Solar Power installation with Battery - Is it really worth ?

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Dear all,

Hope everyone is doing fine.

With rising energy costs, i was wondering if i should do a solar power installation with Tesla powerwall as the battery.

It's a terraced property / freehold.
Area - London

By the looks of it, the house is 100 years old. Property will defintely need rewiring and roof tile replacement if i am going ahead with Solar power option (suggestions welcome) ?

It appears the total installation cost including rewiring / roof tile replacement, solar panels and battery would be around 20k.

Can someone please advise if it is really worth spending that money on solar ? It's is not like i have this money at disposal. After home purchase, i would have some money left and can save some more in the next 1 year or so. So wondering if i can use this money for installing solar power ?

I would also like to have some first hand view from people who have already installed solar power with battery in their homes and use the generated power for their personal / home use -

• What you installed ?
• Savings you are making ?
• Is it worth doing a solar power installation with a battery to power your full house daily (even during winter) ?
  

Thank you

markin

Teslas are very expensive batteries, Any battery is likely not worth it.

Read some threads over on the green-ethical board.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/categories/green-ethical-moneysaving

QrizB

The one big benefit of the Tesla Powerwall is that you get to join Octopus and their Tesla Energy Plan, where electricity is only 40% of the price that everyone else currently pays and you gat paid the same amount for export as you do for import.

A typical property that, before solar, uses 2900kWh/yr of electricity but then fits a Powerwall and 4kWp of solar PV could eliminate their annual £800 electricity bill and earn another £100 on top; an effective annual saving of £900.

But to save that, you'd need to spend something like £13000 on a Powerwall and solar PV, so payback will take around 14.5 years.

beefturnmail

My parents recently bought a battery having had solar for several years (and benefitting from the FIT).  My dad is quite handy and did the install himself (had to take an online course before they would allow it) so saved a fair bit of money that way.  Finished it just before we had that period of fine, sunny weather when they reported that electricity was totally free - battery holds 8kwhr and lasted throughout the night and through to next morning enough to boil kettle.  Not asked since then how it's performing now the weather's turned but obviously won't be as good as that.  They are rural and have a lot of space, plus a south facing roof. Battery about 2ft sq I believe

neilpoole17

Guys, please could you update your guidance on Economy 7. The last post that I could find on the website is from 2020 where the rates are from another era! I'm trying to work out whether it'd be worth changing to Economy 7 when our solar pv battery storage has been installed next month.

QrizB

Welcome to the forum.

neilpoole17 said:

Guys, please could you update your guidance on Economy 7. The last post that I could find on the website is from 2020 where the rates are from another era! I'm trying to work out whether it'd be worth changing to Economy 7 when our solar pv battery storage has been installed next month.

E7 rates vary between suppliers. You'll find EDF's rates here:

https://www.edfenergy.com/sites/default/files/r505_deemed_rate_card.pdf

Retireinten

We have a similar dilemma but have had a large solar system (7kw) installed since 2011.  We benefit from the higher FIT tariff but we're not quite south facing with some shade in the mornings on one of the systems.

Jury is really still out on whether adding batteries is worth it financially, although it's interesting someone has fitted them themselves. Hubby is an electrical engineer, is competent to do most things but is reluctant to fit a battery himself.

I've been searching online for the price of a fitted solar battery but not having much luck. 

Another thing that is putting me off committing to batteries is whether we have enough excess solar to charge it.
We have recently bought a diverter for £340 (higher end of the price bracket as we have gone for wireless and 3 year warranty as they are not known for their longevity).  We export alot of electricity on sunny days, this bit of kit recognises when we are exporting and diverts the excess to the immersion heater to heat our hot water.  Installed on Saturday and we haven't used gas since to heat the hot water. In theory we will be gas free for a good few months once it warms up a bit. This financially is a no brainer, cheap bit of kit, easy to fit and the savings are clear from day one.

I'm the OPs shoes I'd be asking myself if the roof replacement and rewiring is something you'd have to do at some whether you went for solar or not. If the answer is yes, I'd be comparing the cost of those improvements with and without solar and decide whether the extra cost of solar is worth it to you

QrizB

Retireinten said:

I've been searching online for the price of a fitted solar battery but not having much luck.

This mostly gets discussed on the "Green and Ethical" board. You'll see a few recent threads where people discuss their quotes for batteries:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/categories/green-ethical-moneysaving

There's also this one on "Energy", where someone has fitted a battery in an E7-supplied flat simply so they can time-shift their electricity demand:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6348424/economy-7-battery-storage

That latter poster paid £3400 a fortnight ago for a fully-installed 4.8kW battery system, which is about the going rate.

Hubby is an electrical engineer, is competent to do most things but is reluctant to fit a battery himself.

It's not a difficult process, but to be legal you need to notify your DNO and (at least in England & Wales) Part P Building Regs.