Seeking general advice re solar panels, for our circumstances.

PhotoMan

Hi,

Like a lot of people, of course, we are now wondering about our options and the viability having solar panels on the roof of our house.

We would not be keen on having a smart meter, and my understanding is that we could not sell our excess electricity to the National Grid, without a smart meter?

I have heard of things called Tesla batteries.

The purpose would be to get some cheap electricity for ourselves but also to have some resilience against power cuts.

We live in a bungalow, built in 1991. The back of the bungalow faces approximately South East. The roof is pitched in four directions, ie to the front and back and to both sides, with the sides meeting in a line from the back to the front. The neighnours to our South West have a two story detached house that casts some shadow on out roof in the late afternoon. There are tall trees (not ours) behind our back garden that block the morning sun from the back of our house.

In the 6 months to 18th March 2022 we used about 2,600kWh of electricity.

I don't know much about this subject. But would be grateful for anyone's thoughts and/or advice.

Would a TESLA battery be appropriate? Would that get charged when we are generating more electricity than we are using, so that we could then use mains electricity power, later?

Does anyone have any idea how much such a system might cost to have installed?

Are there other things that I need to take into account?

We own our own home and do not get any benefits.

Thank you.

Evan3020

During power cuts you can not produce electricity from your panels if they are tied into the grid, this is for the safety of those who might be working on overhead cables.

[Deleted User]

Plan on £1000+ per kW of solar plus about £10k for a Powerwall 2 and Gateway. Powerwall2’s currently have a long lead time. Other battery solutions are available.

Alnat1

Splitting the panels between the south east and south west faces of the roof would be the ideal option but it would all depend on the amount of shading if it's worth it.

Might be an idea to monitor them for a day, you could take pics from the SE bottom corner of the garden each hour from early morning to late afternoon and get a good idea of shading patterns. 

MWT

Evan3020 said:

During power cuts you can not produce electricity from your panels if they are tied into the grid, this is for the safety of those who might be working on overhead cables.

Not an issue if they install a Tesla Powerwall 2, or any other system capable of islanding, but yes, a concern if that is not done.

Ectophile

MWT said:

Evan3020 said:

During power cuts you can not produce electricity from your panels if they are tied into the grid, this is for the safety of those who might be working on overhead cables.

Not an issue if they install a Tesla Powerwall 2, or any other system capable of islanding, but yes, a concern if that is not done.

Battery systems (not just Tesla) can have an islanded mode.  If there's a power cut and it's sunny, or the battery is charged, then I can crawl into the meter cupboard and switch the entire house off grid.

I have only ever needed it once.

Reed_Richards

I have solar panels and a battery.  If the power fails my inverter will power a number of circuits and a protection device will isolate these from the mains.  The automatic switchover is very fast, well under a second.  But this is unusual, most solar power plus battery systems do not offer this facility.  Because my house has electric heating my battery would not last long enough to power the house alone for more than a few hours in winter so I only protect my lighting, router, fridge and freezer. 

Alnat1

Are you in an area that often has power cuts for several hours? For most homeowners it would be a very rare thing that we couldn't predict, so it wouldn't be worth focusing on buying a system that ensured back-up power. If you're more prone to outages then perhaps it is more important for you. 

I think the shading might be your biggest issue, especially September-April when the sun is lower in the sky.