It should be easier for us to all put solar panels on our roofs?

[Taoneusa]

Energy prices are going crazy, surely we should all be helped to generate solar energy for our own homes and to contribute to the grid.

Solar panels aren’t the perfect solution. They only last a certain number of years then are another problem for landfill.

My new ones have a 25 year guarantee so they do last a long time. Even once they are past the point at which they produce optimal levels for residential power they can still be used in other applications.

We have the type that don’t need direct sunlight plus a battery and a system which uses any excess to heat the water too before finally feeding back into the grid as a last resort.

Eon are doing interest free credit and an e handed energy buy back rate but I agree that there should be some subsidisation

We just don't have enough roof facing the right way for them. Dormer bungalow with no uninterrupted roof, save a few square metres on the north side and barely any loft space.

@TuftyMarmoset
Yes, they are so much more ugly than the destruction of the environment hmm How much do you even look at your roof?

Every day. The dormer window in my home office looks out across the only appreciable roof area we have that doesn’t face North.

I’d be interested to see the lifecycle analysis for solar panels. I’m not at all certain that they are a positive thing. The impact of mining of the necessary materials coupled with the manufacturing process seems likely to be fairly significant.

U see the real time data for 100000s of panels everyday, panels that often have various devices measuring the incidence of light falling on them and tilting tracking motors to maximize their efficiency. I don't need a pound shop Google artist to tell me how long panels last, we've changed out 1000s that didn't even make it to double figures in years.

@Watchingyou2sleezes not a pound shop google artist thanks but somebody who had been following the subject quite closely over the past 20yrs as a specifier.
Our experience is that domestic and small scale commercial projects (also followed and tracked) are showing good efficacy and low replacement rates but we do tend to stick to certain brands and installers because we know they work well.
In certain circumstances solar panels are a good option but as I said earlier they are only part of a more sustainable future and they don't even feature on my top 10 sustainable upgrades for projects even though people latch on to them as a sustainable go to.

You do get paid for the energy you put back into the grid - but I understand that for new customers it is at a very low rate, certainly much lower than the rate at which we buy it.

It therefore makes sense for us to get a battery so that can store and use as much of our own power as possible, to reduce the amount we have to buy.

I tried to get the grant, a bloke came out to assess my house, but unless they pick it up and turn it round, solar panels won’t work.

Pretty sure the grant is only for solar water and not for PV.

@ Wonkylegs
Don't make me laugh, Nobody is monitoring domestic installs for efficiency of output against irradiance, let alone against predicted efficiency.

And as for only using certain panel manufacturers 🤣🤣🤣
Jesus (probably) wept- we're certainly experiencing very little difference in the reliability of certain well regarded brands over those less well renowned.
It was actually part of the planned mix to give data moving forward for future "farm" planning and panel sourcing.

We're monitoring 1000s of array put in by investment funds that raised many £100Ms.
I'll take real time state of the art data collection concerning performance and efficiency in multi MegaWatt facilities for making calls on panel life as opposed to someone that's specced some domestic and small time "commercial" installs. Anyway enough of this nonsense it achieves nothing, so,

I'm sure we could have a lovely conversation about your last paragraph. I agree with most of that.
Have a lovely evening

We have just signed a contract for solar. Apparently the new systems can easily last 40 years and even then, they should continue to work fine, just not quite as efficiently as before. We're in our later 50s so reckon they should see us out!

Solar panels will be the PPE of the future.

If you have them installed you don’t own them, you rent your roof out to the company that provides them. And it happens over a 25 year period. Trying to sell your house if you have solar panels installed is not a straightforward process.

People were conned into having them installed by companies who promised the earth and didn’t divulge all the details.

Plus there are lots of spaces where solar panels can’t be installed. if you have a conservatory, if you live in a flat, if you have a north facing garden it’s pointless, and the amount of electricity they deliver is tiny in comparison to what you’re told.

Honestly there will be investigations into this practice in the future. Until they come up with a better idea for installation which doesn’t screw over the householder there’s absolutely no way.

Th grid is designed for a handful of very big inputs. Not thousands of tiny ones. Apparently it has engineers scratching their heads at the moment.
But we need to have more eco generation.

@Watchingyou2sleezes we do whole life monitoring of sustainable projects - it helps with making design decisions. We probably don't monitor the same way or to the same extent but we do monitor the building as a whole system (so not just pv) and aren't finding significant drop in electrical output over years, definitely not enough to supplement or replace systems.
Whole life monitoring is becoming much more of a thing than it was when I started out but it's really useful and also those who tend to commission these types of projects tend like the geekiness of tracking the performance so are happy to do this over time.
In fact we've only had one job with a replaced panel and that was due to physical damage (some little shit and an air rifle)
So for a usual domestic scale project which is what most people are talking about here the reliability rate is good.
Commercially different things come in to play and I'm guessing your optimisation criteria are higher than required on our projects.

@Watchingyou2sleezes or perhaps we've just been exceedingly fortunate with our installs

@Taoneusa if you want to do something useful start looking at reducing demand as that is an easy way
Insulation coupled with properly designed ventilation, draughtproofing, energy efficient lights, controls and appliances (but generally only replace when the old, turning stuff off!
Funnily enough when we monitor projects we find that the biggest impact on the sustainability of a building is human behaviour.