Where to start with PV

Timid

Hi all
I'm looking at getting solar pv but don't really have a clue. House is SE facing but have been told only south facing will do. Is it worth even considering if I'm so far off south

HappyMJ

Research and research it all again.

Figure out the costs for yourself do not rely on the sales advice you get. My OH had someone at the door advise her and they used the rate of 17.5p/kWh as the cost of electricity but our rate is 11.4p/kWh. They also estimated we would save 1,800kWh per year on our electricity bills...but our daytime usage is 800kWh per year so it is physically impossible to save 1,800kWh.

So they said we'd save £315 per year but my calculations show we'd save £91.20. A massive difference.

You will need an energy monitor to work out your base usage. Mine is 100W for things such as chargers, sky box, tv's on standby, fridge, freezer etc. If you work during the day you'll save less than someone who is retired home all day and can move usage to the daytime.

You'll need to research the models used in the industry and figure out what would be best for you. Do you want a display? etc...so much information you'll be overloaded.

Martyn1981

Timid wrote: »

Hi all
I'm looking at getting solar pv but don't really have a clue. House is SE facing but have been told only south facing will do. Is it worth even considering if I'm so far off south

Hiya Timid (don't be scared), and welcome to MSE.

Nothing wrong with SE, it just means it'll produce a little less (5 to 10% less) than due South.

To get started on the basics, have a read of the PV FAQ

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3872445

Once you get your confidence up, have a play with section 5 to work out a pretty good guestimate of your annual generation, then use that to work out the income from your system.

There are several recent threads on this Green & Ethical board talking about prices, but as a rough guide aim for about £6k for a 4kWp (16 (250Wp) panel) system.

Chat on here about prices, quotes, packages etc and folk will differentiate (in no uncertain terms) between the good, the bad and the ugly.

Mart.

Timid

Hi all
I approached a free panels company as I'd spoken to a solar company and they'd said I'd be looking at about £9000 for an installation. Looking at some of the prices that others on here have achieved it seems someone was trying it on a bit.

Its certainly within my budget if I can do it under £6000 and as I work from home I could hopefully eat in to the generated power a little more

I'll start ringing some more up in the next week to get some prices and will come back for some advice, please

First things first I'm going to have a good read at that link Martyn1981, I've taken a quick look but there seems a lot to try to digest

Thx

zeupater

Timid wrote: »

Hi all
I approached a free panels company as I'd spoken to a solar company and they'd said I'd be looking at about £9000 for an installation. Looking at some of the prices that others on here have achieved it seems someone was trying it on a bit.

Its certainly within my budget if I can do it under £6000 and as I work from home I could hopefully eat in to the generated power a little more

I'll start ringing some more up in the next week to get some prices and will come back for some advice, please

First things first I'm going to have a good read at that link Martyn1981, I've taken a quick look but there seems a lot to try to digest

Thx

Hi

It can seem to be a little daunting at first, but when you've done a little homework you'll be in a much better position to sift the better suppliers/options from the rest and hopefully have a decent grounding which could improve your negotiating position ....

HTH
Z

Fruit_and_Nut_Case

Timid wrote: »

Hi all
I'm looking at getting solar pv but don't really have a clue. House is SE facing but have been told only south facing will do. Is it worth even considering if I'm so far off south

I'm WSW but generate well in excess of 3.5MWh annually in south Devon.

ed110220

Timid wrote: »

Hi all
I'm looking at getting solar pv but don't really have a clue. House is SE facing but have been told only south facing will do. Is it worth even considering if I'm so far off south

Hi, I think the idea that only south facing is suitable for PV came from the rent-a-roof companies who naturally only chose the very best roofs, because they could.

Orientation actually makes much less difference than you might think.

If I feed my location into http://re.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pvgis/apps4/pvest.php and put in 4 kW for the system but leave everything else as the defaults I get the following annual generation estimates:

East: 2980
South East: 3410
South: 3570
South West: 3420
West: 2980

So SE would generate 96% of what S would.

Ed

tunnel

Timid wrote: »

I'd spoken to a solar company and they'd said I'd be looking at about £9000 for an installation.

Why doesn't that surprise me, money grabbing so and so's. As has been said, do a little homework and get plenty of prices.
It always amazes me too how suddenly companies can get quite competitive once they know you've shopped around a bit.
Once you have some "better" quotes, come back and post your findings and someone will be along to scrutinise it for you...there's no rush, I believe the FiT doesn't drop until the new year but I'm sure Mart will correct me if I'm wrong

JimLad

Ours was installed last month for £5750. THat was for a 4kwh system and included a thing called an iboost which detects when the house is generating more leccy than its using and feeds the excess to the immersion heater on your tank. So thats savings on gas as well as electric :-)

A_West

Hi Tim,

I've also been researching solar pv, started out by literally just googling for information! Just watched a video on youtube 'Allbrite UK Ltd - Full Refurbishment - Solar Photovoltaic Panels' they seem to have used 4kw solar pv panels. From looking at their website faqs - doesn't seem to matter much which way your house is facing, I've found that it seems the same message from all companies I've come across so far!

Alex

Ageing_Stick_Insect

Just to reinforce Ed's point. I had pv installed at the end of March on 3 roofs. Here is the amount generated from each with the number of panels...

ESE 6 1001kWh (40%)
SSW 5 840kWh (33.5%)
WNW 5 667kWh (26.5%)

I would expect the WNW roof to generate very little over the next 6 months but it's still worth having the maximum 4Kw system for cost effectiveness.