Solar panels on my House.

[Katamaran]

Is it financially worthwhile? What have others experienced?

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Updated by MNHQ
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yes. We don't pay for hardly any electricity between april and august and if we do it's to power the electric car. However we have a bttery to store the power from the sunny days which is an exra expense (otherwise a lot wouuld be wasted). A sunny day all year round and the solar will pay for most of the energy we use that day.
Will have paid for themselves within 6 years so a good shout if you're staying put.
However it depends on how suitable your roof is, how many panels you can get up there and which way it faces (south facing best).

It is for us. We chew through tonnes of electricity being a family of five with an electric car and between the panels and the batteries that allow us to store cheap energy from the grid overnight, we save a fortune.

yes this is a good point we do similar. Not directly related to the panels but if you have an electric car you can access cheap overnight power through octopus. So overnight we either charge the car (once a week or so) or use the battery to fill up on cheap power from the grid.Most of the power we use in winter is from the cheap overnight power which is stored via the battery. In summer the battery fills up on solar instead. So for example once the sun has gone down you can still use the power from it.

Consequently we use very lilttle power stright from the grid at "normal" rates. Its not cheap but the solar + battery + electric car set up can save thousabds over time. We probably use it more than most families becuse we came off the gas so the electricity powers the heatpump (and thus the radiators) too.

I assume this is all without a government subsidy?

Yes. It came out of savings. I don't think there are any government subsidies for it, are there?

yes we paid for it in full though did get a £5k grant towards the heatpump

As long as you get batteries as well.
We are on Octopus flux which varies from hour to hour. When it's cheap we fill the batteries and when it's expensive we use the batteries.
There's been very little solar in the last few weeks but we still save a vast amount on electricity.

depends where you are - here in NL solar panel sales have crashed as people are being penalised by energy companies for generating too much....energy!

NL or NI?

Absolutely worth it if you have the cash upfront - 12k with battery in 2023 - (I believe Octopus do loans?).

We were creeping towards paying £500 a month for a 4 bed detached family of 5 and now pay just over £100 per month DD but of course pay almost nothing when it's sunny.

I estimate we have paid off about a quarter / third in 2 years. We're not moving anytime soon though and if you are it may not be worth it.

Worth it for us. We have a south facing roof and a medium size battery. We currently pay £37 pm for electricity and we're £200 in credit (we don't heat by electric but have 1 electric shower and an electric oven). We expect our usage to go down further as DS has recently moved out and he WFH. Watching carefully for the decision re the standing charges as in the summer months most of our daily charge is due to the standing charge.

It’s worth it if your roof is south facing and big enough for a decent array. Definitely get battery storage too.

I have them, no battery and I sell it back to octopus. I've not had a summer with them yet so not sure on prices

I reckon it's almost worth getting batteries without panels as they allow you to use the power at night or when electricity is expensive.
On the tariff we use there are times when the price is under 10p KW and it even goes negative in high winds so they pay us to use power. ( You can fill the batteries from the grid).

We don't have the variable tariff like that @Boope but we do have a time of use tariff with a nighttime rate of 5.5p/kWh.

Someone mentioned doing it if you have a south facing roof but we do really well with an east/west split.

Technology has moved on so much you don’t need a south facing roof. East West is best!

Follow Conrad Stevenson on LinkedIn. He’s a Solar guru.

NL

NL

ugh can't seem to quote. in NL netting scheme finishes in 2027 - so 1) already being penalised for generating too much and 2) won't be able to sell back what you now can (up to a point) from 2027

What is NL?

Netherlands

Ahh

I agree with east/west roofs being better. Ours is south/north so we only have panels on the south side.

Our next door neighbours, who are at right angles to us, have panels on their east and west sides so their roof gets the sun for longer and of course they can fit more panels in. They generate much more electricity than we do.

I know the post is from February, but here’s my experience from Dublin (semi-detached house, S–SW roof). I installed 10 panels (≈4.8 kWp) plus a 5 kWh battery. In summer I get between 11–13 kWh/day; in winter it drops to 2–4 kWh/day. My bill went down from about €180/month to about €95 on average over the year, with export peaks in summer (I got around €20/month June–August). A realistic payback for me is 6–7 years; it helped that we have daytime usage (washing machine, dryer, immersion with a diverter). I worked with Solar Path - they did the on-site survey, handled the grid and grant paperwork, and the install crew finished in a day. My only regret: I’d have chosen a slightly larger inverter to leave room for two more panels.

We have solar panels, no battery and a heat pump. We export it back to the grid and have lower utility bills over all. Still in credit at present.