Plug in solar panels?

0sam0

With the price increases in energy should I buy some plug in solar panels? The kit has an inverter and we can give it a dedicated spur. We have a big garden to put the panels in. 
The kit is 320w with inverter. It costs just over £700.
Anyone done it, and experience of these please

Verdigris

You'll be better of huddling round a pile of burning bank notes.

EricMears

My 4kWp system has generated 37456 in ten and a half years
i.e 3567 kWh /year

You could expect a 320W system to generate 285 kWh /year.  Maybe a bit more or less depending on location & arrangement.

If you can use all of that (probably can as 320W (max) is less than my background usage) it would be worth £57/year if you're paying 20ppu or £85/year at 30ppu.
Does that justify a capital cost of £700 for you ?

QrizB

0sam0 said:

With the price increases in energy should I buy some plug in solar panels? The kit has an inverter and we can give it a dedicated spur. We have a big garden to put the panels in. 
The kit is 320w with inverter. It costs just over £700.
Anyone done it, and experience of these please

It *might* be worth it at half the price.

You'll have the problem of finding something suitable to use the electricity on/in (which is why grid tie is such a popular option).

Martyn1981

0sam0 said:

With the price increases in energy should I buy some plug in solar panels? The kit has an inverter and we can give it a dedicated spur. We have a big garden to put the panels in. 
The kit is 320w with inverter. It costs just over £700.
Anyone done it, and experience of these please

Sorry to do the boring bit, but you'll need to be careful about the legal situation in the UK, which is tougher on the plug-in PV products than some European countries.

Technically the PV will need to be hardwired into the consumer unit on its own circuit. However, it can be plugged into a socket, but that circuit can't have any other items or sockets on it, so as good as hardwired. But your spur may be OK, but again, no other leccy items, or sockets.

That may seem odd, but it could be possible for a circuit to overheat without 'blowing the fuse' if the supply from the CU is within tolerance, but an item is also drawing power from the PV totalling too much for what it is designed and rated. Again I appreciate that this is a small PV add-on, but important to know the rules.

Also, if you connect it to your leccy system, then it becomes grid-tied, and the DNO has to be notified.

The main concern here might not be the risk of any failure, but that you will have voided your home insurance potentially for any issue, not just ones concerning the plug in system, if it doesn't tick all the legal requirements.

Edit - Also, I chatted about this a few years ago on another forum, and a couple of sparky's had a bit of an argument about there possibly being a way around it, but crucially the one that thought there was a way, did say that they'd never do it in their own home.

ispookie666

Anti islanding is what you need to look for in these systems.   
Most of the power networks will have a list of inverters which quality for it. If not then you would need one and last time I looked, it was upwards of £500. 

Uxb1

The kit will probably be using an enphase microinverter
These are utilised as one per panel - cost around £110 as a standalone purchase.
Their advantage when used in multi-panel installations is that any shading on one panel does not affect the others as it would if the entire panel field was controlled by one central string inverter.

QrizB

Uxb1 said:

The kit will probably be using an enphase microinverter
These are utilised as one per panel - cost around £110 as a standalone purchase.

And this makes me wonder - again - about the price.

£110 for a microinverter plus £140 for a 330W panel is £250, not £700?

For that matter you could be properly legal and get an off-grid inverter for £285, so add a panel and that's £425 plus cables?

0sam0

Hi everyone Thank you for all your information.
So in summary it's not really worth it. Could be dangerous, doesn't give enough return on investment  and there are alternatives that are safer and cheaper. 

2nd_time_buyer

Hypothetically, if you installed a plug in system and you already have a solar system would the export meter measure the export from the plug-in system too?

QrizB

2nd_time_buyer said:

Hypothetically, if you installed a plug in system and you already have a solar system would the export meter measure the export from the plug-in system too?

Hypothetically, yes.