Energy Suppliers

Journey said:
Lol, I paid just over £2.2k for my 8.2kWh pack, so they are having your pants down with that silly quote.
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Did you buy the individual 3.2v lifepo4 cells ?, trying to find a good grade A new batteries on Aliexpress is a real minefield.
To many reports of them selling grade B used cells as new.

Need to buy 8 x EVE 280Ah or 304Ah cells.
 
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My energy rates are set to double on Oct1, from 13p/9p for day/night rates to 25/18p more than doubling my current monthly DD from £38 to over £80 a month, coupled with the £20 a week reduction from UC and that's me out of pocket over £120 a month from October. Along with the ever increasing cost of food, Christmas is going to suck this year.

Of course some will just say, well work more. If only it was that simple.

When you factor in the loss of 63p per pound of earnings to make up that £120, I'd be working an additional 2 shifts per week, leaving me with precisely 0 time for anything else. Sort term working 6 days week is ok, long term its a sure fire way to die early.
 
Troop said:
Did you buy the individual 3.2v lifepo4 cells, trying to find a good grade A new batteries on Aliexpress is a real minefield.
To many reports of them selling grade B used cells as new.

Need to buy 8 x EVE 280Ah or 304Ah cells.
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No I bought a proper pack with a proper controller, and interface from GivEnergy.
 
deuse said:
That costs a bomb.


161 ah for £2400!! you was robbed.

I have an 8S 300ah cells in series. £1,200
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Whoopdeedoo for you, I didn't really want to design and make a battery for my house, I looked into it and decided I preferred to have some come back on the manufacturer, not risk duds from China.
 
deuse said:
Design lmfao 12 wires :cry::cry:
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12 wires.. and I checked zero house insurance cover if it should happened to become faulty and cause a fire. I''m all for saving money, but not at the expense of losing my house, I looked at locating it in my shed, but that would have involved loads extra electrical work which would have cancelled out most of the savings... so less being a smart arse. I am sure you've checked with your house insurance provider that they will cover you right? ;)
 
OldKitMan said:
so with something like this you hook up your solar panels to the inverter and then it's just a 3 pin plug from the inverter to a socket in your house and your in business?

Actually, found a video on youtube:


For a few hundred could get a fairly interesting project on the go so going to look into this in a bit more detail now.
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Well have to start a new thread all about it, I'm keen to give it ago with the hope of dealing with idle power around 200w would be nice.
 
So I didnt realise that midsummer do let you order if you're not trade, I can buy all the equipment and fixings for £3k then just pay someone who's MCS registered to put it up hopefully.

That way I can chuck the equipment on a Credit Card.
 
PiKe said:
So I didnt realise that midsummer do let you order if you're not trade, I can buy all the equipment and fixings for £3k then just pay someone who's MCS registered to put it up hopefully.

That way I can chuck the equipment on a Credit Card.
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I found Midsummer to be pretty expensive tbh, call Trade Sparky, or have a dig around Google for the items you are looking for, you could find them quite a bit cheaper again.
 
So what is the thinking on solar panels at the moment?

From the brief research I have done, solar panels have a 20-25 year shelf life and a 12-18 year ROI. Thats not amazing. I guess if electricity prices shoot up long term then it makes a lot more sense but seeing how the world is ultimately moving to electricity and renewables you would hope that we will increase generation a lot and prices might even come down.
 
fez said:
So what is the thinking on solar panels at the moment?

From the brief research I have done, solar panels have a 20-25 year shelf life and a 12-18 year ROI. Thats not amazing. I guess if electricity prices shoot up long term then it makes a lot more sense but seeing how the world is ultimately moving to electricity and renewables you would hope that we will increase generation a lot and prices might even come down.
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With the new stations in the pipeline electric prices will eventually come down, I'd definitely say the long term tend will be down not up.

Like you say EVs being pushed, natural gas eventually being phased out.
 
fez said:
So what is the thinking on solar panels at the moment?

From the brief research I have done, solar panels have a 20-25 year shelf life and a 12-18 year ROI. Thats not amazing. I guess if electricity prices shoot up long term then it makes a lot more sense but seeing how the world is ultimately moving to electricity and renewables you would hope that we will increase generation a lot and prices might even come down.
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Think 10 year ROI is more realistic myself, especially with energy prices still increasing. As for the shelf life, it's hard to tell since they've not been in widespread use for that long (at least in residential circumstances), but decent company ones have 25 year guarantees.

As I said further up, we're lucky that we have an old meter that goes backwards which really helps, but it cost us £4.5k to have 4.5KW installed on a 3.6 inverter (so we can only ever use a max of 3.6kw at once, more panels means we hit that for a longer period of the day). A quick calculation suggests we saved at least £600 in our first year. That's assuming an average unit cost of 14p, whereas now a unit is going to be 20p+.

And of course, after 10 years, it's then just pure "profit".
 
fez said:
So what is the thinking on solar panels at the moment?

From the brief research I have done, solar panels have a 20-25 year shelf life and a 12-18 year ROI. Thats not amazing. I guess if electricity prices shoot up long term then it makes a lot more sense but seeing how the world is ultimately moving to electricity and renewables you would hope that we will increase generation a lot and prices might even come down.
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I suppose it depends on what else you'd do with the money, or if you are struggling etc. Payback time will vary massively depending on the price you pay for the system upfront, and how much energy your property consumes each year. I wanted solar, so I looked at it like any other appliance I would buy for the house, the benefits for me (having a battery backup), I can power my house most days from the energy I make from spring until autumn, as I built a system that was way bigger than the energy I consume, and any excess is stored, no more power cuts, my whole house has a UPS now, and if I want I can charge my car from it as well. TO me it is a QoL investment, and something I wanted, much like a holiday, or a new TV etc. I didn't look at it as just an expense with a hope of it paying itself back, how quickly does wallpaper or carpet pay for itself? You get where I am coming from...

As panel technology move forward I plan on selling the old panels in 10 years (ish) in the last 10 they've gone from 220-250w, to 370-410w for the same sized panels, and the price per watt is a fraction of what it was 10 years ago, I'm hoping they will hit 550-600w per panel by then, will need to add a second inverter or buy a new one as well.
 
Journey said:
I found Midsummer to be pretty expensive tbh, call Trade Sparky, or have a dig around Google for the items you are looking for, you could find them quite a bit cheaper again.
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It's just the convenience of them adding all the required fixings too.
 
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