Some Solar Panel Tips

ispookie666

The important point should be - get some form of solar in. The prices seem to have gone crazy! A few of the quotes I have seen are way above £2/KWp for a big standard string inverter on a single roof. 

I really like my Enphase systems. I do have split roof install (4 different orientation) and shading. DNO can be an bit of pain, as my installer found out.  The section for inverter/generator for my house has 21 different entries compared to the usual 1-2 🙄

ispookie666

@Exiled_Tyke @QrizB thinking out on a tangent. Are domestic consumer exports (octopus Agile) feeding the perpetual increase in prices? I mean, is the whole sale market factoring this in and market sentiment taking a bull run?

EcoScruples

Somebody will be along in a minute having a pop at Chinese manufactured products.

Lol, that was funny but true.

I have JA solar panels, they seem fine, well built, aesthetically pleasing as they're all black, no silver edges etc.
My only concern , would China would back the guarantee if they stated WW3.

Magnitio

EcoScruples said:

My only concern , would China would back the guarantee if they stated WW3.

I suggest that will be the least of your worries.
They might also be able to hack into our inverters and cause havoc.

QrizB

ispookie666 said:

Exiled_Tyke QrizB thinking out on a tangent. Are domestic consumer exports (octopus Agile) feeding the perpetual increase in prices? I mean, is the whole sale market factoring this in and market sentiment taking a bull run?

I'll check the status when I'm at my laptop not my phone, but I don't think there's anything like enough rooftop solar in the UK to have an effect on the market.

Not forgetting that a lot of it (mine included) is still being paid at 5p/kWh FIT or SEG export rates.

Spies

A lot of people won't explore options like octopus outgoing agile if they're not already with them. 

Exiled_Tyke

QrizB said:

ispookie666 said:

Exiled_Tyke QrizB thinking out on a tangent. Are domestic consumer exports (octopus Agile) feeding the perpetual increase in prices? I mean, is the whole sale market factoring this in and market sentiment taking a bull run?

I'll check the status when I'm at my laptop not my phone, but I don't think there's anything like enough rooftop solar in the UK to have an effect on the market.

Not forgetting that a lot of it (mine included) is still being paid at 5p/kWh FIT or SEG export rates.

I agree. Many PV owners will be on FIT. Some will be on poor SEG tariffs (as @Spies ) suggests. And as PVs are producing most electricity at the wrong time of day I can't see this distorting the market.  I would guess the main causes of price fluctuations are: demand (including seasonal and daily variation), price of gas, supply from wind turbines and to a lesser extent supply from commercial PV.  We have had other unusual situations such as a number of nuclear generation plants down at the same time for maintenance.  

EcoScruples

Magnitio said:

EcoScruples said:

My only concern , would China would back the guarantee if they stated WW3.

I suggest that will be the least of your worries.
They might also be able to hack into our inverters and cause havoc.

Can you imagine, there's always that trusty isolator switch.
But seriously, the warranty is my only real concern (which is a concern of about 1/10).

If British made panels were an option though I'd have thought about them.

QrizB

QrizB said:

ispookie666 said:

Exiled_Tyke QrizB thinking out on a tangent. Are domestic consumer exports (octopus Agile) feeding the perpetual increase in prices? I mean, is the whole sale market factoring this in and market sentiment taking a bull run?

I'll check the status when I'm at my laptop not my phone, but I don't think there's anything like enough rooftop solar in the UK to have an effect on the market.

Quoting myself is a bad sign, I know

From this BEIS spreadsheet it seems there is a total of just under 3GW of up-to-4kWp solar PV systems in the UK, plus another 400MW of 4-to-10kWp systems. (Just over 1M and just under 60k systems, respectively.) That should cover pretty much all domestic PV.

3.4GWp of solar PV, if well-oriented, will generate 3.4TWh of electricity per year, which is roughly 1% of the UK's national annual electricity demand.

70sbudgie

From geeking out over Octopus Agile outgoing rates and the carbon intensity and gridwatch websites, I think it looks like wind has a decent impact on the price of electricity. 

I have also heard that is why electricity prices started going up last year. 2021 was a low wind year and with coal plants (in the UK) being shut, nuclear ramped down and gas prices going up, it created the perfect storm. The war in Ukraine just meant a difficult situation became no longer salvageable.