Mortgage Rate Rises

[TNA]

Not really TBH. Although if you have a marginal install maybe.
For many it would be at max a years benefit at elec prices close to where they are now.

I had mine installed end of Nov, by the end of June I had made back 9.4% of my spend via lower bills, savings from demand reduction payments etc.

Edit, I mean end of June, sorry been predicting my end of July results!

I meant for me if I went battery only. I would be doing it also to prevent any power outage also btw. The idea was to go for a big battery. Like 10-15kw or something.

Will be interesting how we do on tracker this winter. Not sure I want to come off it as takes 9 months to get back on.

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

I meant for me if I went battery only. I would be doing it also to prevent any power outage also btw. The idea was to go for a big battery. Like 10-15kw or something.

Will be interesting how we do on tracker this winter. Not sure I want to come off it as takes 9 months to get back on.

I wouldn't recommend solar only or battery only for the majority.
Whilst combined has longer ROI, it adds a lot of flexibility that one or the other alone does not.

The raw benefit comes from panels, the ability to store that and in winter pull cheap energy into batteries is where they shine.
The are complimentary.

The problem with batteries is they rely on a tariff thats super favourable in order to save x pence per unit. Thats a gamble no matter how you look at it.
But for low users like mentioned above they are almost certain to be able to find a way to do that, whilst benefitting from the battery all year.

 

[pc-guy]

Your giving me vibes of someone with no idea, no offense.

Why would grid production of solar be more efficient than generation at home?

Leccy isnt going to be dirt cheap. Winter generation is basically never going to be viable in the UK.
So pricing for winter will either be bonkers expensive, or averaged across the year.

Larger scale inverter efficiency. Higher voltages less current thus less loss. Immediacy to national grid infrastructure - ie a substation onsite means even less loss.

Doesn’t sound like you know everything about everything either mate. No offence.

 

[kevman]

All electric here - solar no battery (would love a battery)
My self use is 1600kwh from solar for first 6months of year so saving £1000 per year at current prices - 6yr payback at current rates

 

[413x]

Plus if it was national you could install and buy thousands of panels at one time under one contract. Rather than people going to a house, getting up in a roof, travelling to fit 8 panels. etc etc.

 

[Fishman]

Why would grid production of solar be more efficient than generation at home?

It wasn't my post that you were replying to as I rarely post on the forums. Just adding my own thoughts on this.

I want solar + battery for the environmental benefits (lets ignore any negatives for mining lithium etc) and potential cost reduction but what I don't want is to be ripped off, have a load of hassle trying to find a sensible quote, wait ages and not get what I want, with likely poor support.

It would be better on a macro level for the grid to have everyone's solar covered such that it didn't have to be installed on house roofs, with not the optimum angle, shading, optimisers and new electrical setups, G99 applications etc. More large scale installations.

It would be much cheaper to install and maintain on a per kW/h basis. If I could pay a sensible contribution towards that and have a bill adjustment for the generation then that would probably overall be better instead of hundreds of thousands of small installations with everyone wondering if anyone will honour these long life warranties.

Edit: Looks like everyone had the same idea in the posts above

 

[413x]

All electric here - solar no battery (would love a battery)
My self use is 1600kwh from solar for first 6months of year so saving £1000 per year at current prices - 6yr payback at current rates

That's pretty good!
Those are the sort of figures I'd be wanting to go ahead.

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

Larger scale inverter efficiency. Higher voltages less current thus less loss. Immediacy to national grid infrastructure - ie a substation onsite means even less loss.

Doesn’t sound like you know everything about everything either mate. No offence.

Local if unused goes DC to battery. Then is converted once (at very high efficiency, check inverter efficiencies).
If exporting it will end up locally at one of my neighbours so will have been basically at my efficiency rate, less a miniscule amount for the extra travel.

Unless its changed they were saying 1.7% losses on transmission network and 5-8% on distribution networks, although the later sounds high.
Thats after the initial conversion losses from local conversion.

Grid based would require far more conversions, its never going to end up more efficient.

IIRC our paperwork for our shared x MW system we are part funding at work has a lower assumed efficicency than my home one. Although there seems to be dubious numbers in regards efficiency IMO.

 

[pc-guy]

Solar farms have micro inverter also which is not common on home installation which impacts overall system efficiency.

Massive solar farms don’t have issues regarding shading etc and can always be placed in optimum direction unlike roof mount.

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

It wasn't my post that you were replying to as I rarely post on the forums. Just adding my own thoughts on this.

I want solar + battery for the environmental benefits (lets ignore any negatives for mining lithium etc) and potential cost reduction but what I don't want is to be ripped off, have a load of hassle trying to find a sensible quote, wait ages and not get what I want, with likely poor support.

It would be better on a macro level for the grid to have everyone's solar covered such that it didn't have to be installed on house roofs, with not the optimum angle, shading, optimisers and new electrical setups, G99 applications etc. More large scale installations.

It would be much cheaper to install and maintain on a per kW/h basis. If I could pay a sensible contribution towards that and have a bill adjustment for the generation then that would probably overall be better instead of hundreds of thousands of small installations with everyone wondering if anyone will honour these long life warranties.

Edit: Looks like everyone had the same idea in the posts above

Right, really if you were arguing for efficiency it should be in regards the actual generation vs the total cost, its what I expect him to actually come back with. Oddly he didn't.

There are for sure some massive benefits in regards grid scale. There are also some massive negatives people forget.
At local level the voltage is set higher than grid, at grid scale that obviously cannot happen.

Solar is highly variable, ask anyone with generation how quickly it can shoot up or down. At grid level thats a massive negative. Wind is far better, turbines don't just start and stop on a whim (with a cloud for example)

The other main issue is that if we had national utilities we could far more easily balance the costs, however as we don't, they are all in effect private.
Then you hit the most basic principle of investing, return.
The cost of the land, the profit element, the maintenance and upkeep.

The same warranties apply to grid scale as local. The simplest way to get round it is either self insuring for large volumes where you assume x failure rate and add that into your chargeable cost equations. Or like for smaller arrays you take insurance.

 

[Gammawolf]

If I could pay a sensible contribution towards that and have a bill adjustment for the generation then that would probably overall be better instead of hundreds of thousands of small installations with everyone wondering if anyone will honour these long life warranties.

You could, there are several schemes like Ripple Energy that did a round a few months ago for exactly this for solar panels.

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

Solar farms have micro inverter also which is not common on home installation which impacts overall system efficiency.

Massive solar farms don’t have issues regarding shading etc and can always be placed in optimum direction unlike roof mount.

This is very much a debated thing in the industry. There is no basic benefit from a micro inverter, especially if balanced against the increased risk of failure.
The one benefit of most micro inverters is that they basically tell you which panel has an issue (or inverter itself), and if you have thousands of panels you probably want to know specifically.

This is why most domestic do not have them, they cost more, they add complexity, they add higher failure risk. If you have a major issue as a consumer then the agro is getting someone to go and inspect, the number of units to test is minor, its getting up there thats the issue.

You could, there are several schemes like Ripple Energy that did a round a few months ago for exactly this for solar panels.

I was going to put this.

Ripple is a good example.

When you compare the costs of buying in to ripple, vs doing it yourself, it works out noticeably better to do it yourself if you have a suitable building.

The equation can of course change if you may move frequently, or have a property not suited to solar.
You can also buy into ripple for small amounts so its a way to dip a toe for say £1k as opposed to going full solar at many times that amount.

 

[HungryHippos]

At 1200-1400kWh/year of electric... I'd imagine the payback for my place would be around 15-20 years.

What's the actual lifespan of a solar install before needing replaced?

You aren't using enough to make the maths work, that's one of the reasons I said that it can be good but benefit will vary depending on your household usage patterns.

Just a couple of panels to cover base use would suit you. You don't have to go for a massive setup. The actual panels seem pretty bulletproof actually, should easily last 25years.

Kind of pointless getting a small setup unless you can DIY it though, installers want cash to come out and even look at your roof let alone putting up a few panels. More efficient to go for a 3-4kW system minimum.

All electric here - solar no battery (would love a battery)
My self use is 1600kwh from solar for first 6months of year so saving £1000 per year at current prices - 6yr payback at current rates

Gets a little harder to work out as my benefit is also coming from off-peak charging battery in winter, but since install last September, I've generated 3950 kWh and exported 1254 kWh to grid, this means I've used 2696 kWh from what the solar produced in a bit under a year.

Some of my export was done at higher peak rates on purpose for Flux payments, where using it immediately wasn't a high priority. So on this alone it's on a similar line by the end of the year I think, will be saving around £1000 for the year, plus lowered other costs from importing to battery off-peak.

I've used 5682 kWh since install and I think a good deal of that has come from either direct solar, from solar that went into the battery, or from battery off-peak charged from the grid. My actual native grid draw is probably quite low.

 

[Richie]

Solar cost return is geared at more heavier users, more you use more you save. If you're on the lower usage end focus spend on efficiency savings seems more apt eg heat exchanger, insulation

You aren't using enough to make the maths work, that's one of the reasons I said that it can be good but benefit will vary depending on your household usage patterns.

Yeah and I can't really improve my home efficiency as it's a B currently. The only way to get it to an A is with solar elec and water heating IIRC (it's on the little report stuck inside my Elec cupboard from when house was new)

I also don't have an economy 7 meter so it's single rate electric for me.

 

[HungryHippos]

Yeah and I can't really improve my home efficiency as it's a B currently. The only way to get it to an A is with solar elec and water heating IIRC (it's on the little report stuck inside my Elec cupboard from when house was new)

I also don't have an economy 7 meter so it's single rate electric for me.

Yeah no point forcing yourself to use more energy to try and make the numbers work out. I've always used a lot of electric so it makes sense for me.

For lower users you could kind of make it work by adding say an EV, or a heatpump system, both can replace alternates like using Gas CH or petrol/diesel cars, but both also carry premiums vs cheaper gas boilers or non-EV cars.

I'm at these sort of figures even without an EV or heatpump!

No need for Eco 7 meter for time of use rates I have a smart meter and Octopus just records time/usage in 30 min intervals so I can use their smart tariffs without Eco 7. Kind of makes Eco 7 pointless as a concept as well as 1 meter can do anything.

 

[Mark M]

Can anyone point me to a good mortgage overpayment calculator? Im looking at how hard Im going to have to graft to get the mortgage paid off in 15 years if possible!

 

[Mercenary Keyboard Warrior]

Yeah no point forcing yourself to use more energy to try and make the numbers work out. I've always used a lot of electric so it makes sense for me.

For lower users you could kind of make it work by adding say an EV, or a heatpump system, both can replace alternates like using Gas CH or petrol/diesel cars, but both also carry premiums vs cheaper gas boilers or non-EV cars.

I'm at these sort of figures even without an EV or heatpump!

No need for Eco 7 meter for time of use rates I have a smart meter and Octopus just records time/usage in 30 min intervals so I can use their smart tariffs without Eco 7. Kind of makes Eco 7 pointless as a concept as well as 1 meter can do anything.

The very old installs of Eco 7 had I believe a separate circuit that was physically enabled when Eco7 kicked in.
It was for very high usage storage heaters.

A few people will still have that and will require a I believe add on to a smart meter to handle that.
I think most of the time thats all ripped out now on mains renewal with modern meters handling the variable timing fine.

With elec becoming expensive again you wonder if the move to heat pumps etc will see the return to people wanting TOU tariffs.

Much like Go the cheap units are very cheap but the "normal" units are higher.

 

[OpenToSuggestions]

I like this one as it has a good graph and you can enter your mortgage length in years and months:

Mortgage Overpayment Calculator | NatWest

Use the NatWest Mortgage Overpayment Calculator to find out whether you could repay your mortgage faster or pay less each month.

www.natwest.com

 

[pc-guy]

This is very much a debated thing in the industry. There is no basic benefit from a micro inverter, especially if balanced against the increased risk of failure.
The one benefit of most micro inverters is that they basically tell you which panel has an issue (or inverter itself), and if you have thousands of panels you probably want to know specifically.

This is why most domestic do not have them, they cost more, they add complexity, they add higher failure risk. If you have a major issue as a consumer then the agro is getting someone to go and inspect, the number of units to test is minor, its getting up there thats the issue.



I was going to put this.

Ripple is a good example.

When you compare the costs of buying in to ripple, vs doing it yourself, it works out noticeably better to do it yourself if you have a suitable building.

The equation can of course change if you may move frequently, or have a property not suited to solar.
You can also buy into ripple for small amounts so its a way to dip a toe for say £1k as opposed to going full solar at many times that amount.

I don’t disagree about micro converters but they provide balancing in a system technically on a Greenfield land with no shading and all panels perform the same then there should be no need for micro inverters. But panel to panel there will be silicon variantion and that’s where it comes in.

Forget about the points of failure or more points of failure. With micro-inverters on a large scale farm, you will have higher output than one without. And by that derivation you go down to domestic 6-12 panel it can be argued similar perf hit can take place.

I personally think micro invert in domestic application is possibly more important due to roofs usually have shading and that means you are reduced to the lowest performing panel.

 

[HungryHippos]

Problem is if 1 micro-inverter on your roof dies, you either ignore it and have less panels, or you have the pain of getting scaffold up again and replacing it, which has a cost as well.

Unless you need them I'd avoid micro-inverters on domestic personally.