solar together anyone used them?

[paul1966]

Had a letter from the local council yesterday advertising a discount solar panel install scheme. To start with I thought it was a con but it seems legit, basically you register your interest and provide details of your roof (size & orientation) and then there is a reverse auction where the installers bid for all the work and the most competitive wins the auction, they give you a price and you decide to go ahead or not with no obligation to continue.

Looking online some of the reviews are shocking but I am tempted to at least get a quote just to see how much it would be. 

[chrisjpainter]

9 minutes ago, paul1966 said:

Had a letter from the local council yesterday advertising a discount solar panel install scheme. To start with I thought it was a con but it seems legit, basically you register your interest and provide details of your roof (size & orientation) and then there is a reverse auction where the installers bid for all the work and the most competitive wins the auction, they give you a price and you decide to go ahead or not with no obligation to continue.

Looking online some of the reviews are shocking but I am tempted to at least get a quote just to see how much it would be. 

Do you lose anything if you get a quote? As I understand it, they're often more hassle/expensive than they're worth - unless you've got the perfect roof for it. They're great for your ideal roof (unshaded, south-facing with a big expanse) but the efficacy drops alarmingly as soon as you start to compromise on any of those criteria

[Newbie to this]

7 minutes ago, chrisjpainter said:

They're great for your ideal roof (unshaded, south-facing with a big expanse) but the efficacy drops alarmingly as soon as you start to compromise on any of those criteria

Someone sholud have told the house owner behind me, they have them on their North facing roof, they may also have them on the South facing side as well, I've not looked.

[Stonepark]

36 minutes ago, Newbie to this said:

Someone sholud have told the house owner behind me, they have them on their North facing roof, they may also have them on the South facing side as well, I've not looked.

They work on North facing roofs at about 60% of South facing as during the summer the sun is overhead and it doesn't matter too much, and solar panels don't produce much during winter when sun is low when a lot of light is  diffuse so direction is not so important.

[oowee]

Make sure the FIT is worth the cost and that you don't loose ownership of your roof as you cannot sell your house. 

[paul1966]

5 minutes ago, oowee said:

Make sure the FIT is worth the cost and that you don't loose ownership of your roof as you cannot sell your house. 

That's what i thought the scheme was when i first read the letter, but its not, you own the panels outright, i guess the installers give a better discount because they have potentially several thousand customers.

[oowee]

2 minutes ago, paul1966 said:

That's what i thought the scheme was when i first read the letter, but its not, you own the panels outright, i guess the installers give a better discount because they have potentially several thousand customers.

Then just check out the fit return over the cost. https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/publications/feed-tariff-fit-tariff-table-1-april-2022 At the start of the scheme it was a no brainer but I don't know what the numbers look like now.

It's also a bonus of you can use some of the power with a boiler immersion or an ev. 

[Rim Fire]

A neighbor of mine sold her house with them on and the couple buying it was told they couldn't have a mortgage with them on the roof so she had a private company to take them off before they could sell 

[JohnfromUK]

5 hours ago, Rim Fire said:

A neighbor of mine sold her house with them on and the couple buying it was told they couldn't have a mortgage with them on the roof so she had a private company to take them off before they could sell 

Interesting: My former neighbours fitted a large covering of panels (in fact "solar slates"), battery etc.  I know it was expensive.  I don't know what influence it had on the sale/sale price.  However, I spoke to the new neighbours about it very recently, and they are delighted as they run an electric car and the panels are now doing all of the car charging now we have the weather/summer sun.

[bruno22rf]

We had ours fitted around 7 years ago at a shade under £6k, 4KW system (that's the max you are allowed without a licence), inverter in the loft. Our income is around £1k/year but we get cheaper electricity as well so we are in profit now but obviously for 6 years the panels were simply paying for themselves. Payback from Jan to March this year, usually the worst quarter is £238, we have a south facing roof, bright, cold winter mornings seem to produce the most power. There are new tariffs out now if you have a smart meter fitted and a storage system (expensive) that sell the power you produce when demand is highest and prices are high but it really seems suited to people who are not home during the day. I would stick to normal inverter system and shop around for your best feed in tariff, Octopus Energy are about the best at the moment.

[oldypigeonpopper]

Hello, would the councillors be getting theirs free ??

[oowee]

5 hours ago, JohnfromUK said:

Interesting: My former neighbours fitted a large covering of panels (in fact "solar slates"), battery etc.  I know it was expensive.  I don't know what influence it had on the sale/sale price.  However, I spoke to the new neighbours about it very recently, and they are delighted as they run an electric car and the panels are now doing all of the car charging now we have the weather/summer sun.

The difference is ownership. If you own them then no probs but if they are owned by a third party they are an additional claim on the property hence the mortgage issue. They are doing well to charge a car as the power produced is not so much but at least its being used. If it's not used by the owner and goes back to the grid it cannot be used so is burnt off as heat at the sub station.

2 hours ago, oldypigeonpopper said:

Hello, would the councillors be getting theirs free ??

Do they own a bean stalk?

[paul1966]

10 hours ago, bruno22rf said:

We had ours fitted around 7 years ago at a shade under £6k, 4KW system (that's the max you are allowed without a licence), inverter in the loft. Our income is around £1k/year but we get cheaper electricity as well so we are in profit now but obviously for 6 years the panels were simply paying for themselves. Payback from Jan to March this year, usually the worst quarter is £238, we have a south facing roof, bright, cold winter mornings seem to produce the most power. There are new tariffs out now if you have a smart meter fitted and a storage system (expensive) that sell the power you produce when demand is highest and prices are high but it really seems suited to people who are not home during the day. I would stick to normal inverter system and shop around for your best feed in tariff, Octopus Energy are about the best at the moment.

interesting , in the rough estimate from the website they quote 8 panels to fit my roof dimensions and 2660 kWh generated per year, with a typical market cost of £5900 to buy. Be interesting to see what the quote is after the auction.

[bruno22rf]

13 hours ago, paul1966 said:

interesting , in the rough estimate from the website they quote 8 panels to fit my roof dimensions and 2660 kWh generated per year, with a typical market cost of £5900 to buy. Be interesting to see what the quote is after the auction.

IMHO they are worth it if you have spare cash, if you allow 7-8 years to get your initial outlay back then you're looking at 17 years average of around £800-1k/year payback. If you can, go for uprated panels, ours give 25% more output than standard but were pennies more to buy.

[discobob]

what wattage panels - if they are 300 then that is only 2.4kw, if they are 390 that is 3.1KW - Seems expensive tbh but then again a big cost is the scaffolding - so the more wattage you go for the less cost per KWH you have.

[Demonic69]

There's no Feed-In-Tariff anymore for new installations, so your repayment is purely based on the electricity you save and a miniscule amount you *might* sell back to the grid. Repayment is sitting around 10-15 years just based on savings alone.

Batteries are the best investment for solar PV as they allow you to properly use the energy you generate. A decent sized installation (12 panels I think) with 2 batteries should cover a fair amount of households average electricity needs, or so 've read.

[sandspider]

But a decent sized installation and batteries is now closer to £20,000 than £10,000, as I understand it? So a lot more up front cost and longer payoff? Though I suppose electricity costs are only going to go up...

[JohnfromUK]

My fairly large house with electric cooking, 2 freezers etc runs to about 3700 KWh per year.  So at say £0.35 per KWh, about £1300 per year. 

If a system with batteries costs thick end of £20K, that gives me a 15 year payback time.  Reality is it will be longer because there will be some 'grid' power needed I expect, and some servicing/repair costs.  Do batteries last that long?  What would £20K give me in return elsewhere?

In truth for my own situation, it is a non starter as I have trees causing shadow much of the year, would need listed buildings consent (unlikely to be given) and on a listed building, installation costs are likely to be higher.

[Demonic69]

24 minutes ago, sandspider said:

But a decent sized installation and batteries is now closer to £20,000 than £10,000, as I understand it? So a lot more up front cost and longer payoff? Though I suppose electricity costs are only going to go up...

£11k was the figure I was quoted recently.

It would be really difficult to run 100% on solar too, without investment in wiring, new appliances and changes in usage. Our battery really struggled with the washing machine and drier for example.

I once saw a really clever inverter that had switchable loads, so with high demand it could turn off certain circuits for short periods of time so the batteries could cope. It was about £10k alone though and required the equivalent to a new consumer unit being installed

[bruno22rf]

1 hour ago, Demonic69 said:

There's no Feed-In-Tariff anymore for new installations, so your repayment is purely based on the electricity you save and a miniscule amount you *might* sell back to the grid. Repayment is sitting around 10-15 years just based on savings alone.

Batteries are the best investment for solar PV as they allow you to properly use the energy you generate. A decent sized installation (12 panels I think) with 2 batteries should cover a fair amount of households average electricity needs, or so 've read.

My bad, we are on the expired FIT system, looks like new installation's will be paying out under £200/year under the smart export guarantee. Looks like the government have killed solar energy.

Edited May 26, 2022 by bruno22rf

[Demonic69]

12 minutes ago, bruno22rf said:

Batteries are certainly not the best investment in many cases IMHO, the initial high cost and short lifespan are one downside, the other is that if you are home during the day you will be using most of your generated power therefore not charging your battery. The amount of panels depends upon their output, you can not exceed 4kw. We have 8 high output panels producing a max of 4kw. Oddly enough, this first quarter has seen far too much sunlight for an average year, our output has exceeded our predicted max amount and we have had to send photographic evidence of our readout.

Batteries needn't be expensive. We overpaid for ours, when in reality it was a cheap (Sub £1k) UPS battery with a 3-5 year lifespan. I would average that most people would be out during the day, hence the suggestion, but even if you're in you'd have to use 100% or waste it. I work from home and have very rarely 100% of the generate electricity.

High Output panels were seen as cost inefficient the last time I looked, only recommended if you needed to maximise output while minimising roof space as the cost was almost double that of standard panels without double the electricity generated. That could well have changed over the last couple of years though as new tech is coming out all the time, helping to decrease costs.