Solar panels

[SamThomas]

1 hour ago, hayfield said:

 

Its basically to see if the roof can support the extra weight of the panels and if there is space for the invertor. As we decided only to have panels on the new single story roof the survey was a total waste of time as far as the loft part of the survey, it was not used

 

The main thing is to get the panels installed, I had to keep reminding/chasing up the installers prior to installation

& also to see if the roof is strong enough to keep the panels in place when the wind gets under them. The panels them selves are relatively light.

 

Don'y forget to check with your buildings insurance to see if the installation effects the insurance.

[Michael Hodgson]

22 minutes ago, SamThomas said:

I thought that was what Alexa was for..........

 

(BTW, my comment was TIC & not meant to be taken seriously !)

I had one of them, all set up and working.  It kept getting plugged out and needed setting up again.  Pain in the backside.

[Tony_S]

21 minutes ago, SamThomas said:

Don'y forget to check with your buildings insurance to see if the installation effects the insurance.

I hadn’t thought of that. Thank you, 

I have just checked the policy and it does cover solar installations but I have also seen some online advice too that states it is a good idea to inform them in case it alters the premium payable. 

Edited October 3, 2021 by Tony_S

[hayfield]

11 hours ago, Tony_S said:

I hadn’t thought of that. Thank you, 

I have just checked the policy and it does cover solar installations but I have also seen some online advice too that states it is a good idea to inform them in case it alters the premium payable. 

 

I phoned my insurance company up and they said they were covered under my all risks (includes accidental damage) building cover

[hayfield]

This morning is the first day I have an export report from Octopus Energy. I am exceedingly pleased with the data provided by Octopus not only do I now have electricity export data, but now the gas data is available

 

Using the data from Solis (my solar panel electronics) and Octopus I now have accurate information of both solar power generation and power export, take one from the other and I have the power used and not brought from the grid, its very easy to see accurately the savings made

 

I am still of the opinion for a small installation like mine having a battery set up is not cost effective, however for larger systems and exporting at night time may over the long term be prudent, but the mathematics is much finer balanced

 

Yesterday which happened to be slightly above the average production on the illustration at todays rate saved me buying £0.62 worth of power and I exported £0.20 in its self not very much, but multiply by 365 days. Potentially a £300 return on an investment of just under £2700 (in November under the new tariffs the benefits could be worth an extra £47. The total return could be over 12% far better than Barclays or HSBC. But the major chunk is from buying less electricity, exporting surplus is the icing on the cake. One word of caution these returns are clearly dur to buying the system via a collective unless you are able to negotiate large discounts yourself, having said this with todays interest rate returns even paying full price the returns will be good  

[30801]

2 hours ago, hayfield said:

I am still of the opinion for a small installation like mine having a battery set up is not cost effective, however for larger systems and exporting at night time may over the long term be prudent, but the mathematics is much finer balanced

 

With working from home I reckon I could nicely consume the panel's output in the day and charge the car off peak by night.

[hayfield]

 

Last Sunday was the first time I had full details of both import and export data. I now have exact data on how much electricity I am using and exporting

 

As expected the numbers are down owing to the time of the year and as you would expect I hardly generated any kilowatts 

 

My illustration assumed I would produce 2205 kwh pa   42.4kwh per week

And an annual benefit (using and exporting)  £3.94 a week

 

On the worst week to date my system produced 36.5 kwh (2 days were a wash out), but it produced a cash benefit of £3.85 which is in line with expectations

 

Whilst I was away for a third of last month my KWH usage tumbled from 270 last year to 129, On sully days it is nice to see periods of either no or little imports of electricity between 9am and 5 pm. Each of these half hour periods are a bonus

[hayfield]

Well I have had my first month with Octopus and am now getting used to the new way they are presenting usage. Also their accounting system is not in calendar months, and seemingly the info on the smart meter is not as accurate as their bills

 

From my British Gas bills last October I used 298 KWH of electricity

 

My Octopus account runs from 26th Sep to the 24th of October (29 days), which is 185.6 kwh. Adding the next 2 days usage is 12.6 kwh  Total for 31 days is 198.3 kwh  a saving of 100 kwh. I produced 57kwh which I used, so by being aware of the value of electricity and turning lights off I saved 43 kwh and I have exported 79 KWH in 29 days of October

 

Solar production from 3/9 to 30/9 21 was 193 kwh

Solar production for October was 134 kwh

 

My saving of 100 kwh @ 18.9 kwh is worth £18.90, exporting 79kwh (29 days) £4.34

 

My conclusion is that given that we are in the poor production period I have put a £23 dent in my electricity bill, OK some of this is about turning lights off. This month my unit cost goes up from 18.9pm to 20.3p per kwh and judging by the noises we are hearing due to the wholesale price being so high another rise in the cap may be on the cards

[hayfield]

What a difference a day makes, with the sun out nearly 5 kwh produced ow which we used 1.8 kwh. We bought in 5.6 kwh over a 6th was used making our evening meal (so much for eating our main meal at lunchtime !! Today has started off much the same nice and sunny, yesterday it went down hill a bit in the afternoon. Also the days shortening are also having an effect. I guess this will be the story for the next 2 months.

[hayfield]

Just had the details of Novembers electricity consumption (25/10 to 26/11)

 

Last year I spent £57.96 on electricity and used 296 kwh. This year my consumption has dropped by 27% to 216 kwh and my bill was lower this year than last

 

As would be expected power generation was a lot worse than October in that I was able to use 37.6 kwh of what I produced and sold 63.4 kwh which produced £3.48 income 

 

It does not seem we have changed our lifestyle but reducing our consumption by 27% is certainly worthwhile. As for producing electricity its the worst time of year and days like today are a bonus. Looking forward to the longer days of sunlight and brighter weather

[hayfield]

On 27/04/2021 at 16:07, Nearholmer said:

Do these deals include:

 

- insurance against ‘knock on’ costs that might arise if the roof installation isn’t carried-out absolutely diligently; and,

 

- removal, disposal, and remedial work to the roof at life expiry?

 

I decided against an installation both because the pay-back period seemed incredibly long, even making some assumptions about electricity price inflation, and even given a very high % subsidy on first cost, and because of imponderables such as the above.

 

The salesman, BTW, was a world-class BS merchant, and I practically had to put thumb-screws on him to get solid numbers out of him upon which to base my calculations.

 

Caveat emptor.

 

 

 

Kevin I am in a better position to answer as my knowledge has been a real learning curve

 

The installation has had no affects on the roof/loft. As it is we decided to have the panels on the roof of our single story extension, which is 4 years old. The installation its self is covered by a 10 year insurance backed guarantee which covers both the installation and products. My own house insurer has no issues about these being fitted.

 

There was no removal of any roofing products, and as its 4 years old its up to modern building regulations

 

Pay back at the moment is as far as I am concerned better than the projections, we are in the worst half of the year, but Septembers and Octobers production were in line with the average expectation. In fact 3 months on I am still in pocket

 

The pay back calculations would have been quite a bit different had I not been in this collective arrangement organised by Essex and other county councils, a 40% plus discount on price this bulk purchasing arrangement has made the difference. Plus a  professional company has set the standards, vetted the suppliers and their work and arranged the insurance backed guarantee. I accept that if faced with a salesman it can be very intimidating, this process bypasses this part of the process. In fact we were chasing the company up. and they went out of their way to reduce our expectations   

 

The funds we used were sitting in the bank earning no real interest and in fact devaluing against inflation. If it takes me 10 years to recoup what we have spent, we then have free electricity for 10 to 15 years. The only downside is that we did not do it earlier.

 

I can highly recommend the process (Solar Together) we used, especially as I knew nothing about the subject and would have been way out of my depth.  

[Vistisen]

We have just received planning permission for out project. at 10Kw set of panesl with an inverter and a 10Kw battery. The whole lot is due to bi installed the 13th of December, a week before the shortest day!. At least the amount generated at the start must be a worse case scenario. It should pay for itsself in 10 years . and that was at the electricity prices as they were four months ago!

[Stanley Melrose]

We had a 4kWh set of SPVs installed 10 years ago on 23rd November so how has our investment of £10,784.30 repaid us?  When we get the FIT refund from the claim just submitted, we will have received £18,036.01 with 15 years of FIT payments yet to come.  Truly one of the best investments we've ever made - and I charge my BEV instead of exporting the surplus.

 

I appreciate the terms offered since those heady initial days are probably nowhere near what we pioneers have had and will continue to have but as John is showing it's still worth considering.

 

And why aren't all new build properties being mandated to install SPVs?

 

Stan

[AndrueC]

On 13/09/2021 at 15:29, spikey said:

 

Indeed, but it would be far more sensible if people could change their lifestyles so as to need less electricity.

 

Yes, I do know that's never going to happen

Electricity demand in the UK has been falling for over a decade now. Most of it is due to closure of industry but domestic demand has also been falling so it's already happening and has been for a while now.

 

https://inews.co.uk/news/environment/why-is-uk-energy-consumption-dropping-faster-than-the-rest-of-the-eu-264745

 

"The decline is documented in the residential, commercial and industrial sectors – although the transport sector has defied the trend. White goods have become more efficient, home insulation has improved, and LED bulbs produce the same amount of light as the now banned halogen bulbs while using 85 per cent less power."

 

and

 

"British households today, however, have similar or lower total energy costs than they had 10 years ago on average.

This suggests that the UK could be a model for countries hoping to cut greenhouse gas emissions while maintaining economic growth. The decline has been helpful for the UK’s coal phase-out because there has been less need to replace the electricity generated by the many coal plants that have closed."

 

Electric cars are going to reverse the trend but that's offset by the good it will do. And a lot of people could do more to reduce waste. But it isn't correct to suggest that the UK has an ever increasing demand for electricity and hasn't been for quite a while.

Edited November 29, 2021 by AndrueC

[30801]

22 minutes ago, AndrueC said:

Electric cars are going to reverse the trend but that's offset by the good it will do. And a lot of people could do more to reduce waste. But it isn't correct to suggest that the UK has an ever increasing demand for electricity and hasn't been for quite a while.

 

Already have an EV and we get through a fairly modest 9000 kWh of gas every year. If we swapped to a heat pump that would make our electricity consumption roughly triple what it was five years ago.

[Graham108]

1 hour ago, Stanley Melrose said:

We had a 4kWh set of SPVs installed 10 years ago on 23rd November so how has our investment of £10,784.30 repaid us?  When we get the FIT refund from the claim just submitted, we will have received £18,036.01 with 15 years of FIT payments yet to come.  Truly one of the best investments we've ever made - and I charge my BEV instead of exporting the surplus.

 

I was 3 months behind you with an initial investment of £9750. By my simple calculation I was paying (admittedly up front) £400/annum with £2k/annum from FIT - i.e. a return on investment of 400%/annum profit. 

[hayfield]

Well now after 4 months my electricity bills are still lower than last year, the Kilowatt hours I am buying are nearly 20% lower than than I used last year, even though last December was the dullest on record resulting in poor power generation (yesterday was the first time I generated 2kwh since the 2nd of December. With the threat of large hikes in energy prices in the Spring the longer days of daylight and the higher sun will bring back better energy production. If I am going to have to pay more for my electricity lets hope they pay us more for our energy exports

 

I must admit that power production has been a bit disappointing for the past month, but if the sun is not shining then you cannot expect much, coupled with short daylight hours and the sun being low in the sky, roll on the spring 

[Ron Ron Ron]

4 hours ago, hayfield said:

........I must admit that power production has been a bit disappointing for the past month, but if the sun is not shining then you cannot expect much, coupled with short daylight hours and the sun being low in the sky, roll on the spring 

 

A couple of people (on YouTube) who've gone down the road of adding a powerwall battery, say they view the whole year in balance.

Expecting more benefit from predominately solar in the spring and summer months and predominately cheaper off-peak, overnight electricity, during the darker and winter months.

 

Of course, if you don't have the battery to store the cheaper overnight juice, for use during the daytime, then the bills during winter months will remain expensive.

If only the battery systems were a lot less expensive.

 

 

 

.

[hayfield]

2 minutes ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

 

A couple of people (on YouTube) who've gone down the road of adding a powerwall battery, say they view the whole year in balance.

Expecting more benefit from predominately solar in the spring and summer months and predominately cheaper off-peak, overnight electricity, during the darker and winter months.

 

Of course, if you don't have the battery to store the cheaper overnight juice, for use during the daytime, then the bills during winter months will remain expensive.

If only the battery systems were a lot less expensive.

 

 

 

.

 

 

I think its a chicken and egg scenario, economies of scale plus new technologies will reduce costs, but many like myself are waiting for costs to reduce. It has been suggested that electric cars may be part of the answer, where you can store energy and even supply (sell) power to the grid at night for higher returns it may make battery storage more affordable. The main issuse is car use !!

[rocor]

Here is an interesting alternative, to using a Tesla Powerwall, as a storage solution for a domestic solar electric power system. 

 

  

 

[Tony_S]

On 13/01/2022 at 16:04, Ron Ron Ron said:

 

A couple of people (on YouTube) who've gone down the road of adding a powerwall battery, say they view the whole year in balance.

Expecting more benefit from predominately solar in the spring and summer months and predominately cheaper off-peak, overnight electricity, during the darker and winter months.

 

Of course, if you don't have the battery to store the cheaper overnight juice, for use during the daytime, then the bills during winter months will remain expensive.

If only the battery systems were a lot less expensive.

 

 

 

.

On our system the battery is only charged by the solar panels. It isn’t charged by our off peak mains at night. I was going to alter the economy 7 tariff to a simple tariff after the solar panels were installed in December but I will wait and see. We have been changing how and when we use out electricity. My wife seems to enjoy working out whether or not we should run some appliance from battery or wait until after midnight and use off peak. As mentioned by John ( @hayfield) it was a cloudy December and January hasn’t been marvellous either but the few sunny days have shown how well the system works. The paperwork to get paid for any surplus we export hasn’t arrived yet but at this time of year we aren’t exporting much as it either gets used or charges the battery. 

Edited January 26, 2022 by Tony_S

[hayfield]

10 hours ago, Tony_S said:

On our system the battery is only charged by the solar panels. It isn’t charged by our off peak mains at night. I was going to alter the economy 7 tariff to a simple tariff after the solar panels were installed in December but I will wait and see. We have been changing how and when we use out electricity. My wife seems to enjoy working out whether or not we should run some appliance from battery or wait until after midnight and use off peak. As mentioned by John ( @hayfield) it was a cloudy December and January hasn’t been marvellous either but the few sunny days have shown how well the system works. The paperwork to get paid for any surplus we export hasn’t arrived yet but at this time of year we aren’t exporting much as it either gets used or charges the battery. 

 

Tony

 

You may have to chase Greenscape up, they told me it was the Network who were holding things up but when I asked the network they said it was already sent back. I phoned Greenscape and they sent the bits I needed

 

I got my final paperwork last week from Greenscape who in turn were blaming the electrician for the delay

 

When I completed Octopuses export paperwork all they needed was the reference number not the certificate

[Tony_S]

On 27/01/2022 at 08:33, hayfield said:

 

Tony

 

You may have to chase Greenscape up, they told me it was the Network who were holding things up but when I asked the network they said it was already sent back. I phoned Greenscape and they sent the bits I needed

 

I got my final paperwork last week from Greenscape who in turn were blaming the electrician for the delay

 

When I completed Octopuses export paperwork all they needed was the reference number not the certificate

I shall contact Greenscape on Monday. My meter can show export and even the little smart meter in the house display appears to have a little pylon symbol for export too. 

[hayfield]

13 hours ago, Tony_S said:

I shall contact Greenscape on Monday. My meter can show export and even the little smart meter in the house display appears to have a little pylon symbol for export too. 

 

I had my latest bill from Octopus, last year Jan was the second highest month for usage, my usage this year for the Jan accounting period was down by 20% and very little power was generated last month owing to the sun being low, shorter days and most of all cloudy days (cloudiest on record)

 

More importantly still paying less than last year despite the price hike

 

Once the new rates come into effect in April it would be very interesting to see the returns on having solar panels using these new rates !!

[hayfield]

 

Following a previous email from Octopus warning of prices going up in April by as much as 50%  (I am paying 20.5p per KWH) I had a much nicer email stating that from today they will be increasing the price they pay us to export electricity to them from 5.5p to 7.5p per kwh. Its nice to see the price increase starts straight away (especially as the sun is out) and not having to wait a few weeks for the benefit to start

 

I decided to look at the illustration of benefits from the PV suppliers which when I last looked at seemed to be on the conservative side, their calculations for exporting power was based on a 3p per kwh rate  in my case this amounted to £77.60 pa, this jumps up to £194 pa at 7.5p in the 1st year

 

Now if the electric cost goes up to 30p per kwh my illustration was based on 16p per kwh in the first year giving me a saving of £126.99pa, we now know this has jumped up to £162.70 as I am now paying 20.5p per kwh, if it rises as expected to 30p per kwh the saving rises to £238.10 in the 1st year

 

The combined effect in the first year was estimated at £204,59  using the revised rates 6 months on  to £398pa, not quite but nearly double the estimate  But again assumed power generation is on (as it should be) the conservative side, the actual benefits could be even higher, time will tell.

 

Still I was happy for the cost to be neutral in 10 years, events in the energy market seem to be making this to have been a very cautious projection and as there is no outlook for decent return on bank deposits its confirmed to in my case have been a good calculated gamble