Solar Panels

Bowsa

Hi All, 

I was hoping to get a bit more information / resources / idea in general about solar panels, batteries 

ideal requirements for a 3 bed semi 
trusted fitters
how tarrifs work for selling energy back etc 

Alnat1

First thing to think about, the roof. Pitched or gable? Which direction do the largest parts face? You'll need 1 large area somewhere between SE and SW or splitting the panels between E and W facing roofs.

QrizB

This gets discussed quite regularly over on the "Green and Ethical" board:

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

Have a read through some of the recent threads, you'll get an idea for prices and lead times.

Bowsa

Alnat1 said:

First thing to think about, the roof. Pitched or gable? Which direction do the largest parts face? You'll need 1 large area somewhere between SE and SW or splitting the panels between E and W facing roofs.

So I have a gable roof on the house would be split E/W

i do have a flat garage roof which is south facing 

Marypw

We had 13 solar panels and 2x2.6 kw batteries installed by Solar People UK back in March. We have a South facing roof in Hertfordshire and a 4 bed house.  We're averaging 60 p per day spending on electricity as per our in-house display.  That includes dishwasher, laundry, tumble dryer twice a week and lot of cooking, plus TV, laptops etc.
Pleasant company to deal with and good at maximising the number of panels we could get, but a bit slow with paperwork (very busy!). 
We still haven't got our SEG payments sorted out but with Eon it's only about 3.5 p per kWh.

Marypw

Should have said, were currently on Eon Next v7 which is about 20 per KWh, switching in October which will be loads more!

subjecttocontract

If you have an emersion heater and hot water tank I can recommended having the additional domestic hot water option. The control panel then operates the following protocol......
1.run the house......, if there is any unused solar energy then
2. heat the domestic hot water......if there is any unused solar energy then
3. charge the battery......If there is any unused solar energy then
4. export to the grid.

If you have an electric car there are optional protocols that charge the car instead of exporting.

Bowsa

13 sounds like quite a lot, this is where I am struggling as I don’t know how much energy to expect…..also I should probably trawl back through my bills to get an idea of how much electricity I actually use 

Bowsa

subjecttocontract said:

If you have an emersion heater and hot water tank I can recommended having the additional domestic hot water option. The control panel then operates the following protocol......
1.run the house......, if there is any unused solar energy then
2. heat the domestic hot water......if there is any unused solar energy then
3. charge the battery......If there is any unused solar energy then
4. export to the grid.

If you have an electric car there are optional protocols that charge the car instead of exporting.

Currently we are on a combi and looking to potentially get EV cars soon. 

I would also like a battery but not sure on the size required here 

Bowsa

Typical annual usage is 3,161.5kwh is what we’re projected so looking at it I would need ~12 panels to make that before thinking about Charging a battery or selling back to the grid? 

Alnat1

I was recommended to get what you can on the roof to start with as it's expensive to add more later. The scaffolding is expensive and you don't want to pay for it again in a few years to add a few more panels if you find you want to generate more (for EVs?)

We went with the installers suggested 5.25kWp of panels (14) and 4.8kw of batteries but with hindsight I wish we'd got more storage, enough for 24 hours use would be a good idea. We'll probably get a couple more 2.4kw pylontech batteries added soon. The system was fitted in March this year.

I switched to Octopus in April because they pay the best rates for export with Agile Outgoing and we're set up to pay by variable DD (pay each month's bill in full). So far the export payments have covered  our small import cost of electricity & SC and the (low summer) gas & SC. With yesterday's bill we are £269 in credit having paid nothing since we joined Octopus.

It has been a very good summer for solar and the very high export payments (as high as 80p/kWh on occasion) have worked out great for us so far. We appreciate not every year will be like this and we will have some big winter bills to pay once the gas heating kicks in, we have put money aside ready for this.

Do some research, listen to lots of opinions and decide what will work best for your household. If/when you get some quotes, post on Green & Ethical thread and you'll get advice from lots of people who already have solar as to whether they look like a good deal.