Anyone got solar panels?

[ImogenBrocklehurst]

Posting for traffic.

Salesman was insisting that we’ll be raking in thousands from power we sell back to the grid; all we really want is to see a drop in our utilities bills. What are others’ experiences?

Do you know the wattage rating for those panels @AnonSugar

Id read the flush fit ones are rated lower than the mounted ones.

I got free solar panels as part of a local authority scheme for low income households a few years ago. My roof isn't optimal for solar panels due to location, shading etc but I have a basic set up of 6 with no battery or anything. I have changed my habits eg I don't run anything after the sun goes down and use timers on my washing machine and dishwasher to ensure they are running in the sunniest part of the day. I try to stagger my appliance use. I basically only pay a tiny bit more than the standing charge from May to September. Even in the winter it does help knock off a few pence a day.

I have modern panels and they are very efficient but the money I make from selling back to the grid is minimal- only about £100 a year. But I do make a big effort to use the power as its generated because that's where the savings are for me.

The biggest issue for me was the pigeons - I've had the panels netted now but they made an almighty mess previously.

No downsides as long as you get enough batteries. I have 6 and some months octopus owes me money

Fifteen panels on south and west facing roof. The quote is from Spark.

With batteries

We bought a brand new house ten years ago with solar panels (three) on the roof. For the first 5 years approx, we would get £45 a quarter on average. The things have packed up, no one is prepared to take ownership of them so I shit you not, we get about £2 A YEAR!!!!

I wouldn’t pay for them out of my own pocket

I think it’s 3kwh

Ours were installed by Discover Solar Ltd. I think they only cover North London and some of the home counties, but if you are in one of those areas, I’d definitely recommend them.

Tbf, new homes get the bare minimum to jump through EPC hoops. It's not the same as having someone coming to assess your energy needs and building a system with payback in mind.

Yep fully aware of that, but the outlay is big and would take a long time to recoup costs

It depends on what your energy consumption is like. We have an electric car, everything in the kitchen is electric and we are a family of five - and I work from home - so we chew through the power. We'll have paid off the cost in about 8-9 years and because of the improvement in panels since our installation, I expect that there has been improvements on that front.

We have a fairly small array, and a 10kw battery. Recently purchased an electric car so switched to the overnight tariff. Charge the car on this and charge up the battery all at 7p p/kw hour. Any excess during the day is sold back to the grid at 13p p/kw hour. Usage in summer months is minimal £2-3 per day on car charge days, £5-6 on days where we charge the car. Not doing huge mileage at the monet so only charge once a week, range is about 240 miles in the summer months, donw to 170 in winter . We are in Central Scotland though, so our winter usage increases as we get less daylight hours. Usually up to £10 per day combined gas and electric, figure above are also combined, summer costs are mainly for gas. We build up credit paying a D/D per month and from what we sell back, think we break even over the year give or take.

Think it was a youtube video where advice on getting solar ( without battery ) started with ‘It makes no financial sense if you’re might move house within 10 years.

For us, with a battery we’re thinking a minimum 10 years before it pays for itself.
Depends how electricity prices rise , whether the SEG export rates continue.

I have 10 panels, older style so not flush to the roof in full sun every day. I don't have a battery so it exports the excess at the end of each day. My return is about £45 a quarter, although our electric bill is minimal in summer months which is lovely.

The installer will be able to decommission the system and reinstall following repairs.

A good installer will inspect the roof prior to commencing and if there are any issues to be rectified prior to install they will draw it to your attention.

3Kwh will be the combined array total.

Currently inroof you can have a 430w Longi panel with GSE mounting or Viridian 445w panel with Viridian mounting.

GSE can take a higher wattage panel but MCS have withdrawn certification for anything but Longi or a Phono 410w panel.

I have no idea what that means.

They work for us 🤷‍♀️

It takes about 10 years to recoup the initial outlay.
We have 5, which were free under a Scottish government deal, and a storage battery.
So basically we have free electric for most of the year.
We live in the North of Scotland.

Who did you get these through please? I thought it would take years to pay back. Be so worth it for 3 years - I have electric car too!

Moved into.a house in march with 7 panels. Already linked up to an export tariff. Usual bill for March and April, only paid a tiny amount monthly since then for a bit of gas. Win!!!

Octopus energy.

We went for the 3 year finance as that’s the max they’ll do at 0%. If you take into consideration what we’ll save on electricity, it’ll cost us costs us £150 a month over what our electricity bill is. But once they are paid off we’ll save about £100 a month.

We are on an old tariff for our export so get 72p per kWh so we technically do make a few thousand a year but we don’t have battery storage so have to buy what we need back so we use approx £450 a year but make 3500+ from the panels

We were 64p for generation when I last checked, but it is now 74p - amazing! Export for us is only 5p, so works out to about 77p per kwh generated with the deemed 50% export.

We bought the house with the panels, inherited the generous FIT rate and don't have a battery either. But, we have an old meter that goes back if we generate more than we use, so we effectively get to use all that we generate.

We of course informed the utility company by phone and in writing that the meter has this "fault", as per our obligation, but they haven't followed it up or asked to change the meter.

Our DD is still over £330 per month dual fuel, so I'm not going to keep chasing them. (Large family, 5 bed detached.)

Get yourself a battery and charge it overnight. The savings from using that electricity during the day will vastly outweigh any money you make from selling back to the grid. During the summer months we have virtually no electricity charges except standing charge. And as we have a heat pump we are 100% electric. If I could change anything it would be to get another battery at the time we installed the panels. FWIW we could only get about half the panels we wanted but would do it again in a heartbeat.

I had solar panels on a property I have recently sold, they were installed free as it was considered as the company involved would get any profit from the electricity we didn't use.

They may be fitted differently now to prevent this but we used to get pigeons under them, not nesting but scurrying about early in the morning and it would wake us. The company involved did not fit bird guards free of charge and the amount involved was quite substantial, I wouldn't really say we benefited much from them to make it worthwhile but we were tied into a 25 year lease so couldn't have the solar panels removed.

When selling the property there are lots of questions from solicitors about solar panels and you have to provide all necessary paperwork so something else to consider too if you plan on moving at any point.