Home batteries and solar panels: help us out!

[Photosymphysis]

Hello!

Our fixed term electricity tariff is set to end soon and our electricity bills will likely double, if not triple.

We're thinking we could firstly invest in a home battery, like a Tesla Powerwall but maybe not a Tesla because we're not loaded!

A home battery we could charge during the cheap overnight tariff (we're on an EV tariff with cheap charging time overnight already) and then run the house off during the day/evening.

We've already go a smart meter and will look up what sort of size we'd need.

Then we'd look at solar panels to trickle charge the battery.

This will likely need to be done with two separate loans with 5ish years between. (It will also lock us into our little but adequate home).

Has anyone done this? Do you have any recent experiences with solar panels and/or batteries?

We didn't get solar when we moved in 10 years ago because they were prohibitively expensive and we were considerably poorer. And we were planning on moving in a couple of years. But here we are!

You're going to tell me how awful batteries and solar panels are, aren't you? I know, I know.

Yeah, didn't think this would be a goer.

Thanks for the notice board space though!

That’s a shame, here to find out exactly the same as you. Maybe another forum somewhere else would be more helpful?

I'm also here to find answers about solar panels and batteries. Something I've thought about for a while but feels the incentive to do something about is higher.

Search on YouTube. Some good explanations from preppers there.

I'm about to install 10 solar panels (4kw system) and a pretty chunky battery - currently looking at 3 x 3.5kw batteries. Total cost about £10k but by my estimation with careful use will save us £70-£100 a month in electricity. Next step will be an electric car in a few years when the price of those comes down, and long term we are hoping to move from an oil boiler to an electric one.

I'm no expert but when we looked at solar panels it was going to take thirty years of saved money on electricity to pay for the outlay on the panels.

We put in 16 solar panels, an air source heat pump and storage battery last year. A very big outlay, but we had moved not long before and made the decision to "downsize" a little in order to help fund things. We also got a sizeable government-backed loan (in Scotland), repayable interest-free over 12 years.

Our electricity bills this winter are considerably less than they were last winter (gas & electric) and by this point in the year we are generating a fair amount of electricity, especially on a sunny day, like today (19kWh).

We have a tariff through Octopus energy which basically means we give them control of our storage battery. We usually wake up to a fully charged battery which we then use power from throughout the day (if we don't generate enough through the solar PVs). We have a feed-in tariff for any excess we send back and our price per unit is also lower as they basically choose when we get our electricity from the grid.

We are impressed and whilst I appreciate that most people are probably not in a position to change their house as we did, we feel very fortunate that we made the decision to do it, particularly given the recent fuel situation.

Oh, and we're replacing our old hybrid car with a fully electric one soon. Where we live, we are not really in a position to do away with a car altogether.

If you can, I'd recommend biting the bullet. We are predicted to break even in about 8 years, I think, but even if it were longer, we would have been happy, given the other benefits. Even during the power cuts we've had this winter, we've had a bit of power for a while - our Tesla battery "knows" when a storm is predicted and stores up power for us.

It's worth looking at moneysavingexpert's item on this (I went to the site and searched solar panels). It's been updated this month so has more data on savings/payback relevant to the impending energy price rises.

The Energy Saving Trust's calculator puts our payback time at about 16 years but based on price rises coming our way, MSE's estimate is payback time of 9-12 years.

He does say though that if you have to use credit to do it then it might not be worth it because the interest is going to make the payback even longer.

Hi OP.

This is something we are looking at doing too.

I think I'm going to get the panels installed initially and see how they pan out by themselves for a year or two and then add on a battery at that stage if it makes sense.

I have been advised that battery prices should come down, and I dont think I would be able to fork out for panels plus battery in one go right now anyway.

My DH works from home and I'm at home 4/7 days so I think running the dishwasher/washing machine etc during daylight hours shouldn't be too hard, and I'm hoping we can maximise our usage that way. I am also thinking of replacing my very cheap run around car with a basic electric model.

The Energy Saving Trust's calculator puts our payback time at about 16 years but based on price rises coming our way, MSE's estimate is payback time of 9-12 years.

That's good to know, I was think the price rises would be making a difference.

We have exactly this setup OP. The batteries we have are Pylontech US2000 and we have 2 of them under the stairs. They're charged on the overnight cheap tariff, as well as from the solar panels when it's sunny.

We have solar panels and a Tesla Powerwall. We heat about half the house by electricity (air source heat pump) and run an electric car, so quite heavy use. Last week we used 3.19 kWh over the whole week and that was all on cheap overnight rate (5p per KWh though that will soon go up to 7.5p per kWh). I think the pay back time on the investment may be shorter than we had originally thought.

Who did you get them fitted by please? That's exactly what we're looking for.