Solar panels and battery - any real world reccomendations?

So received another virtual quote lol its not my roof!!! and totally ignored my email with all the info on, including what mfg inverter and battery I wanted. Even gave them 3 little words.
 
Had my first "Saving Session" with Octopus last week, as I'm switching to Economy 7 soon I hadn't bothered with my plan to try and force my usage into the times when a session was likely to occur, but still, apparently my average usage for the hour covered was 0.64KWh so by making sure my battery was charged before it started I was able to reduce my consumption by 99%, which earnt me £1.45 plus a £1.25 bonus for being in the top 10% for usage reduction, I won't be retiring on the back of that, but still a nice little bonus for very little effort!
 
So the shading from next doors roof has now transitioned to the top string, so solcast predictions of 14 and 17kwh the previous todays ended up as 5 and 4kwh..., so need to do some calcs and get some quotes for optimisers for the 8 panels that get shading, suspect it's going to work out cheaper to just accept that for 4.5 months of the year i'll be impacted if i'm losing out on say £3-4 per day at very worst case, but as i'd be charging my batteries to max at current rates it's more like 80p!
 
SoliD said:
So the shading from next doors roof has now transitioned to the top string, so solcast predictions of 14 and 17kwh the previous todays ended up as 5 and 4kwh..., so need to do some calcs and get some quotes for optimisers for the 8 panels that get shading, suspect it's going to work out cheaper to just accept that for 4.5 months of the year i'll be impacted if i'm losing out on say £3-4 per day at very worst case, but as i'd be charging my batteries to max at current rates it's more like 80p!
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Tigo TAP and CCA are around £240, and the optimisers are £42 each if buying 10+, if you did all the panels and fitted them yourself it'll be under £1000, who knows how long it would take to pay back but if payback is your only condition of purchase, then it might not be worth it.
 
Silly question - we're getting solar installed next week.

I've covered things like G99 and home insurance being updated - but did you guys / do I need to update my mortgage provider? I'm buying/owning the system outright, not leasing, so i'm 99% sure i dont need to, however i wanted to check :)
 
Journey said:
Tigo TAP and CCA are around £240, and the optimisers are £42 each if buying 10+, if you did all the panels and fitted them yourself it'll be under £1000, who knows how long it would take to pay back but if payback is your only condition of purchase, then it might not be worth it.
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Yeah had priced it up! Do you need the TAP/CCA? Was considering doing it myself but thinking more about it, i'd probably be inclined to get the same fitters back in. Payback is main consideration, and obviously on the bleaker days the shading doesn't actually affect too much... Will ask for a loose quote and see what they say.
 
SoliD said:
Yeah had priced it up! Do you need the TAP/CCA? Was considering doing it myself but thinking more about it, i'd probably be inclined to get the same fitters back in. Payback is main consideration, and obviously on the bleaker days the shading doesn't actually affect too much... Will ask for a loose quote and see what they say.
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If paying for scaffold and all the related labour it will certainly never pay itself back unless you are paying £1 per kWh in the near future. As you have a decent battery capacity then you'll probably be better of just holding off and waiting for V2H/V2G to become a mass market reality, maybe 10 years at this rate, and take advantage that way.
 
Yeah indeed, its a big cost and i'm still pulling a few kwh every day, just means i'll be charging more, probably better to invest in another inverter so I can have more the 2.6kwh usage out of hours.
 
SoliD said:
Yeah had priced it up! Do you need the TAP/CCA? Was considering doing it myself but thinking more about it, i'd probably be inclined to get the same fitters back in. Payback is main consideration, and obviously on the bleaker days the shading doesn't actually affect too much... Will ask for a loose quote and see what they say.
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No but yes, Tigo basically won't support you without a TAP and CCA anymore. Also there are fairly strong rumours of a firmware bug on the Tigos which is fixed by a firmware update which is only possible with the Tap and CCA (google for details). For me the monitoring is the best bit.
I like my Tigos, but I wish I'd gone with SolarEdge for the fully integrated system.
 
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