KWH used per year

ZZaffy

The water tank is downstairs and we get wood for free and the water heats fine if fire roars.  Engineers expertise (invoiced £166) back boiler not big enough to heat the rads and something about pressure/pipes should go in a loop.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

Any option to get the bathroom radiator plumbed into the upstairs radiators so it's heated by the Aga? 

ZZaffy

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

Any option to get the bathroom radiator plumbed into the upstairs radiators so it's heated by the Aga? 

Good thought.  The Aga only heats the downstairs open-plan area, and for cooking.  I will ask an Aga man about connecting to upstairs next time I get it serviced.  Thank you.

Apodemus

What sort of Aga do you have?  Most Agas only do cooking, some have an additional unit to provide domestic hot water, but I've never seen one plumbed in to do central heating - for that, the normal choice was something from the Rayburn range (also made by the same company).

MultiFuelBurner

Three wood burners one with a back boiler and electricity.

We use on average 2600 kWh a year 

ZZaffy

Apodemus said:

What sort of Aga do you have?  

An OC solid fuel conversion. Fed by oil.

markin

https://re.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pvg_tools/en/#api_5.1




Glasgow used as an example. 3.6kwh

mmmmikey

In order to calculate the potential payback time for solar panels you need to think about what's going to happen to electricity prices over the next decade or so. Over most of the last decade or so a reasonable approach would have been to take current prices and assume they would remain fairly stable and gradually increase with inflation. The recent rapid increases have made the investment more attractive since you would be saving more than you had expected.

But we're now in a very different situation and it's very difficult to know where prices go from here. There is also the possibility (or probability?) that time of use tariffs will become more widespread in the next few years and this could significantly affect the economics of solar panel ownership since you need to consider not just average electricity prices but prices when the panels are generating. 

Bottom line is that solar panel ownership is a more risky proposition now than it has been. Personally I'd focus on sorting out other aspects of your energy use first and think about solar panels in another year or so to see what happens to the market. I suspect that you may find batteries and a time of use tariff so you can buy electricity when it's cheap for use when it's expensive a better option but of course this is pure speculation.