Solar panels payback time.

[oncemoreuntothebeachdearfriends]

I live in bungalow land, mostly south-facing, but none of the neighbours have them so I can't ask - & obs I don't trust sales reps.

If you've got solar panels, what is your estimated payback time ?
Or if you haven't, did the sales rep give you an estimate 😀.

I know it's a "how long is a piece of string" question, but I'd like some idea before I ask for quotes.

Thank you.

Probably about 8 years, maybe less if prices remain high because of oil shortages etc.

Tbh I think I'd have made a better return by investing the money in an ISA/pension, but it seemed like a good thing to do iyswim.

It totally depends on what you spend on the system you get installed and how much electricity you consume.
We paid £10.5k for 12 panels, 2 batteries and an inverter and our predicted return on investment was 7 years 4 months, there’s only 2 of us in the house and we are quite low users.
You do have to adapt how you consume energy to get the most out of it, eg, not having the oven and tumble dryer on at the same time and doing the washing and drying whilst it’s sunny so that the solar is providing it for free and then charging the batteries at night when the rate is cheaper. We also export back to grid but that has just gone down to 12p/kw.
We were using £25 ish per week before we had it installed and now we’re down to £5 per week and the majority of that is the standing charge.

Factor in an increase in your house insurance to offset the additional fire risk.

What's your evidence for this?

Do you have batteries? If you have a cheaper night rate to top up the battery in the night and charge through solar in the day you will get the best return.

by asking the insurance company or reading your policy?

Rubbish

ensure the correct waterproofing is done also

About 7/8 years for us. System cost £14000 including batteries and 16 panels. But really it’ll be less time as we also sell back to the grid.

When we had them fitted on a holiday home our next home insurance renewal was cheaper. They paid for themselves in just over six years.

Ours was under seven years, but that doesn't include the benefit of the free electricity we had used during that time. Well worth doing for us.

Due to the cheaper rates/ fuel costs and switching to electric cars ours was 4 1/2 years. Well worth it.

DH did far more research than myself into researching panels/batteries/company. Pay back depends on SO many things, including energy prices, your personal usage and how your panels depreciate over time and no longer absorb as much energy in 5/10/20yrs as they do now.

From memory, pay back was averaged at 8yrs. We bought 3 batteries which I think are 5KW each. We've only had it for 4mths but month on month, our electric is half what is was and I expect it to be even more as we head into summer. Its only March, but on a sunny day, we have full batteries and are exporting.

As said, DH knows far more, but my understanding it that the majority of systems have a slight lag moving from grid to batteries and often don't automatically switch in the case of a power cut. We've had 2 black outs since it was installed and had no idea till neighbours told us. We had other panel reps visit and their systems just turn off if mains goes! I mean, I wrongly assumed that was part of the point of solar panels and batteries is that if mains power goes, then you still get electric- but apparently not!

The only company we found which provide a lag free system is Enphase. I can't recall the term, but each panel is independent on ours, whereas some systems aren't. Say 1 panel was in shadow from a tree or got covered in bird poo, some systems won't work at all, even if only 1 panel was affected. So far though, I'm really pleased.

I can’t have them but now that batteries are used I think they’re getting so much better. You can use the battery to get electricity at cheaper times too, and even sell it back. I suspect it will get even better too over the next few years as the uk has more super cheap “renewable” half hours. Unfortunately I have too many shady trees to get them🙁

i think Octopus does the best tariffs for charging at the right times and selling back to the grid, so worth a comparison quote at least from them

tbere is a lot of “it depends” but for us we expect it to be 6-7 years. It helps to have an overnight EV tariff and use that to charge the battery. That means for much of the year we power our house with cheap overnight electricity and (free) solar only.

I would say in most cases it’s worth paying for the bird proofing. We stupidly didn’t and had to pay an extra £2k after two years to have the bird proofing done which would have been probably £500 to be done at the same time as installing the panels. Doh.

We had ours fitted in October (16 panels and a battery) and it's already knocked a third off our bills over winter. I expect us to be zero or close to zero grid use in the summer. 10k in total and an estimated 7 years payback but judging by their current performance, it will be sooner. We are a high energy use household, though.

13 panels and battery, charging 2 cars. We had an estimate of maximum ten years but we think based on performance so far (18 months in) it will be less than 8 years. Very happy with that.

It doesn’t impact your home insurance. Where does it ask you in an insurance quote about solar panels?
18 panels and a 13kw Tesla battery fitted last year, we are a high energy user with 2 electric cars, we fill the battery up overnight for 7p and sell the solar back to them at 12p. Over winter our bills have been cut by two thirds and our March bill looks like we will be getting cash back.
We didn’t get as an investment but for energy security.
I recommend looking at one of the Facebook pages, loads of knowledge on there.
Use a local company, will be cheaper and better service.

Welcome to the solar/battery rabbit hole! Just go to the Gary Does Solar website/YT channel. If you join his Patreon (can do it just for the month) you can access his super-duper spreadsheet to do all the calculations.

I keep hearing that electricity rates will be slashed on April 1st (presume it's not an April Fool's joke) with the government removing green energy costs. If so, that'll change all the pay back calculations.

Good luck!

Yes. Obvs some people won't declare them, but that's a massive risk I wouldn't take.

I looked into them. Our current insurer said they wouldn't be able to continue our home insurance with them. I spoke to other companies who either said the premium would be excessive or wouldn't cover us either as the fire risk was heightened and our rebuild cost is already large.

I've had them for 5 years and done our house insurance by price comparison sites every year since. It's absolutely not an issue. Loads of companies don't even ask about them (even when they want precise details of our door and lock type, proximity of trees and local flooding incidents).

Our panels went up 5 years ago. At the time we calculated a 10-8 yr pay back point. Almost straight away the export tariffs went up and we have made a lot since then so pay back fell to about 6 years. We are about to get less (from April) for export so pay back may be more like 7 years.

However, we use free power a lot of the time. We have batteries so can save it up. And have a phev so also power the car for free. We pay v little per month for usage. I cba to work it all out but I reckon if you take it all into account we are already in the black.

Our system relies on the grid. Which is annoying. We have batteries which dont power us in a power cut. I would like to isolate from the grid, to be more self sufficient.
In the current climate I see this as the majpr benefit of solar panels. As the grid infrastructure may come under a sustained attack.