1 year after Solar installation

travellerboy

It is now a year since we had a 4kwh system installed on our south facing roof in South Wales. The Installation company (Green Energy UK Ltd) estimated 3780kwh/yr, the Energy Saving Trust quoted 3400kwh/yr, we actually achieved 3891kwh.


I assume last year to be typical and look forward to the significant cost savings in the years to come. Our household electricity consumption also fell from 5100kwh to 3200kwh. ( we have a very large house)


Overall we saved £952 last year against an installation cost of £6200 for a 12 x Sunpower E20 panels/ Samil 4000TL Inverter also with a Solarimmersion mk3 for HW heating.


Extremely pleased with my decision to install a PV System and should recover my capital outlay in about 6 years - fantastic result, long may the sun shine........ Anyone thinking of installing Solar, it's a fantastic investment.

Martyn1981

travellerboy wrote: »

Our household electricity consumption also fell from 5100kwh to 3200kwh. ( we have a very large house)

Great news on the system.

Do you think the leccy savings are all from PV, or some from increased awareness, and "switch off that bleeding light" shouted/shared advice?

I always feel a little unsure/guilty suggesting leccy savings of £120 (£80 to £160) when offering advice, but don't want to mislead anyone. My concern is that understating may also be misleading. Ho hum!

For you to use 50% of generation instead of leccy import is brilliant. I suppose that's the (ironic) benefit of having high consumption, in that potential savings are greater. Does the solar immersion tell you how may units were diverted?

Mart.

MoneyMate

travellerboy wrote: »

It is now a year since we had a 4kwh system installed on our south facing roof in South Wales. The Installation company (Green Energy UK Ltd) estimated 3780kwh/yr, the Energy Saving Trust quoted 3400kwh/yr, we actually achieved 3891kwh.


I assume last year to be typical and look forward to the significant cost savings in the years to come. Our household electricity consumption also fell from 5100kwh to 3200kwh. ( we have a very large house)


Overall we saved £952 last year against an installation cost of £6200 for a 12 x Sunpower E20 panels/ Samil 4000TL Inverter also with a Solarimmersion mk3 for HW heating.


Extremely pleased with my decision to install a PV System and should recover my capital outlay in about 6 years - fantastic result, long may the sun shine........ Anyone thinking of installing Solar, it's a fantastic investment.

Great News, is it true that every 10 years the Samil 4000TL Inverter has to be renewed, if so how much and who pays :beer:

Martyn1981

MoneyMate wrote: »

Great News, is it true that every 10 years the Samil 4000TL Inverter has to be renewed, if so how much and who pays :beer:

Most inverters have 5 or 10 year warranties. The Samil range is good having a 10 year warranty. Some like SolarEdge are longer at 12yrs, and most offer extension warranties, at a price, though I have to say for Samil inverters that are reasonably cheap, their extension warranties are quite expensive.

It's very difficult to predict how long an inverter will last, but a longer warranty certainly helps.

The replacement cost will fall on the owner of the system, this is the single largest running cost of a PV system. Hopefully, as there are no moving parts, there will be little to no other maintenance/repair costs.

If considering PV, or working out costs, it's certainly a good idea to add in the cost of a replacement inverter, to get a better guesstimate of total 20 year costs. If the inverter lasts 20 years ..... all the better.

Mart.

pinnks

My first system, 3500Wp was 2 years old the other day. Forecast generation is 2792 per year. Achieved 2920 in year 1 and 3031 in year 2.


Export etc. is less easy to estimate as the second system was put in after 9 months. I also invested in a second diverter for space heating in March this year and invested in a Mk ii immersun for their monitoring system, so "over-spending" on peripherals. And until recently I could only estimate export on the basis of comparing total use in the year prior to installing PV with import and generation since then. We are undoubtedly a little more aware of total leccy use but changes to LED lighting and general careful use of leccy pre date PV.


My spreadsheet suggests export of only 29% which is almost certainly on the low side but I would hope that I am exporting less than 40%. Interestingly that 29% is pretty constant for both years which would suggest our overall use is reasonably constant. The space heating will in future mop up more generation in spring and autumn...


Including a guesstimate of leccy savings based on the above and the savings from the immersing I have about 20% of my total investment back so far. Again, the staggered spend makes annual yields difficult to estimate on a system basis.


Definitely a good decision to invest in my opinion.

travellerboy

MoneyMate wrote: »

Great News, is it true that every 10 years the Samil 4000TL Inverter has to be renewed, if so how much and who pays :beer:

My Samil Inverter has a 10 year warranty which can be extended anytime within 24 months from installation to 15, 20 or 25 years at a cost. (I will enquire to the cost)
The Sunpower E20 panels have a 25year warranty.

travellerboy

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Does the solar immersion tell you how may units were diverted?
Mart.

No the figure are based on actual month consumption which I have always recorded for the past 10 years.
My biggest consumer is my very large Marine fish tank, the lights total 500watts alone which operate for 12 hours /day every day and the multiple pumps, filters, reactors etc. probably absorb 200 watts. So I am not a typical consumer and would agree an average household probably would battle to use more 30% of the generated power.