Solar panels and battery - any real world reccomendations?

thewanted said:
Has anyone installed only batteries? I can’t explain it well, but I am not completely sold on solar. For ~5 months of the year the generation is rubbish, and it doesn’t seem to add any value to the house.

Batteries on the other hand are easily removable, and charging from the grid is relatively cheap at the moment. I know that the installation is VAT free if combined with solar, and I haven’t worked out what the pay off period would be with batteries only.
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This makes decent sense - maths is fairly easy to work out for payback, no reason you couldn't go batteries alone.
 
Finally got my solar installed today, was all done by 3pm but very little generation today, which was to be expected.

Struggling to get the FoxESS integration working with Home Assistant, integration cannot be found :(
 
Hi all, are these things really worth it?

My parents had some guy round trying to sell them a system and I don’t want them getting ripped off. I tried Google expected costs/returns but all I get is companies trying to sell me systems so I thought I’d ask here…

They’re looking at getting 13, 445w panels and a 6kW battery with all the associated equipment for £16,100 (£14.5k for parts and £1.6k labour), which seems rather excessive, especially seeing their home is a bungalow and therefore, I would assume a simple install.

Somehow, my parents use ~7000 kWh of electricity a year and the guy reckons the system will pay for itself in 5-6 years. I find this hard to believe as their roof isn’t ideal, facing a SSW WSW direction (~240°). Also they are retired and use most of their electric during the day so I struggle to see how they would get much benefit having a battery installed.

Sorry for the splurge, but I’m rather concerned how keen my parents are to spend £16k based on one quote and I still can’t fathom how these things are expected to produce nearly 5000 kWh/yr.
 
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thewanted said:
Has anyone installed only batteries? I can’t explain it well, but I am not completely sold on solar. For ~5 months of the year the generation is rubbish, and it doesn’t seem to add any value to the house.

Batteries on the other hand are easily removable, and charging from the grid is relatively cheap at the moment. I know that the installation is VAT free if combined with solar, and I haven’t worked out what the pay off period would be with batteries only.
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This question has come up before, the issue with just doing this is as you say, you'd need to rely upon having a cheap time of use tariff around that you have access to.

Use of GO is theoretically gated behind owning an EV, though they've not asked me for proof yet, they could do down the line.

Couple that with the fact that you need an inverter, and an installer willing to just add the battery and not install panels, and the VAT of course.

Most people will say get both, get as many panels as you can reasonably do to get at least 4kwp worth, of more if you use more, and a big enough battery to cover the majority of your needs.

With current energy prices I will disagree with your assertion that panels will add no value to a home. If you saw two identical houses and one had solar, the other did not, would you pay the same for them both?

Bear in mind that even if you get both, you can always take the battery with you if you sell and the buyer doesn't want to pay a fair extra for the solar kit. Most people will say it's best just to agree the solar as part of the sale though, saves hassle and you always get a new installation done with new kit/warranty.

It's sort of not worth bothering though if you intend to move frequently.

Slackjaw190 said:
Hi all, are these things really worth it?

My parents had some guy round trying to sell them a system and I don’t want them getting ripped off. I tried Google expected costs/returns but all I get is companies trying to sell me systems so I thought I’d ask here…

They’re looking at getting 13, 445w panels and a 6kW battery with all the associated equipment for £16,100 (£14.5k for parts and £1.6k labour), which seems rather excessive, especially seeing their home is a bungalow and therefore, I would assume a simple install.

Somehow, my parents use ~7000 kWh of electricity a year and the guy reckons the system will pay for itself in 5-6 years. I find this hard to believe as their roof isn’t ideal, facing a SSW direction (~240°). Also they are retired and use most of their electric during the day so I struggle to see how they would get much benefit having a battery installed.

Sorry for the splurge, but I’m rather concerned how keen my parents are to spend £16k based on one quote and I still can’t fathom how these things are expected to produce nearly 5000 kWh/yr.
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£16K is a rip off for that installation, solar installations are more expensive than they were a year ago, but some installers are massively taking advantage of the situation by quoting ludicrous sums.

My installation was: 4.8KWP, 8.2KWH Givenergy G1 battery, 5KW Givenergy G1 Hybrid inverter, and a G99 DNO for larger export capacity for £8500, but that was being discussed about 8 months ago so things have gone up a bit since.

Friend of mine is going with the same installer I used and is getting: 5.6KWP, 9.5KWH Givenergy G2 battery, 5KW Givenergy G2 Hybrid inverter, and a G99 DNO for £12000.

So you can see they are getting a slightly bigger system than mine, along with the newer battery/inverter combo, but paying more for it by a little.

Even so at £12K it blows your parents quote out of the window, but it's more like what I may expect in the current climate for that much money.

Get at least 2-3 quotes if possible. As a rule I would expect about 1000 KWH generation per annume/per 1KW of panels, if relatively south facing.

7000 KWH usage is high, about 20 per day on average, I'm a fairly heavy user but use less than that, although it's just me. Might be a good idea to do some sleuthing as to what is using so much. Do they have smart meters that can read the values and display current usage in watts/historical data via their provider?

Runaway usage can sometimes be attributed to things like people not realising they are heating hot water tanks with immersion heaters, or expensive pumps for ponds or fish tanks constantly going.
 
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Slackjaw190 said:
I still can’t fathom how these things are expected to produce nearly 5000 kWh/yr
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As above that is an expensive quote, but to answer your above question, in 2015 I had a 4kw array installed 8 panels SSW, 8 panels SSE roughly, every year it has produced around 4300Kwh a year. The system you mention is 7120w, so almost double. But the vast bulk of that is produced in the summer months, and around half is exported as currently I don't have a battery, but even with a 6 kWh battery a lot will be exported, but the bigger array pays off when the weather is worse.
 
Slackjaw190 said:
Hi all, are these things really worth it?

My parents had some guy round trying to sell them a system and I don’t want them getting ripped off. I tried Google expected costs/returns but all I get is companies trying to sell me systems so I thought I’d ask here…

They’re looking at getting 13, 445w panels and a 6kW battery with all the associated equipment for £16,100 (£14.5k for parts and £1.6k labour), which seems rather excessive, especially seeing their home is a bungalow and therefore, I would assume a simple install.

Somehow, my parents use ~7000 kWh of electricity a year and the guy reckons the system will pay for itself in 5-6 years. I find this hard to believe as their roof isn’t ideal, facing a SSW direction (~240°). Also they are retired and use most of their electric during the day so I struggle to see how they would get much benefit having a battery installed.

Sorry for the splurge, but I’m rather concerned how keen my parents are to spend £16k based on one quote and I still can’t fathom how these things are expected to produce nearly 5000 kWh/yr.
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240 is ok, our roof is about 125, so basically the same but the opposite side of South, so we get the generation a bit earlier and less late in the day, you are probably better off your way, as you tend to use a bit more in the afternoon/evening when cooking mainly.

I do think that is expensive though, but 445w panels are high watt panels, so basically pretty posh and probably a fair chunk more expensive than most installers would fit.

I still think it's a couple or three grand over, even in today's market.
 
BUDFORCE said:
I do think that is expensive though, but 445w panels are high watt panels, so basically pretty posh and probably a fair chunk more expensive than most installers would fit.
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It'll be 2.1m x 1.1m panels as it is a bungalow so the roof is usually more forgiving to using the larger panels which in terms of W/£ are usually cheaper. You can get 460w CS panels for £166+ VAT.
 
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