If you have solar panels have they really reduced your energy bill?

[erikbloodaxe]

Do you have any tips for day to day clever energy usage so I can have as low a bill as possible please.

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Updated by MNHQ
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If you have battery storage it is possible on Economy 7 to download cheaper night time energy for use in the daytime.

Sorry, mis-read your question 😬😁

Yes. We have had our panels for 12 years now and they have paid for themselves.

A lot depends on the angle of the roof and the orientation as to how much money you’ll return. Ours face south and east and we get around £800 per quarter. Use electrical appliance during the day when the sun shines.

There are ways to store the amount generated in batteries but these are expensive… aound £13k.

Batteries don't have to be 13k. We had 14 solar panels and two batteries fitted for less than that! We charge the battery during the economy 7 hours and use that cheaper rate electricity during the day. It's made a big difference to our energy bills.

Yeah our solar panels roughly halved our bills. A lot of it’s just getting the basics right, like running washing and dishwasher during the day, especially on sunny days.

We got ours last summer. They have definitely reduced our electricity bill. We also sell unused kWh back to our supplier.

It is a bit surprizing that Photoelectric panels are about 25-30% efficient at converting sunlight whereas water heating by solar is 60-70% efficient.

This thread has given me food for thought about getting battery storage retro fitted.

Massively.
We have two batteries and we are on Octopus Agile tariff. This has price fluctuations day and night so you use the batteries to shift load. Even when there is no sunshine you can fill the batteries at say 3am and use them while the price is high. If it's windy they sometimes go negative (pay you to use electricity).

Our bills are negative in summer because we export and that cancels out the standing charge.
In winter it's costing us about £40 a month. We are very high users because no gas so use electric to cook. It's alos cheaper for us to use electric to heat water(we used to use the oil boiler).

Anyone looking to buy batteries check the DoD. Also vbatteries come in at under £2000 each plus fitting.