Help for a newbie

Spies

I found contact solar one of, if not the cheapest quote in my experience, £1.16p per watt over 2 different elevations.

I don't know how accommodating they are if you try to swap parts around, I imagine they get a good deal on the uhome stuff. 

arty688

I think they were the cheapest in my quotes but didn't seem that flexible I guess their business model is to buy in bulk and keep the systems as standard as possible for easy installs with mine I think it was Sharp panels and Pylontech. Nothing wrong with that though will suit 90% of the market .I think I remember something on this forum about Uhome being harder to source if you wanted to expand your batteries.

Nellyapple

Huge thanks to everyone who has responded.  So I am now looking to squeeze 18x370w panels plus maybe a few others elsewhere and a solar edge inverter I think having been reading some more, with ev charger and possible hot water interface(not sure about the last one though yet).

I think the solar edge has slightly better integration and slightly more efficient. Battery is still a bit undecided at the moment so the last comment was particularly  helpful

Hexane

Nellyapple said:

possible hot water interface

what is that and how does it work?

I have a solar power diverter that runs an immersion heater on my hot water tank, but it only makes sense because I am on deemed export (something from a long time ago that does not exist any more!)

For anyone who heats their water using mains gas, and who is not on deemed export for their solar generation, then a solar power diverter like I have, cannot possibly make financial sense, it can only lose you money. 

Nellyapple

I thinking it basically gives the panels somewhere else to put the power generated in preference to selling it back to the grid. I suspect you are right that at the moment it won’t make financial sense but will see what the cost is before completely writing off the idea 

Hexane

Nellyapple said:

I thinking it basically gives the panels somewhere else to put the power generated in preference to selling it back to the grid. I suspect you are right that at the moment it won’t make financial sense but will see what the cost is before completely writing off the idea 

I paid over £300 for my very robust myEnergi solar diverter device and the installer fitted it for free. It has rarely managed to put more than 5kWh of power into the hot water cylinder in any one day (for various reasons). With mains gas at 6p per kWh and the ability to sell power back to the grid for more than 5p per kWh, that's a very long potential payback time.

Having said that, for all I know, consumer gas prices could follow wholesale gas prices and end up costing several times more per kWh than electricity! So I might need to rein in my scepticism slightly, until the future becomes clearer.

QrizB

My solar diverter is one of these: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/373617755321

It's entirely manual and you need to keep an eye on it but the payback time is pretty short

Oh, and I discovered the hard way that (despite the description) it's only fused at 10A so you can't turn it all the way up. I've marked a "MAX" line on the dial to stop me doing that again.

Fuses are cheap too!

Nellyapple

All good points in the hot water - I suspect I won’t bother but there again…🤣

JKenH

I’ve had a Solar IBoost for just over 3 years and it has diverted 4728kWh of PV to my hot water tanks. It did stop working a few months back but it turned out it was only a fuse blown inside the unit. I don’t have gas and initially I was on an E7 tariff when it was saving me around 9p a unit and now I am on Octopus Go Faster it saves 5.5p a unit. It would have paid for itself during the  E7 era but It was a bit noisy so it cost me a fair bit to get it relocated and at the same time wired to cover both tanks. I have the satisfaction of knowing that not all my solar is going to waste even if it still owes me money.