Solar or storage?

azcn2503

Hi all,

My partner and I have just bought a brand new house. Well, I say just, we exchanged back in January but the completion is probably going to be at the end of August, we still don't know!

I've been telling her about my "five year plan" which very disappointingly for her does not include babies or marriage (there is a plan for that, just a different one!). My plan basically involved putting solar panels on the house within the first two years, followed by something like a Tesla Powerwall 2 within the first five years.

But it looks like the Feed in Tariff is coming to an end in April 2019 (I can't post links on here, but searching for "feed in tariff april 2019" shows plenty of results on Google)

It looks like the cost to install solar, and the cost to install the battery are similar. I estimated about £6000 - £7000 to install panels on my house as I'll require scaffolding and the roof shape is not simple (if I want to do both sides, but the south side is nice and straight). And maybe about £7000 including installation for the Powerwall? Just guessing on that part, it's not clear from the Tesla website what the installation costs might be.

So if the FIT scheme is closing by the time I get enough money to put in the solar anyway, might it be a better option for me to switch to an Enonomy 7 tariff and charge up the battery during the day? I'm not quite sure whether my five year plan makes sense any more.

Obviously I'd still like to combine the two things and be as self sufficient as possible (especially as an EV driver), but I'll likely need to stagger it as it's a considerable amount of money and I want to make sure that it "makes sense" financially before doing it just for the sake of believing in the tech, what it does, being green, etc.

From a finances perspective, we are just starting out on the property ladder, so we have our whole mortgage ahead of us. I do earn a good salary though, and have forecast all of our regular outgoings for many years ahead using moneydashboard.com and using worse-case-scenario rates. After tax, mortgage and bills we have about 60% of our money left each month, so I'd like to take the opportunity while we can (and while we don't have kids) to save toward something that will help us save more money in the long term and maybe even improve the value of our home when we come to sell (everybody wants solar, right?)

Has anybody else been toying with the idea of solar, batteries, one or the other, or both? And in which order would you recommend doing it if you had to install them after April next year?

Zarch

Without FIT, you'd be paying around £5k/£6k for solar only install (4/5kWh) to save perhaps £20 per month (£240/year) in energy savings.

But FIT will add about £300 per year on top of that.

There is no way i'd be contemplating installing solar without the FIT incentive to get my money back within 10 years and then make a bit after that.

Without FIT its likely to take 20 years on energy savings alone to get your money back.

Is it worth sticking the Solar install on a credit card or similar to qualify for the FIT, pay it off quickly and then reap the FIT for 20 years? You'd have to do your own sums here for that. Maybe tap a friend / relative for a short term loan. :rotfl:

I don't think buying a battery without solar makes financial sense either. Many on here think that batteries are too expensive when filling with free solar energy. So the value/return certainly isn't going to stack up filling with paid for energy, even if it is sightly cheaper Economy 7.

Hope that helps.

Have a dig around in the battery thread: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5568536/on-grid-domestic-battery-storage

Martyn1981

Hi, and welcome. I'm with Zarch. Batts don't make economical sense yet, and will probably drop considerably in price over the next 5yrs. We may even get lucky and see some support schemes, either from the government, or from regional leccy (electricity) grid managers.

When you divide the cost of the battery and install by the number of kWh's it will hopefully 'process' over its life, then you will most likely come to a figure of about 10p/kWh. That's 10p/kWh in battery costs. So even charging with E7, you have to add 10p to the cost of each unit, and suddenly it doesn't make sense (yet).

TBH the decision has already been made for you. PV makes more sense today than a battery, and the PV decision is now time limited to next Apr as the government still hasn't shown any support for small scale demand side generation [start rant - preferring to pay a higher subsidy to France and China for nuclear, than it could pay to UK households and small businesses - end rant].

So I'd say the order you should go with is:
1. nothing (if you can't afford it)
2. PV (if you can spare the money today)
3. PV and a battery in 3-5yrs (if you can spare some money today, then invest more in the future)
4. PV and a battery today (if you don't mind breaking even on the battery (at best) to be an early adopter)

The plan is sound, especially getting a big batt like the PWII to charge an EV with summer excess generation. It's just that the timing is tricky ..... ain't it always?

azcn2503

Okay, thanks guys.

I think without being able to register for the FIT scheme as the solar panels would be installed after the scheme ends in April, it might just be worth waiting out for some other support scheme, or wait for the wonders of economies of scale to push prices down.

Maybe with the money we make from our first home...

Who knows!

I will generally keep an eye on the scene to keep updated with any developments, but maybe I should just continue to focus on paying off that mortgage and making the house a home.