What you are not told about getting solar panels

DPettit1

I recently looked into getting solar panels for my south-east(ish)  facing roof. I had a price via the Solar Together organisation with my personel recommendation. This reckoned that I could save £400/year and a further £150 by selling 25% of my excess power back to the grid. I am on the capped SVR and pay just under 30p a unit. What you are not told is that to benefit from selling power to the grid, you have to come off the SVR and go onto a tariff that has dynamic pricing. Although you will get 7.5p a unit sold, you will now pay, on average, 34p a unit to buy power, but at peak times, this could 40p a unit. As my roof is just south of east I would have to buy power at the peak time of 4pm-7pm. This seems to imply that I would now be paying, in total, more that I pay now on the SVR!  As to the £400/year to be saved; it works out at about 20 years until I break even. As I am now 77 years old, this becomes uneconomic! Perhaps solar panels are not for the elderly!

QrizB

Welcome to the forum.

You seem to have been misinformed.

DPettit1 said:

What you are not told is that to benefit from selling power to the grid, you have to come off the SVR and go onto a tariff that has dynamic pricing.

Thisd is not correct, there are many members of this forum on SVT tariffs who are receiving SEG payments.

Although you will get 7.5p a unit sold, you will now pay, on average, 34p a unit to buy power, but at peak times, this could 40p a unit. 

This is not accurate either. The 7.5p/kWh export rate offered by Octopus is available to Flexible Octopus customers on the SVT.

If you instead choose Octopus's dynamic pricing tariff, Agile Octopus, it is currently capped at 35p/kWh.

Perhaps solar panels are not for the elderly!

At age 77, per the ONS calculator you can reasonably expect to live for another 11 years if male, or 12 years if female. This should be taken into account when making investment decisions.

Magnitio

If you can provide some details of the quote you have received (e.g. size of solar array, price and your usage) I am sure that further insight can be given. I suspect the price you have been given for the solar panels is too high based on your calculated payback period.

[Deleted User]

DPettit1 said:

I recently looked into getting solar panels for my south-east(ish)  facing roof. I had a price via the Solar Together organisation with my personel recommendation. This reckoned that I could save £400/year and a further £150 by selling 25% of my excess power back to the grid. I am on the capped SVR and pay just under 30p a unit. What you are not told is that to benefit from selling power to the grid, you have to come off the SVR and go onto a tariff that has dynamic pricing. Although you will get 7.5p a unit sold, you will now pay, on average, 34p a unit to buy power, but at peak times, this could 40p a unit. As my roof is just south of east I would have to buy power at the peak time of 4pm-7pm. This seems to imply that I would now be paying, in total, more that I pay now on the SVR!  As to the £400/year to be saved; it works out at about 20 years until I break even. As I am now 77 years old, this becomes uneconomic! Perhaps solar panels are not for the elderly!

Complete rubbish. You do need a smart meter to record your export units for which payment is made under SEG; however, you can remain on any tariff that you like for import with some supplier caveats.

The caveats are that as an EV owner with Octopus, I can be on its EV tariff and still get SEG but at a reduced rate. If I switch to a fixed or variable standard tariff, then I can claim SEG at a higher rate.

I am 72 and we have a 6.5kWp array which will break even in just over 7 years at today’s energy prices.

DPettit1

Thank you all for your comments. I will look into it further!

QrizB

DPettit1 said:

Thank you all for your comments. I will look into it further!

Not wishing to sound like Columbo, but just one more thing:

DPettit1 said:

This reckoned that I could save £400/year and a further £150 by selling 25% of my excess power back to the grid.

Those numbers sound a bit off.

• If you're earning £150 by selling electricity at 7.5p/kWh, that means you're selling 2000kWh. If that's 25% of your generation, you are generating 8000kWh/yr.
• But the other 75% will be 6000kWh, which at 28p/kWh would be a saving of £1680 not £400.

Or, if we run the numbers the other way around:

• If you're saving £400 on your energy bills, that's a reduction of just under 1500kWh.
• But if that's 75% of your generation, the 25% exported will be 500kWh which at 7.5p/kWh is only £37.50

Exactly what size of solar array have Together Solar proposed, how many kWh per year do they say it will generate, and what price have they quoted?

DPettit1

I would have 12 panels and as the orientation is just south of east, it is reckoned that they will generate 3.5KWh of which I would have 1.5KWh to use. The cost would be £53000 + £700-£800 for anti-bird netting around the edges as we are plagued by pigeons. Having rechecked tariffs, it does seem that I could remain on the capped SVR and also be on Output Octopus at 7.5p a unit sold. Does this make economic sense?

Sea_Shell

£53,000, is that right!!!

Mstty

£53,000 !!!!!!!!!

QrizB

DPettit1 said:

I would have 12 panels and as the orientation is just south of east, it is reckoned that they will generate 3.5KWh of which I would have 1.5KWh to use. The cost would be £53000 + £700-£800 for anti-bird netting around the edges as we are plagued by pigeons.

I'm hoping you mean £5,300; £53,000 would buy you a small solar farm.

£5300 for 12 panels totalling 3.5kWp isn't a completely crazy price but I would hope you could get a bigger system for that money. And charging £7-800 for pigeon mesh is crazy; there's a semi-regular forumite who installs it professionally and his prices are half that.

OK, let's say you generate 3500kWh/yr and use 1500 of them, exporting 2000. At current prices that's a £420 saving and £150 export payments, whichis a pretty close match to the numbers you've given before.

Payback will take a little over nine years assuming prices don't change.

While Solar Together are likely to be an easy option, you should really contact some other local installers and see what sort of quotes they come back with. I would hope you can get an equivalent system for £800-£1000 less, or a bigger one for the same money.

[Deleted User]

DPettit1 said:

I would have 12 panels and as the orientation is just south of east, it is reckoned that they will generate 3.5KWh of which I would have 1.5KWh to use. The cost would be £53000 + £700-£800 for anti-bird netting around the edges as we are plagued by pigeons. Having rechecked tariffs, it does seem that I could remain on the capped SVR and also be on Output Octopus at 7.5p a unit sold. Does this make economic sense?

If your solar array produces 3500kWh/year, then you have the ability to make use of 3500kWh/year. The problem is that is there is only so much electricity that can be consumed at any given time. On a warmish May Day with blue skies, an array your size might produce 4kW of electricity during the period, say, 10 am to 3pm. Unless you have appliances that are on continually during that period, a lot of the solar electricity will flow to the Grid. The 25% figure is an average: for people at home 24/7, then you should be able to make use of about 50% of your solar output. However, you will have to change your usage habits. For example, put the washing machine on when the sun shines.

If you want a higher percentage of your solar energy, then the solution is a battery. A battery of a suitable size and instant power (max output in kW) would get you through the peak time-of-use high demand/high charge period that you seem to be so worried about. Journalists fail to mention that time-of-use tariffs have pros as well as cons. The pros are that it is possible to get cheap energy when Grid demand is low and the wind turbines are turning.

Another thing to factor in. Solar PV is as much use as a chocolate fireguard on a dark and foggy Winter’s day. A battery charged overnight is an excellent way of getting through a bad Winter on a cheap tariff. Yes, the breakeven point is further down the line but my battery is allowing me to make use of over 80% of the electricity that my roof produces - and I am effectively off both the gas and electricity grids from March through until October.