Solar panels and battery - any real world reccomendations?

Me and the wife decided to ditch the idea of panels/battery thinking about the outlay and payback now we're Pensioners.
However something got me thinking again - interest free loan.
I said to the wife that we could be paying an interest free loan instead of our prospective £145 a month electric bill.
Anybody done anything similar with real world figures?
 
SexyGreyFox said:
I said to the wife that we could be paying an interest free loan instead of our prospective £145 a month electric bill.
Anybody done anything similar with real world figures?
Click to expand...
i took out a 19 month 0% CC for my system (4.4kw panels, 9.6kw battery, total cost £8.3k)
i'm a very low user at ~160kwh per month

for my figures:
i save ~£40 month my using off peak electricity (8p/kwh) charging my batteries to use during the daytime
because i charge overnight, i don't use the solar to charge my batteries
most of my solar goes to exporting at 16.5p/kwh, and i've exported ~£360 worth of solar from feb-oct
basically, i would expect approx £900 ROI per year, after the leccy bill savings (~£480) and electric export (~£400), the electric export comes as a yearly cheque
 
Last edited:
SexyGreyFox said:
Me and the wife decided to ditch the idea of panels/battery thinking about the outlay and payback now we're Pensioners.
However something got me thinking again - interest free loan.
I said to the wife that we could be paying an interest free loan instead of our prospective £145 a month electric bill.
Anybody done anything similar with real world figures?
Click to expand...

Our monthly DD for our home is £50. I saved up for our panels rather than taking a loan, but at the time I was paying around £200-250 for our utilities per month, and did consider a loan for it, it would have cost us £124 per month. So still a heck of a lot cheaper than the original DD.

If you accept the sunk cost of the panels, and look just purely at your monthly / yearly expenses of our utility bill for gas and electricity, we're saving well over £1000 per year (that takes into considering earning cash back from the grid). That's not to be sniffed at - plus you're helping the grid, and reducing your CO2 footprint.
 
SexyGreyFox said:
Me and the wife decided to ditch the idea of panels/battery thinking about the outlay and payback now we're Pensioners.
However something got me thinking again - interest free loan.
I said to the wife that we could be paying an interest free loan instead of our prospective £145 a month electric bill.
Anybody done anything similar with real world figures?
Click to expand...

Your not going to, well highly unlikely to, find an interest free loan thats going to cover the real payback period of a solar system.
Its in the 8 year type time horizon, plus the benefit is seasonal. Its less seasonal with batteries and panels, but unless you vastly overspec (relatively for the rest of the year) your still going to import in winter.

Plus you have to take a gamble on eg export paying well etc.
If we end up following the high generation countries we will get to a point they do not want domestic export at all. I am sure we are no where near that yet, but its probably going to come eventually.

Simply solar with or without batteries makes sense and will start to make you money in the medium term.
Its going to cost you a bit more in the short term.

I thought of it not as purely a financial thing, although it had to wash its own face, in that its reducing my carbon footprint so I feel less guilty about not scaling back my travelling etc.
 
Last edited:
Hi folks,

Id like to get serious about doing my solar install, especially now I'm making permanent changes in the workshop.

My plan is still to put the panels on the pitched cement fibre roof. It is a professionally built outbuilding but I think my first hurdle is getting confident the roof can take the weight - the structure is at 600 centers, no noggins, with what looks like 8x2 lengths supported by 6 pitched beams that are bolted. I presume it'll be fine. I figure this will immediately turn off any 'big box' solar installer.

I will also need to upgrade cabling from the house to the workshop as it's just 2.5mm swa at the moment. I'll dig up the side return and lay something more meaty.

I have little to no idea on what panels I need, how many I can fit, what gear I need and what size space I should allow for. Please can someone point me in the right direction?

Is there a solar installer I can consult with?

@Ron-ski / @DB_SamX do you guys work for beer? :D
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I’d suggest you need to engage a local MCS registered installer to discuss your requirements. They will spec up something sensible (which you can sense check on here) for the space you have.

I’d avoid big box national installers for what you want.

Are you planning ton doing the house and garden room roofs also?
 
Feedback today from my MP and he has asked national grid to revisit the study done for my inverter as they thought i was having an additional 6kw inverter fitted and not just 6kw and removing the original 3.6 already installed….

They are to call me and talk it through, as other options are available too me also…. Lets see what happens.
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
I’d suggest you need to engage a local MCS registered installer to discuss your requirements. They will spec up something sensible (which you can sense check on here) for the space you have.

I’d avoid big box national installers for what you want.

Are you planning ton doing the house and garden room roofs also?
Click to expand...
Thanks will do some research on MCS installers. The plan is just to put them on the workshop - I figure a 13m span X2 should give me a decent number of panels.

North east pitch and a south west pitch
 
Welshman said:
Feedback today from my MP and he has asked national grid to revisit the study done for my inverter as they thought i was having an additional 6kw inverter fitted and not just 6kw and removing the original 3.6 already installed….

They are to call me and talk it through, as other options are available too me also…. Lets see what happens.
Click to expand...
Had conversation with the grid…still max 4.6 unless i pay a 10k upgrade for my own personal grid connection. I am approx 100yds too far away to get an extra 1kw increase…..without that connection.

So still stuffed lol
 
Last edited:
dlockers said:
Thanks will do some research on MCS installers. The plan is just to put them on the workshop - I figure a 13m span X2 should give me a decent number of panels.

North east pitch and a south west pitch
Click to expand...
Domestic panels are usually 1.7x1.1 meters so if you can get them on in portrait, you’ll get 11 on each side.

You’ll need to leave a 30+cm boarder around the panels so to fit a 1.7m panel in portrait, you need at least 2.3m of width to put them on.
 
dlockers said:
Hi folks,

Id like to get serious about doing my solar install, especially now I'm making permanent changes in the workshop.

My plan is still to put the panels on the pitched cement fibre roof. It is a professionally built outbuilding but I think my first hurdle is getting confident the roof can take the weight - the structure is at 600 centers, no noggins, with what looks like 8x2 lengths supported by 6 pitched beams that are bolted. I presume it'll be fine. I figure this will immediately turn off any 'big box' solar installer.

I will also need to upgrade cabling from the house to the workshop as it's just 2.5mm swa at the moment. I'll dig up the side return and lay something more meaty.

I have little to no idea on what panels I need, how many I can fit, what gear I need and what size space I should allow for. Please can someone point me in the right direction?

Is there a solar installer I can consult with?

@Ron-ski / @DB_SamX do you guys work for beer? :D
Click to expand...
Presumably you don't currently have any solar. If that's the case and you expect to export a reasonable amount, then you definitely need to find an MCS installer if you want an easy way to get paid for exports, it pains me to say that, but that's the way it is. If no MCS you can go the Octopus trial route, but that's not clear what's involved and whether they're acceptable you.

If you're really not going to be generating much and will self use it all, it might be considerably cheaper to not bother with MCS.

If you say what area you're in, we might be able to recommend someone.

As to the last question, not for beer money, maybe very expensive champagne amounts of money ;)
 
I saw that last night as well, incredibly bad, thats a 12kW inverter as well, and the entire house load by the looks of it is fed through it, not a problem for the inverter but the wiring???
 
Last edited:
Spent the day running the solar cablee in conduit down from the attic to the new area, fitted concrete backer board and the fitted the new fox inverter the wall.

Its all ready for me leccy to come tmrw now and wire it all up.

Money spent so far £905…. So i got £1500 left to come in lower than the original quote of £2400.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom