Not Another Solar Quote Thread 4 October 2022 at 11:56AM edited 4 October 2022 at 11:56AM in Green & ethical MoneySaving 20 replies 576 views

bigstevex

Can someone just sense check this for me please.  Batteries are Pylontech 3000C, reputable local installer, scaffolding all included (Jan install date potentially) all registered/accredited etc, I'm about to reply and say yes please.

Description of Goods Qty Unit Price Total Price

10 X JA Solar 385W Panels 1 £1,800.00 £1,800.00

Lux Hybrid 3.6k Inverter 1 £1,550.00 £1,550.00

Cable and Sundries 1 £255.00 £255.00

7.1kWh Battery Storage including long leads. 1 £2,750.00 £2,750.00

Roof Mounting Kit 1 £500.00 £500.00

Wi-Fi dongle for cloud access 1 £0.00 £0.00

Description of Services Qty Unit Price Total Price

Installation and Setup 1 £1,745.00 £1,745.00

Bird Protection + Installation 1 £450.00 £450.00

MCS + Part P Certification 1 £495.00 £495.00

Free Site Survey prior to installation 1 £0.00 £0.00

Free Online Monitoring 1 £0.00 £0.00

Goods & Services Sub Total: £9,545.00

VAT @ 0%: £0.00

Total: £9,545.00

Screwdriva

Sorry to share, this quote makes little to no sense. 

If you total everything up (minus batteries and bird netting), you are paying £6350 for a "budget" 3.85kW Chinese system. 

For perspective, you can get:

10 X 400W Sharp Panels
10 X SolarEdge Optimizers
  1 X SolarEdge Inverter

£5750 installed. 25 year warranty on everything. Better components, lower price, far superior warranty.

I would not proceed with the above quote if I were you - reach out to other installers - you can do better.

bigstevex

Reached out to 15+ installers now, this is the only quote I've had returned in ~3 months of trying  

Alnat1

I think that sounds fairly reasonable and about the right price with how things are at the moment.

ABrass

Not great, but I've seen worse.

3.85kW array and 7.1kWh battery is too heavily battery weighted for me. Most of the year you'll struggle to fill the battery unless you've got very low use. And if you've got low use them the battery isn't going to pay for itself.

If you can, see if you can go for a larger solar array. Either significantly bigger at 6 or 8kW or just adding more panels to the current system.

it's common to have more panels than your inverter can convert. In perfect conditions you miss out on a bit of power but I'm the rest of the 99% of the time you get the benefit of a larger array. You could go up to 12 or 13 before it would be an issue I believe.

Solarchaser

Looks a decent quote for decent kit, no need to pay over the odds for a brand name.
I have lux inverters as do a few regular users, no issues that i know of so far.

I would agree with Mr. Brass though, if your roof will physically take more panels, fill that blighter with panels., you can see yourself the panels are £180 a pop, so doubling them would only cost another £1800 for double the solar benefits 

Alnat1

My system was installed in March, Lux hybrid and pylontechs. I've got 5.25 on the roof and 4.8 batteries. I paid £8,600. Happy with the set up and more battery wouldn't make financial sense for me. 

As mentioned above, get more on the roof if you possibly can or consider saving a bit with less battery. Pylontechs are easy to add later, panels aren't.

I found this calculator which seems to make more sense of ROI than the installer quotes
https://great-home.co.uk/solar-export-guarantee-seg-calculator

bigstevex

We’re limited to 10 panels sadly on main roof as we have 2 velux windows right in the middle for the loft conversion.  Roof is south facing and unshaded though so good sun all day

We could do another 5 panels on the garage roof but that array would have a slight shading issue I think.  Is it possible to have 3 strings? They have done the 10 panels as 2 strings of 5 and the inverter can only take 2 strings max from memory.

Considering going octopus go for the cheap night charging too to make better use of the batteries too.  They quoted me originally for the 4.8kw batteries but the bigger ones were £600 more and had a higher discharge power I think they said too

ABrass

If you go for Optimisers/micro inverters then you can have any combination of orientation and partial shading.

Or with a larger conventional Inverter you could have your main roof as one string of 10 and the garage as a second string of 5.

Octopus go is only available if you have an EV, but if you do then large batteries make a lot of sense. Solar covers as much as it can during the day and then top the batteries up overnight.

bigstevex

ABrass said:

If you go for Optimisers/micro inverters then you can have any combination of orientation and partial shading.

Or with a larger conventional Inverter you could have your main roof as one string of 10 and the garage as a second string of 5.

Octopus go is only available if you have an EV, but if you do then large batteries make a lot of sense. Solar covers as much as it can during the day and then top the batteries up overnight.

Thanks, will ask installer about the extra 5 panels.  Would economy 7 or agile octopus be better to consider?

Alnat1

I'm on Agile in and out as we don't have an EV. This summer the Outgoing prices were really high but I don't think that's going to be the norm. The prices overnight on Agile have had some cheaper slots recently and I've made use of these, topping the battery up and running appliances. Windy weather tends to mean lower prices on both incoming and outgoing.

It really depends if you want a "fit and forget" type system, or if you're like me, energy monitoring becomes a new hobby and you've time to check out the prices and make adjustments to when you run appliances, fill the battery etc.

E7 might work but I don't know the new rates.