Solar Panels

[Onceinawhile]

Has anyone on here got experience with the benefits of solar panels and batteries etc..?

Reason I'm asking, is we had someone out to price up a job for us. 10 Panels and a 6kwh (I think) battery, which comes in around £11,500. Now the energy saving trust are offering £11,000 in an interest free loan, which is repayable over 10 years, so £92 a month.

What I'm trying to figure out, is will my bills drop by enough to cover that £92 a month, or am I going to have to cover the difference somewhere?

[Jones28]

I’ve got my system booked in already so will be keeping a keen eye on this!

[Since90+2]

I had solar panels on my previous house. From memory it was about £400/£500 a year we got from it.

[danhibees1875]

Does having those solar panels add value to your house going forward? Worth keeping that in mind as you're doing the calculations.

What's the shelf life of a solar panel?

[Jones28]

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Does having those solar panels add value to your house going forward? Worth keeping that in mind as you're doing the calculations.

What's the shelf life of a solar panel?

The panels should last about 20 years, the batteries will go before the panels.

[grunt]

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What's the shelf life of a solar panel?

I thought they were supposed to go on the roof?

[Onceinawhile]

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Does having those solar panels add value to your house going forward? Worth keeping that in mind as you're doing the calculations.

What's the shelf life of a solar panel?

The guy selling us it tried to tell us it added £20,000! It looks likely that it will probably add some value, but more like £2,500.

[patch1875]

Most of the companies selling them come across as charlatans just seem to spout a load of guff to get the sale.

[Onceinawhile]

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Most of the companies selling them come across as charlatans just seem to spout a load of guff to get the sale.

Absolutely, that's why I was asking. The salesman was trying to tell me that they would pay themselves off in about 4 years! Which considering my electricity is only estimated to come to about £1,600 a year seems highly unlikely, unless I cover my entire electricity needs and managed to export about £400 back to the grid.

[Jones28]

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Absolutely, that's why I was asking. The salesman was trying to tell me that they would pay themselves off in about 4 years! Which considering my electricity is only estimated to come to about £1,600 a year seems highly unlikely, unless I cover my entire electricity needs and managed to export about £400 back to the grid.

My project hasn't been completed yet but I'd recommend RB Grant, who are Fife based but cover the whole country.

No hard sell, no bull **** and very transparent.

[grunt]

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My project hasn't been completed yet but I'd recommend RB Grant, who are Fife based but cover the whole country.

No hard sell, no bull **** and very transparent.

Thanks.

[Since90+2]

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Absolutely, that's why I was asking. The salesman was trying to tell me that they would pay themselves off in about 4 years! Which considering my electricity is only estimated to come to about £1,600 a year seems highly unlikely, unless I cover my entire electricity needs and managed to export about £400 back to the grid.

I had 9 south facing solar panels on a previous home, we never got anything like that from it. Admittedly it was a few years ago, but I'm pretty certain it was about £500 a year we got from them.

They were there when we bought the home so it was just a nice wee bonus, I'd be wary of paying silly money to have them put on my home to be honest.

[Onceinawhile]

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I had 9 south facing solar panels on a previous home, we never got anything like that from it. Admittedly it was a few years ago, but I'm pretty certain it was about £500 a year we got from them.

They were there when we bought the home so it was just a nice wee bonus, I'd be wary of paying silly money to have them put on my home to be honest.

Thanks.

The good thing is that it's an interest free 10 year loan, so even if it only covers £50 a month, we aren't that much worse off.

Just shows you how much nonsense people are willing to state to get a sale though.

[wookie70]

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I had 9 south facing solar panels on a previous home, we never got anything like that from it. Admittedly it was a few years ago, but I'm pretty certain it was about £500 a year we got from them.

They were there when we bought the home so it was just a nice wee bonus, I'd be wary of paying silly money to have them put on my home to be honest.

What size were the panels. The new ones are much more capable than the early ones.

[nonshinyfinish]

The other thing to bear in mind is that having the battery should mean you get more benefit than solar panels alone – it means you should be able to use all of the energy the panels yourself. Without the battery, excess energy generated during the day is sold to your supplier/the grid (rather than being stored for use in the evening). Obviously your supplier buys the excess energy from you for significantly less than it would charge you.

I've no idea if that makes the extra cost of the battery worthwhile in your case, but it's another variable in comparisons with other folk's existing solar panels.

[Jones28]

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The other thing to bear in mind is that having the battery should mean you get more benefit than solar panels alone – it means you should be able to use all of the energy the panels yourself. Without the battery, excess energy generated during the day is sold to your supplier/the grid (rather than being stored for use in the evening). Obviously your supplier buys the excess energy from you for significantly less than it would charge you.

I've no idea if that makes the extra cost of the battery worthwhile in your case, but it's another variable in comparisons with other folk's existing solar panels.

Thats what I've done, got a 5.2 kw battery going in so hopefully our electricity use from the grid will drop off a cliff.

Our system will send power to the house to power anything thats on, charge the battery, heat water and then finally when all of the other areas are covered it sells back to the grid. Our installer is pretty certain 4kw panels with the 5.2kw battery will be fine for a family of 4.

[Callum_62]

Even without panels a battery makes some sense

Let's say your standard tariff is 35p kw but if you are on octopus go you get 7p kw overnight

Charge your battery full during nightime and use it during the day

That's saving 28p kw or making your peak elec usage only 7p kw

If used to its max

5kw x 365 days is 1825kw

28p x 1825kw = £511 saved per annum

Obviously the bigger the gap between the day and night rate the more you will have 'saved'

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[gbhibby]

There have been issues when it comes to selling your house as some of the loans were secured against people's property. Check the small print.

[GlesgaeHibby]

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Has anyone on here got experience with the benefits of solar panels and batteries etc..?

Reason I'm asking, is we had someone out to price up a job for us. 10 Panels and a 6kwh (I think) battery, which comes in around £11,500. Now the energy saving trust are offering £11,000 in an interest free loan, which is repayable over 10 years, so £92 a month.

What I'm trying to figure out, is will my bills drop by enough to cover that £92 a month, or am I going to have to cover the difference somewhere?

Depends on your usage, system size, what direction your panels face etc.

I'm in Haddington. I've got a 7 panel 1.9kWp system on my south facing roof which generates around 1,750kWh per year. If I was using all of those units (I don't have a battery so I don't) I'd be saving around £595 / year.

Assuming your system is around the 3kW mark, and you're in a similar part of Scotland, with a south facing roof you may expect to generate around 2,800kWh / year saving you around £896 a year. (This is a ballpark estimation, and using the 1 October electricity cap at 32p/unit - if electricity prices goes up again, your savings increase / payback period decreases).

[CropleyWasGod]

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Depends on your usage, system size, what direction your panels face etc.

I'm in Haddington. I've got a 7 panel 1.9kWp system on my south facing roof which generates around 1,750kWh per year. If I was using all of those units (I don't have a battery so I don't) I'd be saving around £595 / year.

Assuming your system is around the 3kW mark, and you're in a similar part of Scotland, with a south facing roof you may expect to generate around 2,800kWh / year saving you around £896 a year. (This is a ballpark estimation, and using the 1 October electricity cap at 32p/unit - if electricity prices goes up again, your savings increase / payback period decreases).

Did you get someone to put them in?

If so, who, and would you recommend them?

[gbhibby]

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Depends on your usage, system size, what direction your panels face etc.

I'm in Haddington. I've got a 7 panel 1.9kWp system on my south facing roof which generates around 1,750kWh per year. If I was using all of those units (I don't have a battery so I don't) I'd be saving around £595 / year.

Assuming your system is around the 3kW mark, and you're in a similar part of Scotland, with a south facing roof you may expect to generate around 2,800kWh / year saving you around £896 a year. (This is a ballpark estimation, and using the 1 October electricity cap at 32p/unit - if electricity prices goes up again, your savings increase / payback period decreases).

Is that a new house in Haddington? I am moving soon to a new house in Haddington with solar panels
Have you looked at the cost of batteries for your house? If you have what was the cost?

[GlesgaeHibby]

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Did you get someone to put them in?

If so, who, and would you recommend them?

Came with the house. Forster were the subcontractor - had worked with them in my previous job to get solar on the roof of the office building and they did a good job there. That was back in 2018.

[GlesgaeHibby]

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Is that a new house in Haddington? I am moving soon to a new house in Haddington with solar panels
Have you looked at the cost of batteries for your house? If you have what was the cost?

It is a new house. Haven't looked into batteries yet, but thinking about it. Would look to double size of my system first if getting a battery - don't know how easy it is given the panels are recessed into roof rather than mounted to the roof.

Really frustrating the builders don't give you the option to increase the size of system at construction. Would have taken that as an option and paid for larger system.

[Callum_62]

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It is a new house. Haven't looked into batteries yet, but thinking about it. Would look to double size of my system first if getting a battery - don't know how easy it is given the panels are recessed into roof rather than mounted to the roof.

Really frustrating the builders don't give you the option to increase the size of system at construction. Would have taken that as an option and paid for larger system.

Depending on space its easy

Really expensive if you want them all recessed but you can add in on roof panels

Likley they will run off there own inverter etc but it's no massive issue

I've certainly had a few quotes and while they limit space as the builders for some reason centralise the recessed panels it won't stop you adding some in

We are probaly going to add 4 more panels to the back off the house (on roof above the recessed panels we have) plus 6 on the front (east west facing house)

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[Andy Bee]

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Depending on space its easy

Really expensive if you want them all recessed but you can add in on roof panels

Likley they will run off there own inverter etc but it's no massive issue

I've certainly had a few quotes and while they limit space as the builders for some reason centralise the recessed panels it won't stop you adding some in

We are probaly going to add 4 more panels to the back off the house (on roof above the recessed panels we have) plus 6 on the front (east west facing house)

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How many in total will that give you Callum and do you feel it's a big disadvantage being East/West? From what I'm reading it seems I'd need double that of a South facing roof to catch both the morning then afternoon sun.

[gbhibby]

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It is a new house. Haven't looked into batteries yet, but thinking about it. Would look to double size of my system first if getting a battery - don't know how easy it is given the panels are recessed into roof rather than mounted to the roof.

Really frustrating the builders don't give you the option to increase the size of system at construction. Would have taken that as an option and paid for larger system.

Mines look like the same type that you have. Need to do a bit of number crunching to see if it would be worthwhile to add more, don't understand why the builders don't supply the full package including storage facilities.

[Moulin Yarns]

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Mines look like the same type that you have. Need to do a bit of number crunching to see if it would be worthwhile to add more, don't understand why the builders don't supply the full package including storage facilities.

Volume house builders will always do the minimum required.

I used to work within the planning department of a local authority and 10 or 12 years ago I was calling for solar panels to be a requirement for all new buildings.

[gbhibby]

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Volume house builders will always do the minimum required.

I used to work within the planning department of a local authority and 10 or 12 years ago I was calling for solar panels to be a requirement for all new buildings.

Notice some builders also putting in heat pumps as well. Both these should be a requirement in any new builds now,don't understand why this has not been made law.

[patch1875]

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Notice some builders also putting in heat pumps as well. Both these should be a requirement in any new builds now,don't understand why this has not been made law.

Think it becomes law soon in developments over a certain amount of houses.

We move into a small development in January doesn’t have proper panels but the smaller ones? Think it for the hot water.

A friend has a heat pump in a Cala house wishes he still had a boiler lots of issues and very expensive to maintain.

[Itsnoteasy]

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Think it becomes law soon in developments over a certain amount of houses.

We move into a small development in January doesn’t have proper panels but the smaller ones? Think it for the hot water.

A friend has a heat pump in a Cala house wishes he still had a boiler lots of issues and very expensive to maintain.

Heat pumps hopeless when the weather gets colder in the UK.