Stupidly expensive PV+Battery quotes in Scotland

pramsay13

kvothe said:

pramsay13 said:

Try Lukas Solar Services. They are based in West Central Scotland although cover the whole of Scotland.
They use ladders so don't need scaffolding and have done ours and my parents' house for a reasonable price.

Thanks! Will give them a ring next week. If you don't mind sharing, which panel, inverter and battery combo did you go for?

No batteries, but for us we got 6kW system (16 x Eurener panels) and Solis Inverter - total £5160.

For my parents it was 3.95kW (10 x Trina Panels) and Solis inverter - total £4450.

The price of everything had gone up between the two installs. 

PennyForThem_2

2nd_time_buyer said:

The scaffolding seems to be a big variable. Light Renewables who quite a few forum members in the South of UK have used, seem to do their installations off ladders. This means they can be very competitive, particularly when installations are over several roofs. By not sub contracting this out presumably the is also comes with cost and time savings. Although there are obvious H&S implications. 

 So the total costs in your table of quotes includes scaffolding? If so, Quote 5 looks okay.

So I wonder if you have a problem after installation, will LR have back up services?

Solarchaser

pramsay13 said:

kvothe said:

pramsay13 said:

Try Lukas Solar Services. They are based in West Central Scotland although cover the whole of Scotland.
They use ladders so don't need scaffolding and have done ours and my parents' house for a reasonable price.

Thanks! Will give them a ring next week. If you don't mind sharing, which panel, inverter and battery combo did you go for?

No batteries, but for us we got 6kW system (16 x Eurener panels) and Solis Inverter - total £5160.

For my parents it was 3.95kW (10 x Trina Panels) and Solis inverter - total £4450.

The price of everything had gone up between the two installs. 

My suggestion would be to go with this company, and to go for purely solar, that will sort the mcs stuff.

You will find I'd imagine that you will not be allowed over 3.68kw inverter size, as Scotland is listed red for generation,  that's what I found when I asked about expanding my system.

You could then perhaps look at a sofar me3000sp or a lux3600acs stand alone battery inverter and a couple of these for alot cheaper than you have been quoted.
https://voltaconsolar.com/pylontech-us5000-lithium-battery.html

This would be a self install and probably in a grey area legally, but you stated you were not bothered about mse etc,  so I've leapt to the conclusion that you were OK in the grey area.

My install 8 years ago was off ladders

QrizB

I was looking for an old thread and along the way I found this one. I thought I'd bump it to show how prices for hardware have fallen over the past not-quite-three years.

On 11th November 2022 one of our fleeting forumites who has since rage-quit wrote:

My system is as follows:

1. 2kw solar array. We used high quality Renogy panels.
2. 6kw inverters
3. 7kw battery backup.

Total cost £7,000

Even by the standards of 2022 that was pretty poor value for a domestic system; while the details haven't been preserved by the system, I seem to recall it consisted of a collection of Bluetti power banks and 12v panels. Not a terrible choice for a caravan, but far from ideal for an on-grid home.

At the time, an example for an on-grid system was:

QrizB said:

For example, £5400 would get you 3.2kWp of solar PV plus 2 x 2.4kWh Pylontech batteries:
https://www.bimblesolar.com/ongrid/hybrid-storage?product_id=2420

For an additional £1000 you could add a third Pylontech to get 7.2kWh of storage.

I went back to Bimble Solar today to see what the closest equivalent system would be from their "hybrid on-grid bundles". I think it's this one:

https://www.bimblesolar.com/ongrid/hybrid-storage?product_id=3482
That's £2340 for a 3.6kW Solis hybrid inverter, 8x 455W Canadian Solar panels and a 4.8kWh Pylontech US5000 battery, plus everyting else you need except for roof mounts.

So more panel and equivalent battery but only 43% of the 2022 price.

Oh, and in 2022 an extra 2.4kWh Pylontech was £1000. Today, you could add another 4.8kWh for under £900.

I will agree these are cheap 'n' cheerful Chinese prducts and you might get better after-sales by spending more on premium brands; but all the same, I think it's remarkable how prices have fallen in three years.

Qyburn

I think this comes down to the prices are what suppliers are prepared to offer at your site for your actual project. It can be counter productive to believe all these "shouldn't cost more than" assurances on here if in actual fact nobody will actually do the work at that price.

As an example I had a referral from this group along those lines and it did not work out. Firstly the initial price offered was substantially over the "shouldn't cost more than" figures glibly batted about here. Secondly after their high pressure attempt to get a commitment and deposit out of me, they came back with a no bid after checking the actual installation details.

Bottom line, look at suppliers who will actually do the work you need, and make your own judgement. The price elsewhere in the UK, or for a different installation, is irrelevant.