solar. Not, loads but an example is I now check the weather a lot to see what sunny days are coming.

 

If I've got a wash that needs doing, I might wait a day or so to put it on and match the sun. This is especially useful in Nov-Jan.

 

My "solar window" as I consider it is about March - October. I get a solid 7 months where it pays for itself. 

It's using your resources sensibly and financially effective. When we moved to the house we're in now we got a day/night rate electric tariff. Washing etc all started to go on in the evening. It was a particularly beneficial adjustment after we moved to the EV tariff. 

[Zear0]

9 hours ago, FoyleFox said:

It's using your resources sensibly and financially effective. When we moved to the house we're in now we got a day/night rate electric tariff. Washing etc all started to go on in the evening. It was a particularly beneficial adjustment after we moved to the EV tariff. 

Amazing how many appliances you find out have timed starts functions when you're on a day/night tariff too. Simple things I'd never have bothered with before even though it saves a fortune. 

[FoyleFox]

On 02/08/2024 at 19:28, FoyleFox said:

Thanks for the feedback. We didn't anticipate 4 to be sufficient, but unfortunately, the survey only allowed for one roof face. Although, it turns out that I measured incorrectly and that face will fit 8. We'd probably be happy with 8 panels and the 9.3 battery. We've definitely room for a lot more but even going to 12 panels with the larger battery ups the cost to £7k, which is above what we'd be looking to spend. 

We'll definitely be proceeding with solar, though. 

ETA - One option for more panels might be that we can claw back a bit of the quoted install/scaffolding cost as, most of where the panels will go is above the garage (it's a bungalow) so, won't need scaffolding. Might be a long shot but will be worth asking at the survey. 

We have had the full survey today, we don't need a full set of scaffold and so are spending that cost on additional panels. So, we're going for 10 panels and a 9.3 battery.

I am mentally ignoring that there is actually an additional cost of £600 for an additional consumer unit as we've only 2 spare ports, and some fire safety equipment.

[Free Falling Foxes]

Basic and obvious point regarding having solar panels; but make sure they are going to be facing southwards, predominantly.

I've mentioned before - possibly on this very thread - that a house near where my son lives, have panels that face north!

The efficiency drops off dramatically when not getting full sun.

[FoyleFox]

22 hours ago, Free Falling Foxes said:

Basic and obvious point regarding having solar panels; but make sure they are going to be facing southwards, predominantly.

I've mentioned before - possibly on this very thread - that a house near where my son lives, have panels that face north!

The efficiency drops off dramatically when not getting full sun.

I still find it hard to believe anyone thought that was a good idea! I'm actually surprised the company installed them. Our initial paperwork said that if you didn't have a site that would produce a return over a certain amount, they wouldn't proceed with the install.

 

We have been using a very handy site which shows the house orientation and sun positioning, it can show you info for a specific day and time regarding sun/shadow etc

https://re.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pvg_tools/en/#TMY

[FoyleFox]

On 04/09/2024 at 15:58, FoyleFox said:

We have had the full survey today, we don't need a full set of scaffold and so are spending that cost on additional panels. So, we're going for 10 panels and a 9.3 battery.

I am mentally ignoring that there is actually an additional cost of £600 for an additional consumer unit as we've only 2 spare ports, and some fire safety equipment.

The panels and battery were installed yesterday. So far today we've generated 1.7kWh, not bad as it's very grey and cloudy. The battery filled up at 7p overnight, now discharging and currently at 75%, so hopefully lasts until 23:30 before it refills.

Our monthly electric bill starts on 5th of each month so, by 5th Dec I should have a good idea on savings (and given that I was charged £80 for October, when I was only at home for 5 days, it better be good).

 

I'm now adding a saving for the 'fire safety equipment'. They put a £20 smoke alarm in the garage, said we didn't need the linked kit for the house. So, I'm deducting that from the bill. It was a £50 kit at best, the cheeky f@ckers!

[PAULCFC]

My mum and Dad had solar a few years ago,just to heat the water.When they both passed away it was a pig to sell the house as i didn't know who installed it and buyers Mortgage providers were really picky on it.