Solar panels and battery - any real world reccomendations?

jonneymendoza said:
How much is the outlay in installing a solar panel roof and battery on say a typical 3 bedroom terraced Victorian 1930’s property ?

Like ball park figures? Is it soo much that its pointless?

I always thought that because we don’t get much clear sky sun, solar panels are useless in this country???
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In terms of wanting to cover 24/7 usage, the costs will be a lot more as you'll need battery storage and enough generation to cope. Dependent on what you want to accomplish and what energy use you want to cover?

From my looking around at local installers where I live, with a house facing south south west at an angle of around 35 degrees, a 4kW solar panel setup with a 5.8kWh battery (2*2.88kWh batteries) in Lancashire, you could make that work and that would be around £10000.

I use this site to give an estimate on production (obviously weather, installation, etc. all can affect production, but it can give you an idea).

JRC Photovoltaic Geographical Information System (PVGIS) - European Commission

Photovoltaic Geographical Information System (PVGIS)
re.jrc.ec.europa.eu re.jrc.ec.europa.eu
 
VaderDSL said:
In terms of wanting to cover 24/7 usage, the costs will be a lot more as you'll need battery storage and enough generation to cope. Dependent on what you want to accomplish and what energy use you want to cover?

From my looking around at local installers where I live, with a house facing south south west at an angle of around 35 degrees, a 4kW solar panel setup with a 5.8kWh battery (2*2.88kWh batteries) in Lancashire, you could make that work and that would be around £10000
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Yes i would need to double check what our electric usage is in the current flat we are living in(we both wfh) but during dark winter times, how much does these solar panels generate?

I mean i would absolutely love to live “off the grid” and rely on solar panels!!
 
@jonneymendoza are you planning on moving to a house, can't see solar working well in a flat, unless you own the freehold of the building, would be problematic installing on the roof if not.

PS winter time can be dire, we have 50kw of panels at work, and on some days they don't generate enough to cover my daytime usage at home. My 16 at home barely generate anything some winter days.
 
Ron-ski said:
@jonneymendoza are you planning on moving to a house, can't see solar working well in a flat, unless you own the freehold of the building, would be problematic installing on the roof if not.

PS winter time can be dire, we have 50kw of panels at work, and on some days they don't generate enough to cover my daytime usage. My 16 at home barely generate anything some winter days.
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Sorry yes i am planing to move to a house, a typical 3 bedroom terraced Victorian house so nothing massive and wondering if the roof surface area is large enough for solar panel to power my tech/house
 
jonneymendoza said:
Sorry yes i am planing to move to a house, a typical 3 bedroom terraced Victorian house so nothing massive and wondering if the roof surface area is large enough for solar panel to power my tech/house
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Have a play around on :

JRC Photovoltaic Geographical Information System (PVGIS) - European Commission

Photovoltaic Geographical Information System (PVGIS)
re.jrc.ec.europa.eu re.jrc.ec.europa.eu

Home | Solar Panel Calculator

www.pvfitcalculator.energysavingtrust.org.uk www.pvfitcalculator.energysavingtrust.org.uk

When I use my specific details, during December, monthly production shows as around 2.5-2.8kWh per day production on a 4kW system (theoretical, might be higher or might be lower, probably lower)

So if you have a server that is on 24/7 and uses 100W (no idea how much a server actually uses) you'll be using 2.4kWh every 24 hours. Just for your server. Your generation in winter during daylight might be 2-3kWh as a rough guess, but if you don't have a battery you'll only be able to utilise that generation during daylight hours, rest of the time you'll be on grid electricity.
 
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VaderDSL said:
Have a play around on :

JRC Photovoltaic Geographical Information System (PVGIS) - European Commission

Photovoltaic Geographical Information System (PVGIS)
re.jrc.ec.europa.eu re.jrc.ec.europa.eu

Home | Solar Panel Calculator

www.pvfitcalculator.energysavingtrust.org.uk www.pvfitcalculator.energysavingtrust.org.uk

When I use my specific details, during December, monthly production shows as around 2.5-2.8kWh per day production on a 4kW system (theoretical, might be higher or might be lower, probably lower)

So if you have a server that is on 24/7 and uses 100W (no idea how much a server actually uses) you'll be using 2.4kWh every 24 hours. Just for your server. Your generation in winter during daylight might be 2-3kWh as a rough guess, but if you don't have a battery you'll only be able to utilise that generation during daylight hours, rest of the time you'll be on grid electricity.
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Cheers thanks i will have a look.
 
jonneymendoza said:
I mean i would absolutely love to live “off the grid” and rely on solar panels!!
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You can't really go "off grid" with Solar I'm afraid, you need to think of Solar as a supplement to your grid draw.

Its important to realise solar has limitations, it tends to generate way in excess during long summer days, and nowhere near enough in the middle of winter, arguably when you use more, so far from ideal.

I'm not saying they are a bad idea at all, just need to be realistic about your expectations.
 
You probably need a huge array, and huge battery to store the good days to go solar off grid in the UK.

I have 4kw array and generated only 71kw in December 2021, an average of 2.29 kWh a day. So would need a lot more panels, and the battery capacity to store it.
 
BUDFORCE said:
You can't really go "off grid" with Solar I'm afraid, you need to think of Solar as a supplement to your grid draw.

Its important to realise solar has limitations, it tends to generate way in excess during long summer days, and nowhere near enough in the middle of winter, arguably when you use more, so far from ideal.

I'm not saying they are a bad idea at all, just need to be realistic about your expectations.
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Maybe you should tell all the people around america, canada, alaska that you cant go fully offgrid with solar, they will prove to you otherwise…..even in the Uk people are fully offgrid with solar, not everyone are power hungry monsters.

i use on average 5.8kwh a day….can easily go off grid with that such usage.
 
It's down to space, and how much you want to spend really. If you have the space £20k would let you go off-grid easily, assuming you are using sub 10kWh per day. Although it would be better to be on grid with 3-phase and export all that excess you'll have in summer.
 
You'd need more panels to go off grid even with 6kwh per day usage, which ultimately boils down to space/convenience.

Most houses in the UK do not have the space to put up 12+ kw of panels, and in the winter you'd still need to be careful with usage.

I'd say it's not feasible for the vast majority of people.
 
HungryHippos said:
You'd need more panels to go off grid even with 6kwh per day usage, which ultimately boils down to space/convenience.

Most houses in the UK do not have the space to put up 12+ kw of panels, and in the winter you'd still need to be careful with usage.

I'd say it's not feasible for the vast majority of people.
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12kw of panels…….Thats 60kwh hours in a 5hr solar day, who uses that much energy??? And if you have batteries, then yes you can go off grid
 
If you want 6kwh on a dark winters day you need a lot more panels, you have to be able to basically cover worst case scenario.

Also if you don't have any gas or electric (to me off-grid is including both) then you would need to heat your house with just electric you can generate.

Hence I think for most people it won't work.

@Ron-ski said above they have a 4kw system and in December generated an average of 2.29kwh per day, to reach at least 6kwh per day you'd need 3 x the system size, hence my estimate of 12kw.
 
Welshman said:
12kw of panels…….Thats 60kwh hours in a 5hr solar day, who uses that much energy??? And if you have batteries, then yes you can go off grid
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Thats the theoretical maximum output they can produce.
The decent window in the UK in the winter for most is a few hours.

Worth looking at this vid, how little even that large array generates if it clouds over
www.youtube.com

SOLAR IN UK WINTER: What our DIY OFF GRID SOLAR POWER SYSTEM produced in ONE DAY in JANUARY.

Have you been considering installing solar power but are unsure whether you can generate enough power in winter? In this video we share what we produced on ...
www.youtube.com www.youtube.com

Edit actually they did a summary version which I hadnt seen, even with that solar array they use a generator

Looking at their stats I think you would be in the region of needing 40 or so panels to have a reasonably good chance of going off grid.
Plus of course a lot of battery storage.

 
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We use about 7kw in the winter and about 5 in the summer, live in a larger terrace (victorian) anybody have any helpful advice on a potential set up? I'm realistic and would use it to supplement the grid use but every little helps
 
Mercenary Keyboard Warrior said:
Thats the theoretical maximum output they can produce.
The decent window in the UK in the winter for most is a few hours.

Worth looking at this vid, how little even that large array generates if it clouds over
www.youtube.com

SOLAR IN UK WINTER: What our DIY OFF GRID SOLAR POWER SYSTEM produced in ONE DAY in JANUARY.

Have you been considering installing solar power but are unsure whether you can generate enough power in winter? In this video we share what we produced on ...
www.youtube.com www.youtube.com

Edit actually they did a summary version which I hadnt seen, even with that solar array they use a generator

Looking at their stats I think you would be in the region of needing 40 or so panels to have a reasonably good chance of going off grid.
Plus of course a lot of battery storage.

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dam so quite a lot needed to go completely off grid then
 
@Welshman you need to do a reality check, we're in the UK, the weather's very poor in the winter, the average house doesn't have the room for the amount of panels you'd need to go off grid, and just because you don't use much, doesn't mean others don't, we all have different needs.

As a comparison, we have 200 panels on the roof here at work, which amounts to 50kw, in December 2021 we generated 775.5kwh of electric, or an average of 23kwh a day, but the worst day was only 4.2kwh, that's with 50kw of panels.

In this country you have to have substantial amount of storage and batteries, or at least a back up generator.

I've watched some of the off grid family, and I think they have a generator.
 
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