Solar panels and battery - any real world reccomendations?

Morning.

I have 2 questions if anyone can help?

In a nutshell Ive been quoted 16k for a Growatt based system (7.2kwh Panels, 5kwh invertor and 13kwh battery system.

My wife is nervous that energy prices might fall again in a year or so.

So, is 16k a decent price?

IMportantly, those with battery system are you also exporting? My installer explained that exporting is done via the battery in such a system and the charge/discharge/increased cycles on the battery isnt worth what could be made?

Help?
 
I dont know if 16k is a 'decent' price, but you have a lot of battery power so it doesnt seem too bad. Other factors play in like do you have an electric car or plan to get one? Are you generally high energy consumers?

Some export on the tariffs that pay high, if you do not need the stored energy then why not!
 
@welshdragon To me that sounds a tad high. I have a quote for half your number of panels and a 9.5kwh battery with optimisers for £10k. But obviously there could be additional costs - more scaffolding etc.

The bit about the battery makes little sense to me. Your inverter will typically use solar to power the house, excess will then top up the battery and finally any further excess will export to the grid. Fairly sure you wouldn‘t export from the battery.
 
welshdragon said:
My wife is nervous that energy prices might fall again in a year or so.

So, is 16k a decent price?

IMportantly, those with battery system are you also exporting? My installer explained that exporting is done via the battery in such a system and the charge/discharge/increased cycles on the battery isnt worth what could be made?
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Does seem a little steep but not crazy as you have quite a high output and large battery, depends a bit on the size and power of the panels as smaller high output ones are more expensive.

Energy prices will probably, eventually drop, but only after they go up a few more times, the chances of them hitting last years level in the near to long term are pretty damn small tbh!

Not totally sure what your installer is talking about with regards to exporting from the battery? Thought generally you export once the local usage is fulfilled and the battery is full. There are some tariffs that allow you export with 'surge' pricing where I guess you could charge the battery to the grid (the tesla battery does this automatically as well) but doubt the impact on the battery is that heigh?

jonneymendoza said:
Are there any DIY solar panels I can use to maybe prop up on my shed in my garden? Enough to say charge up batteries etc?
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I'd have a look at the leisure / caravan systems, pretty cheap and easy to self install, however you'd need an inverter to get most of your battery chargers going... theres quite a nice guide here: https://www.tigersheds.com/blog/solar-panels-for-sheds-what-you-need-to-know/
 
welshdragon said:
Morning.

I have 2 questions if anyone can help?

In a nutshell Ive been quoted 16k for a Growatt based system (7.2kwh Panels, 5kwh invertor and 13kwh battery system.

My wife is nervous that energy prices might fall again in a year or so.

So, is 16k a decent price?

IMportantly, those with battery system are you also exporting? My installer explained that exporting is done via the battery in such a system and the charge/discharge/increased cycles on the battery isnt worth what could be made?

Help?
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Sounds like they've sold you a Tesla Powerwall, what is the exact battery they're trying to push?

I made a post about the Powerwall here: https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/t...ccomendations.18946524/page-117#post-35788496

To know if any such system makes sense, would be useful to know how much energy you use.
 
welshdragon said:
In a nutshell Ive been quoted 16k for a Growatt based system (7.2kwh Panels, 5kwh invertor and 13kwh battery system.
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welshdragon said:
So, is 16k a decent price?
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It's impossible to say, if you only goal is to reduce your bills then it will eventually pay for itself but really ask yourself what size system do you need.

How much power are you using now, will that power usage go up? e.g electric heating, BEV or other electric use.

I'd say £16k is high based on basic information given, but it depends on the equipment being used as well. 7.2kWp is 18x 400w panels, which is ~£3.6k (inc. VAT), a suitable inverter is £800-1000+ (inc. VAT), a charge controller and then the 2x 6.5kWh (for the total 13kWh quoted) Growatt batteries would be £6.7k (inc VAT fully installed price) The rest of the cost is roof mounting, sundry items DC/AC disconnect, cabling, meters and scaffolding etc. There is no VAT to pay on installed systems so in total the kit listed is £9.1K, and that is retail price, then the extras and installation and support costs.

I'd ask them for a broken down full quote, if they don't wish to oblige then I'd look elsewhere.
 
Cheers guys for all the feedback.

my annual useage is approx. 7000kWh

The panels will be split, some on the fornt aspect of the house the others on the gable end so there is additional roofing, scaffolding and wiring costs.

We have one eye on us going electric vehicle in the next few years, probably for both cars.

As for export, the way he explained the way the system is wired is that the solar offsets use, any surplus feeds the battery and in order to export it goes from the battery and thus the extra charge/discharge cycles dont make it worth it.

Im going to look for another quote I think
 
welshdragon said:
The panels will be split, some on the fornt aspect of the house the others on the gable end so there is additional roofing, scaffolding and wiring costs.
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This is why you get a split down quote, so you can see what they are charging for scaffold etc. As you can easily get it done cheaper with a local firm most of the time, very rarely will it be cheaper to use the actual solar installer, all you need to know is where they want it, and for how long.

welshdragon said:
As for export, the way he explained the way the system is wired is that the solar offsets use, any surplus feeds the battery and in order to export it goes from the battery and thus the extra charge/discharge cycles dont make it worth it.
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What happens once the battery is full then? On a really sunny spring day you could have the battery fully charged by 13:00 and your home might only be pulling a tiny fraction of what you are generating, the rest will go to the grid, sounds to me like some confusion has crept in somewhere in their explanation of the system setup and wiring.
 
There is certainly a case for force exporting from batteries but you need to be on the correct tariff which right now is only Octopus Agile.
The pricing for the peak demand time can be really high, so if you have too much stored and you won't use it before the next charging via panels starts you may as well dump it to the grid when the price is high. Or even dump it all and recharge later when the price drops.

Yes it will cycle the batteries more, so its price dependent where it makes sense to do (but the cycle cost is low in effect). By early next year if the cap is £0.9 or so as predicted then I could see the peak price hitting £1.5 on the market, assuming Octopus don't cap export.

This is basically (but subtly different) to making your batteries work the same way as they want the grid to work in the future with people helping with supply when demand is high and drawing back when its low.
 
So today was my first day of significant usage from the grid since installation (2kwh), battery only charged up to 30% yesterday generating just 10kwh and forgot to disable the air con timer so this came on at 5am and used the last little bit of juice, so between about 5 and 8 my background usage was drawing from the grid. Could have managed it better prior to the last few cloudy days to keep the battery topped up a bit more, will get back to normal over the next few days. Charging nicely now the sun has decided to come out, but good to learn how to adjust my usage now rather than in a few months time.
 
Journey said:
This is why you get a split down quote, so you can see what they are charging for scaffold etc. As you can easily get it done cheaper with a local firm most of the time, very rarely will it be cheaper to use the actual solar installer, all you need to know is where they want it, and for how long.



What happens once the battery is full then? On a really sunny spring day you could have the battery fully charged by 13:00 and your home might only be pulling a tiny fraction of what you are generating, the rest will go to the grid, sounds to me like some confusion has crept in somewhere in their explanation of the system setup and wiring.
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They said once the battery is full and if IM not drawing the system goes into standby. I had another quote in the pipeline with a local firm that oddly just came in and was on par cost wise
 
welshdragon said:
They said once the battery is full and if IM not drawing the system goes into standby. I had another quote in the pipeline with a local firm that oddly just came in and was on par cost wise
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Sounds like they're hamstringing your system for some reason.

Only reason not to do exporting is because they don't want to apply for DNO potentially, guess it applies in Wales as well.

Look for another installer perhaps? for that much money I'd want a system with all the bells and whistles.
 
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