Solar panels - opinions

[DennisTMenace]

Our local council are promoting a group buy scheme to encourage people to get solar panels and hopefully get a better price for installation. I like the idea from an eco friendly perspective, but have concerns over whether the cost/disruption/upkeep is worth it.

Can people give me their opinions? If you have them then want do you think of them? If you are avoiding them then why and would it put you off buying a house If it had them? Our roof sides face north and south respectively.

We got one 5 years ago With new build. We have constant piping hot water. Handy. But be careful as there are some than only work off sunlight as opposed to day light. Can't compare electric bills as it was a new build.

I have some on the north east and south west sides of my house. I guess it depends what you intend to do with the electricity now the feed in tariff has gone it has been replace with SEG but you need a smart export meter i think. Mine is used to heat up my hot water and i use the washing machine during the day ( i do have a less than £30 monthly electricity bill though). If you combined it with battery storage then maybe but i wouldn't rush to buy one today.

Our rented council house has them, they were there when we moved in. I honestly can't see a difference in our electricity bills compared to the similar 2 bed rented house we moved from. They were recently serviced a couple of months ago and I actually asked if they were definitely working before! He said after the service they should run more efficiently, mentioned something about wattage and now we could now potentially boil the kettle for free.

🤔

We've had some installed in the last year. We have them on the front and side to catch the sun from morning until early evening. We have a battery too and a boost for the hot water. We have an app installed on our phones so we can track it all and even now in October, on good days, we are taking very little from the grid and the battery usually sees us until the next morning. We have had a few days lately when the battery hasn't even reached 100% but we expect more grid usage in winter.

We bought ours outright and they work on daylight not just sunshine.

£30 off a bill per month doesn't sound like a lot. There is a battery option, but that would obviously add to the cost.