Energy prices! Is solar the answer?

We live in South Yorkshire on the edge of the Pennines where it rains a lot. Our panels are on a south east facing roof.

We ended up paying out a total of £141.11 for utilities last year. Without the panels our utility bill for 2024 would have been £1198.60.

When we bought our solar panels we paid for the more expensive ones that work at lower light levels and feel that they have been a brilliant investment. We have had to replace the inverter, but that is the only extra expense we have incurred.

The panels got a good clean a couple of weeks ago when we had some heavy snow as the snow sliding down them will have taken the dirt with it.

I think if your house is suitable for a good set up and you are not planning to move any time soon then it's a pretty good investment if you have some spare cash.

We've had ours about 3 years plus battery and a nifty little gadget that runs the emersion to heat water if there is excess capacity, which in the summer months there usually is. I agree with the bird proofing, we had that done after a year or so because the pigeons loved trampling around on them on the sloped roof of our bedroom and it was v annoying, but we solved the problem.

Our DD for gas and electric for a 4/5 bed has gone down to £60/mth and we will probably take that down a bit more in a few months because we still have a pretty big balance.

Oh, interesting - that's not insignificant at all! I might have to start looking into it - thanks @ByMerryKoala

I have an east/west facing roof in the N.E and we generated just over 5000kwh last year, which wasn't a very sunny summer.

In terms of using it, that's a bit different...we store excess in the battery over summer and import energy into it over winter.

We export to the grid at 11p/kWh if the battery tops out.

I'd be interested in hearing what someone with a not ideal roof direction, in the midlands, realistically gets from their system - because I just find it hard to believe that I could reasonably install enough to make a massive difference given the weather.

Especially since I use more power in winter (lights, school more school runs in the car) than in summer (no lights, no heating, summer holidays without daily school runs etc)

Insulate your home first, it’s far cheaper! Our local council lets you rent a thermal imaging camera so you can see which areas of your house are poorly insulated.

They are definitely a good investment if you have a suitable roof. Ours is full South facing and we produce quite a lot in the summer months.

They cost around £6,500 about 6 years ago and increasing fuel prices was one of the reasons we decided to have them installed. We have got a 25year guarantee on ours including the inverter as we went for a better make as some inverters will only.last 10years so that is something to look at carefully. We didn't have a battery installed as they are the most expensive part of the cost and DH did the numbers and didn't think it would payback.

However we do have a electric car and a charger which will use any excess power generated to charge the car when it's plugged in. As I only work termtime in the summer holidays I hardly ever have to pay to charge my car. We also have it connected to our imergain heater so we don't really pay for heating water in the summer either.

We've had solar and home batteries for about four years now. We are a high electricity use family, large family/electric car/oven/ showers and so our return on investment is just eight years. We save with the solar generated, the solar exported and by filling up the battery on low cost electricity overnight to use throughout the day - which makes an enormous difference throughout the winter. We won't be moving any time soon so looking forward to being insulated from the full rollercoaster of the energy market.

ETA.If you go for it don't skip the bird proofing.

What are you basing this on? There were certainly some very iffy schemes in the early days but these days almost all solar panelling is done through private sales and so no such restrictions would apply.

Moving to solar and battery (and latterly a heat pump) was a great move for us. You have to do a bit of work finding the right tariff, getting the settings right for the batteries etc but once you get that right it’s great and we’re making great savings, have almost ‘repaid’ the outlay in five years.

They can be but somewhat depends on which way the roof faces, size of house and how many panels you can get on there- ideal is a south facing bungalow in the south of England because roof surface area compared to number of rooms is highest. I have friends who at least manage to charge electric cars but the savings depend on the up front costs too. Friends were spending nearly 900 a month on diesel and now aren’t so their payback period is v short.

We have had solar panels for 12 years. They cost £10k to install and have now paid for themselves.

In the winter we pay out and in summer our utilities supplier dumps money into our bank account. Last year our total utility costs (electricity, gas, telephone and broadband) was less than £500.

This is only true for older schemes where you effectively rented out your rooftop to a company and split the feed in tariffs.

That isn't a scheme that exists now.
Instead the OP would buy the solar panels herself, fully own them and can remove them any time she wants.

OP, you may be better off considering installing a battery (Givenergy is a reliable choice). You then switch on to a variable price tariff where some hours are cheap and some expensive. You charge the battery in the cheap hours and discharge it in the expensive hours (also you stop rubbing the dishwasher and washing machine between 4 and 7pm)

This lowers your unit cost per kWh considerably. On Octopus Agile, my overnight cost today was around 13p/Kwh while the price cap level is around 25p/kWh.

I don’t know hat the costs are for installing solar in the uk, but my friends in Spain have just done it in a 3 bedroom house and it cost €20,000 with batteries but you can apply to the government to get 50% of the cost back. It does seem a great idea, it’s just the initial outlay is quite costly. Their energy costs now are pretty much zero though.

My DD has just gone up by £100. I’m shocked, the heating goes off at night, the highest it’s on is 18’c, I religiously turn lights off. I don’t have the money to invest in solar, and I think it would take some time to recoup the outlay.

Word of caution, read the small print.
You can’t remove them if you need to do any roof work or extend the loft.
Huge financial penalties and world of pain due to very stringent rules.
Absolute scam.