Help - Advice needed on solar PV quote

Martyn1981

Yeti1980 wrote: »

Thanks for the speedy response.
Having seen various sites that suggest the cost of installing a 4kWp system would be around £5-6k or more I was pleasantly surprised by the quote and wondered if they were using particularly cheap (low quality) equipment which I take from your response I was wrong to assume.

David (Yeti).

My pleasure David, and please keep updating the thread, there's less and less 'action' now in this area, and we all benefit from updates on prices and packages. For myself, it was nice to see a package around the £1k/kWp mark installed for the PV.

Quality wise, I think we all worried and pondered over the same issues, and probably all gave up. It is, what it is, and they all seem to tick along doing what they promise, so perhaps it'll be another 10-20yrs before we can feed back advice on what we should have installed 20-30yrs ago.

The mission (should you choose to accept it) is to get as much PV up on your roof/ves, in one go, so you can then just enjoy it for decades. Simples!

mmmmikey

Reed_Richards wrote: »

The greatest demand for electricity is between the hours of 4 pm and 7 pm. If you pay for your electricity on an "agile" tariff then that is when it is most expensive. So those are the hours when your solar electricity is potentially most valuable. On this basis then west-facing panels may be the best.

Another vote for "west is best" from me for exactly the reason given here. My panels are mostly east facing and it always frustrates me not to have maximum power when I need it most, to the point where I'm considering adding an additonal west facing array.

Martyn1981

mmmmikey wrote: »

Another vote for "west is best" from me for exactly the reason given here. My panels are mostly east facing and it always frustrates me not to have maximum power when I need it most, to the point where I'm considering adding an additonal west facing array.

Voted up again by me, as I actually did that, and added the WNW. At the time it was small (so proportionately expensive), lower subsidy, lowered again for exceeding the 4kWp point, and shaded ....... but gotta love that summer generation till 8 or even 9pm.

Still planning, hoping, or just dreaming of a very small (4 panel) steep pitch SSW install for winter gen boost.

Yeti1980

After receiving the original quotes I asked the installer if they could let me have the cost to make some tweaks.

The first option was to add one more panel, to make 15, then split them 10 on the east roof and 5 on the west roof. This would use the same 3.6kwh inverter and increase the quote by £350. I assume this would be for the additional panel, scaffolding on the other side of the house and additional labour to install on two sides of the house.

The second option would be 4 extra panels to take it up to 18, split over the two roofs, a larger inverter and an application to the DNO for a system over 3.6kwh. The increase is an additional £1,400 on the original quote.

I have also received a quote from a second installer.
Components:
15 x 305w Jinko Eagle Mono PERC MAXIM all black panels (4,575 watt)
Solis Hybrid 3.6kw inverter
Pylon 2.4kw battery
Solar iBoost.
All in tis quote came to £9,300 in 5%VAT.
While this quote includes a battery and panels split between the east and west roofs it seems a lot higher than the first.

Solarchaser

The battery at 2.4kwh is likely a pylontech, which alot of the modular systems use, including mine.
However they are £750-800 worth even in Ebay, so bear that in mind when evaluating the quote.
The iboost or immersun etc can be had for around £200 from ebay, so again beware of how much you are paying for.

1961Nick

Even with 18 panels (5.4kWh) I doubt that you’d ever exceed 3.6kWh even if they were split 12/6. I don’t know if keeping the 3.6kWh inverter & not getting DNO approval would reduce the second quote by much, but it’s worth investigating.

Ken has a similar orientation & might be able to help with how close you’d ever get to your theoretical kWp.

If you were going to spend £9300, I’d probably keep the 3.6kWh inverter & add another Pylontech battery. The benefit of the extra storage is obvious, but you’d also get 2.5kWh charge/discharge rather than 1.5kWh.

JKenH

As explained in post#6 with my 3.6 kwpENE/ 4.2 kwp WSW set up I just don’t get the high panel efficiency enjoyed by those with a south facing roof. On my best day this year (24th May when I generated 45 kwh) my 7.8 kwp set up reached a maximum output of 4.75 kw - about 61% efficiency.

On intermittently sunny/cloudy days it does though regularly reach peaks over 5kw and has very occasionally spiked at over 6kw. These peaks are though of very short duration and missing these wouldn’t make a huge difference to total generation.

I think you might be ok with a 3.6 kw inverter. I have read that having a bigger inverter than you need can actually be a negative as it will be less efficient but I would suggest you take advice on this from others more knowledgeable than me.

pinnks

I might ask for a price for the Eddi diverter rather than the iBoost. This is developed by the team (or part of it) that developed the immerSUN, which I think was better than the iBoost. Also, the Eddi is from the same stable as the Zappi EV diverter and they talk to each other - might just give more future proofing. See myenergi.com

Yeti1980

Thank you to all of you that gave your advice.

I have now agreed on the final set up and will be progressing with installation shortly.

For those of you interested, the agreed set up is:
18x 315 watt Jinko Maxim optimiser integrated panels (5,670 kWp) - split 13x (4,095 kWp) East facing and 5x (1,575 kWp) West facing due to large oak trees on the Western side.

Solis 5.0kw inverter with wifi dongle and an export limitation clamp while awaiting DNO approval for a 5kWh export limit.

My Energi Eddi for power diversion to immersion with second CT clamp to enable us to use the My Energi app to monitor import/export/generation/usage (I have ordered a My Energi Hub separately).

We are also having bird proofing installed as we have a large number of wood pigeons and squirrels in the area.

So for the final time, drum roll on the amount...…..
£6,400 inc VAT at 5%
I believe this installer came in at a better price than the other three quotes I received because they provide their own access equipment rather than employing a third party scaffolding company.

Yeti

Hexane

This sounds great, I am almost wondering if your installer is located in Chorley, north-west England. But perhaps that is just a coincidence. Their first recommendation to me was around the 5.6kWp mark, but I wanted to go that bit more megalomaniac just in case of later battery electric vehicle