Solar panels and battery - any real world reccomendations?

Welshman said:
City plumbing supplies have everything you need for a full diy install…….
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Ahh nice, good lads they are. Will have a looksie.

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In other news Octopus called yesterday and basically poo-pooed my Heat Pump install. They seemed pretty disconnected (the sales caller) from the engineer. Basically I discussed with engineer alternate locations etc. The design team at Octopus just binned the whole thing on the basis it wouldn't fit in the side return. So £200 refunded and no smarter about Heat Pump options, sizing, remediations required etc.
 
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Welshman said:
get the right inverter and you can fit the fogstar 5kw battery for 2.5k i think....so around 7.5k all done. saving circa 15k over the tesla system
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You might wanted to edit that and put the 1 in front of the 5, as the 15kWh battery is £2.5k ;)

PS Got most of my panels and racking from City Plumbing as well, they are local so no expensive delivery charges, only downside was they scratched some of the panels.
 
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ryhoper1 said:
:( just had my install completed finally, think I have ended up with cowboy contractors that did it though they have made a mess of my roof tiles.

Jinko 440w x8, FoxESS S3000

It was done under eco4 so I didnt really have much choice or say in the system. Hand over was crap though they never explained anything, they just vanished leaving the scaffolders to remove the scaffolding. One of them mentioned they dont set you up with a monitoring app or anything as it caused them too many call backs. Hoping I can get the wifi dongle to plug into the inverter or get someone to do it for me.
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The dongle for access to the cloud does not come with the F and S series Fox inverters. I bought one myself and set it up. Its pretty simple. You can get one for £23 from Tradesparky.
 
Just tried using Heatable's online tool where you "draw" your roof/areas via Google Maps then get a fixed quote. I'm showing around £9k for 12x panels split over two sections of roof (12x 440w REA Fusion² panels) bundled with Alpha G3 hybrid inverter and 4kWh battery storage system (lol), or about £14k for the same panels with Tesla Powerwall 3. Our roof is facing roughly 190º so almost perfect for solar generation.

That doesn't seem too extortionate? I imagine if I were to spec up the cheaper Alpha battery storage from 4kWh to 12-14kWh (to match the Powerwall) it'd push the total cost to nearer to £11k, and then maybe more to include emergency gateway?


I'm just getting some rough ideas to weigh up our options now, deciding how it would be financed, whether to wait for our mortgage renewal in March 2027 and bung the cost on there, etc etc.



EDIT: Front of house looks like this (don't dox me, it's just to show the two sections of roof :p)
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squerble said:
Split as in panel numbers? I think it was 9+3, although I imagine this is very rough given it is using Google Maps.
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Yes, that’s the one.

Have you checked how much it would be for just 9, the extra 3 may be adding a lot of cost.

As much as I say fill the roof, the visual impact of retrofitting panels on that lower roof will be high as they will be in your eye line as you walk up to your front door.

You’ll also be able to see through the gap under the panels also and any cables hanging down will be really obvious and bird mesh will look a bit rough also.

Edit: using solar skirt will help with the visuals, if it fits.
 
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b0rn2sk8 said:
Yes, that’s the one.

Have you checked how much it would be for just 9, the extra 3 may be adding a lot of cost.

As much as I say fill the roof, the visual impact of retrofitting panels on that lower roof will be high as they will be in your eye line as you walk up to your front door.

You’ll also be able to see through the gap under the panels also and any cables hanging down will be really obvious and bird mesh will look a bit rough also.

Edit: using solar skirt will help with the visuals, if it fits.
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Yep that's a very fair point.

I dropped it to 9 panels: £8.3k with the 4kWh Alpha battery, £13.3k with the PW3. Again, I don't know how much the lower system would go up by if I tried to spec it to match the PW3 including the emergency gateway.
 
that supplier is generally just pretty expensive and I think they are the exclusive supplier of those panels so if you want them, you’ve not got much choice other than to use them.

Other bifacial panels are available though from other suppliers, I’d get more quotes.
 
squerble said:
I dropped it to 9 panels: £8.3k with the 4kWh Alpha battery, £13.3k with the PW3. Again, I don't know how much the lower system would go up by if I tried to spec it to match the PW3 including the emergency gateway.
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No sure how much use bi-facials are on a slate grey roof tbh. You'll never make the difference back vs normal panels at £60 per panel. You'd be better off jsut covering both side of the roof entirely and spending the same or less.
 
Fair enough to both, I'm still learning about the confusing array (lol) of what panels are available. Heatable seemed to be the only site offering indicative quoting without having to give away all my details and field phone calls etc., and those were the only panels that seem to be available.
 
Journey said:
No sure how much use bi-facials are on a slate grey roof tbh. You'll never make the difference back vs normal panels at £60 per panel. You'd be better off jsut covering both side of the roof entirely and spending the same or less.
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These REA panels are excellent and over 25 years, they will produce a lot more power than standard £60 panels, particularly in winter.

But I also agree, if you can cover both south and north for the same money, you’d probably be better off. That’s a bit of an ‘if’ though.

@squerble, watch this video for an overview of the differences:

For solar, in my experience, big national installers are more expensive than your independent local installers. It’s time to get on the phone and send some emails.
 
b0rn2sk8 said:
These REA panels are excellent and over 25 years, they will produce a lot more power than standard £60 panels, particularly in winter.

But I also agree, if you can cover both south and north for the same money, you’d probably be better off. That’s a bit of an ‘if’ though.
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No doubt they are good, but not 300% better. Also the video posted is comparing older panels vs new REA, and there is no winter data from him yet, so its a bit of a guess really.

I agree with what you have said send lots of e-mails, and get some real quotes, I still think more = better, especially if you are having a PW3 with 3x MPPT and 11kW inverter, might as well use it all.
 
While they are 3X the price, they are not 3X the price to install. Even at £180 per panel rather than £60, they are still a relatively small % of the total cost to install.

Still, it’s an extra £1000 on what should be a ~£11k (perhaps £12k) install if you went with a power wall 3 which is expensive in itself. That is still a lot of 15p’s to make up.
 
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b0rn2sk8 said:
While they are 3X the price, they are not 3X the price to install. Even at £180 per panel rather than £60, they are still a relatively small % of the total cost to install.

Still, it’s an extra £1000 on what should be a ~£11k (perhaps £12k) install if you went with a power wall 3 which is expensive in itself. That is still a lot of 15p’s to make up.
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Sure. Although, I'm not going into this for purely money saving/making in the long run. The payback period is the payback period, I also just like the idea of having some self-generation, the ability to have the house powered for potentially a couple of days in the case of a bad power cut, and the idea that I'll be able to power my future A/C install "for free" as I'll need it most when it's the most sunny and therefore generating more.
 
I would not be using Heatable, your increasing costs to suit them

Bifacial panels will have absolutely negligible gains when installed on a roof as typically done in the UK. They are designed to work where there is plenty of reflected light, think car ports, ground mount arrays etc.

Heatable use micro inverters mounted to the rear of the panel, and thus don't need a separate inverter, great for shading (doesn't look like you have any), they are potentially safer, downsides you'll need to pay for scaffolding if any fail.

The PW3 has three solar string inputs, so it would make more sense to use these than micro inverters if there isn't any shading issues.

Having two separate systems, PV panels and battery will add complications to the user experience.

I'm also not convinced the Rea Fusion panels are significantly better, every video I've seen with Heatable or there buddies trying to prove they are has so far been flawed one way or another.

Use a good quality panel with the same or very similar specs, and I doubt it will perform much differently. Also what they doit tell you is the Micro inverters can't handle the full power of the panels, so it's possible to get some clipping.

The PW3 is a great system, and of I was to install one without shading issues I would certainly connect the panels to it.

Perhaps if you post what area you're on people can make installer suggestions.
 
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b0rn2sk8 said:
These REA panels are excellent and over 25 years, they will produce a lot more power than standard £60 panels, particularly in winter.
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Will they though? How much is 'a lot more'? Mounted on a dark grey roof I cant see there being much light on the roof facing side regardless of time of year.
 
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