If your neighbour
in the street does that make it right for you too as well?
Solar panels still worth it?
- Thread starter JamiePattison
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in the street does that make it right for you too as well?
We have 4KWp of solar panels which came with this house when we bought it. We had to replace the inverter about a year later as it packed up - cost £660. We added 15KWh of batteries to the system a little over a year ago and also moved across to Octopus Agile. Our house is oil heated, but with hydronic underfloor in most of it.
The Solar is on a relatively old FIT. We get 22.8p per KWh for everything we GENERATE plus 7.14p per KWh deemed export on half of what we GENERATE. What we try to do is use as much as we possibly can as we still get paid even if we consume it. Due to where we live and the orientation of the panels, this gives us about 6 to 7 hundred pounds a year of income plus, by storing much of it in the battery, it means that we don't need to buy that electricity.
I've looked into the benefits of a heat pump countless times and the big thing that puts me off is the quality of the system design and installation capability. There are far too many installers who have spent their lives installing large gas boilers and are now trying to do the same with heat pumps. General accepted practice is to install a heat pump roughly equivalent to the heat loss of the house and not much larger than it. So, if our oil boiler dies, we will only look at a heat pump then. let's hope that there is an equivalent of the BUS when the time comes. Get the SCOP wrong and a heat pump becomes a very expensive proposition.
So, is solar worth it? For us, if your system allows you to store and load shift what you generate then it may be a reasonable proposition. It really isn't a decent proposition if your motivation is to use what you can at the point of generation and export (for reward) the rest. It's almost a given that many of the export tariffs are going to get more and more mean as time passes, especially as the UK has an excess of green power at some times and a huge deficit at others (especially in the winter).
It's really hard to measure a payback time for us because, as with our previous house, we changed the way that we used power based upon the system we had. In our old house we tried to use power when the sun shone (as we didn't have batteries) and were careful what we used at other times. In this house, now, it's all about acquiring the energy cheaply, be it via solar or at low cost periods with Octopus Agile, storing it and using it as and when needed. Home Assistant automations also help massively with that.
I don't think I would ever consider buying solar without a method of load shift (such as a battery or a suitable EV).
The Solar is on a relatively old FIT. We get 22.8p per KWh for everything we GENERATE plus 7.14p per KWh deemed export on half of what we GENERATE. What we try to do is use as much as we possibly can as we still get paid even if we consume it. Due to where we live and the orientation of the panels, this gives us about 6 to 7 hundred pounds a year of income plus, by storing much of it in the battery, it means that we don't need to buy that electricity.
I've looked into the benefits of a heat pump countless times and the big thing that puts me off is the quality of the system design and installation capability. There are far too many installers who have spent their lives installing large gas boilers and are now trying to do the same with heat pumps. General accepted practice is to install a heat pump roughly equivalent to the heat loss of the house and not much larger than it. So, if our oil boiler dies, we will only look at a heat pump then. let's hope that there is an equivalent of the BUS when the time comes. Get the SCOP wrong and a heat pump becomes a very expensive proposition.
So, is solar worth it? For us, if your system allows you to store and load shift what you generate then it may be a reasonable proposition. It really isn't a decent proposition if your motivation is to use what you can at the point of generation and export (for reward) the rest. It's almost a given that many of the export tariffs are going to get more and more mean as time passes, especially as the UK has an excess of green power at some times and a huge deficit at others (especially in the winter).
It's really hard to measure a payback time for us because, as with our previous house, we changed the way that we used power based upon the system we had. In our old house we tried to use power when the sun shone (as we didn't have batteries) and were careful what we used at other times. In this house, now, it's all about acquiring the energy cheaply, be it via solar or at low cost periods with Octopus Agile, storing it and using it as and when needed. Home Assistant automations also help massively with that.
I don't think I would ever consider buying solar without a method of load shift (such as a battery or a suitable EV).
That is one of the big downsides to all this newer technology and complexity is fine providing the standards match otherwise reliability suffers. Something like an open fire or woodburner will keep you alive even when the gas and electric fails but now most modern systems need electricity so leave you in the cold. It can be a massive investment for small rewards but for many they see free electricity without considering the initial investment and will often tie you to living there for longer terms rather than selling to move.
Jacob
What goes around comes around.
I wondered if it would add value to the house, but unless it was in good order and you could show bills and prove the benefits, it might have the opposite effect.
If your COP is better than around 3.5 the heat pump should be cheaper to run. We got an ASHP installed in October and have managed a COP of 4.1 in a partly insulated old farmhouse. Then there are various cheaper electricity tariffs where you can save a lot more on top. Also add in some spare PV production to run it especially in the shoulder months. No option for natural gas here anyway so it was a no brainer for us
As to adding value, it very much depends : panels added sympathetically to a modern house may put off some but may be an attractive proposition to others. Panels on an old house, especially if they detract from kerb appeal, seldom add value - generally the opposite.
With our previous house, a 1950's, they really had to be on the front of our house, in a line just below the ridge. I think they were about neutral for many when it came to selling. With the house we have now, a period house, c. 1970's, with a nice frontage and a slate roof, they are stuffed away on our garage/workshop block quite a few metres from the house and facing away from the road, thankfully. This does compromise power generation somewhat but it still retains main house kerb appeal.
Interesting - which supplier did you use for the installation? (feel free to PM). If we go down that road I would want to find somebody who knows what they are doing.
Eshmiel
Established Member
To use solar or batteries or any other self-generating electricity supply, if you're truly disconnected from the grid, is certainly possible. If you're actually still connected to the grid, which has just gone down (supply failed due to a fault "out there" somewhere) you need an arrangement that prevents you exporting to the grid, as otherwise some electrician up a pole or in a sub-station might be fried by Jacob e-juice, as that electrician is joining up the wires again.
Such protection-for-the-grid generally comes in the form of a UPS (Uninterruptable Power Supply) box that does actually disconnect you from the grid before allowing your electrical devices to use your electrical generator and/or store. It stops you exporting any electricity to the grid when its "down" but allows your house to continue using electricity from your solar/battery.
Some systems of solar/battery come with this built-in and some require an additional "box" to perform the functions.
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Whether solar/batteries and the like are "practical" depends on how much you use electricity and for what. For me, its very practical as everything is run with electricity, even the car. No electricity means no light, cooking, washing machine, heat, hot water, cold water (the "well" needs an electrical pump to extract from way down there) sewage (a pump takes it from a collection tank up 10 metres to the mains pipe) and no workshop machines. There is a wood burner but its only been lit 4 times in 6 years - to demo it rather than because it was needed for heat. I don't want to gas meself, do I?
For those with just a need for light, cooking, washing machine but no big consumers like heating and hot water, solar and a battery can still be cost effective. It allows you to store and later use not just solar electricity but cheap overnight electricity. For example, I pay just over 6 pence per kilowatt hour for night time electricity, loaded into a house battery, car and even running the washing machine on a timer during the 7 hour cheap period - but only through winter as most of the year the solar (used when generated and also stored in the batteries for later) is sufficient for everything. The daytime rate is 24p per kilowatt hour - 4X the night rate. But I never have to use daytime electricity.
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In every individual case, you need to make a cost/benefit analysis. The benefits can be just the monetary saving but there are several others that are not cash-based: being greener; being more protected from the increasing number of grid outages; not having to use polluting and health-damaging stuff like woodburning and gas; having a degree of protection from large supplier fuel price hikes. You can also run an e-car for little or no fuel cost.
It all takes a capital outlay. But it seems better stuff to buy than a foreign holiday or spending hundreds a time to go and see some slebs twanging three chords on their guitars.
And, in the long run, you will get your money back in just about every case. If you die before you do, why care? You can't anyway, as there'll be no "you" to do so.
