Solar options (mind field)

phill2-0-0-3

Hi 

I'm looking for some advice for solar panels 
Who's the best companies to contact ? 
Presume 3 quotes . 

What kind of price will I be looking at ? 

I did have one quote a while ago but I'm sure prices have changed since then (2022)
We used 7000kwh annual.
What's the potential savings ? 
What's the best kit to have? 
Property is west facing . 
We were recommended to have the solar
panels at the rear on the 3 ridges of the roof So limited amount of panels . 







Also are the government insensitives worth it (genuine) 

We plan to never leave the property so the system will pay for it's self either way . 

Many thanks 

And apologies for my limited knowledge 

Newbie_John

You'll get money back 2 ways:
a) free usage during the day, when it's sunny, the more you shift to those hours the more you save. Are you at home during sunlight? Or only after work not being able to use it?
b) selling excess generated, some providers pay better than others, but what will they pay in 5 years?

How much in general? 
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/free-solar-panels/

It says 10 years to pay back what you invested. You spend £7000, and after 10 years you will start earning.

I honestly believe that it's a failed business for most that will never pay back.

Put that £7000k to savings account at 4% now, for 10 years.. it will make £280 a year (which you could use to pay your electricity bill). And after 10 years you will still have £7k...

Some banks like Barclays if you have mortgage with them offer £1000 green cashback.

QrizB

Newbie_John said:

b) selling excess generated, some providers pay better than others, but what will they pay in 5 years?
How much in general? 
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/free-solar-panels/
It says 10 years to pay back what you invested. You spend £7000, and after 10 years you will start earning.

MSE's article is laughably wrong, but they don't seem to want to fix it.

They say:

The price of a typical 3.5 kilowatt-peak PV solar panel system is about £7,000

They've essentially doubled the price; £7k will get you 7-8kW of solar PV, not 3.5kW.

Newbie_John said:

Put that £7000k to savings account at 4% now, for 10 years.. it will make £280 a year (which you could use to pay your electricity bill). And after 10 years you will still have £7k...

Or put 7kW of solar PV on your roof and earn maybe £1000 a year. After 10 years you'll have made £10k, which is more than the (£7k+10x£280=) £9800 you'll have in the bank. And the PV will be good for another decade-plus.

Have you seen any of @Screwdriva 's posts? Or his thread?

phill2-0-0-3

Newbie_John said:

You'll get money back 2 ways:
a) free usage during the day, when it's sunny, the more you shift to those hours the more you save. Are you at home during sunlight? Or only after work not being able to use it?
b) selling excess generated, some providers pay better than others, but what will they pay in 5 years?

How much in general? 
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/free-solar-panels/

It says 10 years to pay back what you invested. You spend £7000, and after 10 years you will start earning.

I honestly believe that it's a failed business for most that will never pay back.

Put that £7000k to savings account at 4% now, for 10 years.. it will make £280 a year (which you could use to pay your electricity bill). And after 10 years you will still have £7k...

Some banks like Barclays if you have mortgage with them offer £1000 green cashback.

Yes we're home in the day .
Normally work evening shifts 4pm- 

I've only just turned 40 never plan to move so hopefully another 40 years here for me 50 for the missis 🤞.

I don't have a mortgage . 
But would like to think in 10 years when it's paid . We get pretty much free electric .
Especially with cost continuously rising . 

Just trying to find the best ( bang for my buck )
The highest return on the investment .

phill2-0-0-3

QrizB said:

Newbie_John said:

b) selling excess generated, some providers pay better than others, but what will they pay in 5 years?
How much in general? 
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/free-solar-panels/
It says 10 years to pay back what you invested. You spend £7000, and after 10 years you will start earning.

MSE's article is laughably wrong, but they don't seem to want to fix it.

They say:

The price of a typical 3.5 kilowatt-peak PV solar panel system is about £7,000

They've essentially doubled the price; £7k will get you 7-8kW of solar PV, not 3.5kW.

Newbie_John said:

Put that £7000k to savings account at 4% now, for 10 years.. it will make £280 a year (which you could use to pay your electricity bill). And after 10 years you will still have £7k...

Or put 7kW of solar PV on your roof and earn maybe £1000 a year. After 10 years you'll have made £10k, which is more than the (£7k+10x£280=) £9800 you'll have in the bank. And the PV will be good for another decade-plus.

Have you seen any of @Screwdriva 's posts? Or his thread?

QrizB said:

Newbie_John said:

b) selling excess generated, some providers pay better than others, but what will they pay in 5 years?
How much in general? 
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/free-solar-panels/
It says 10 years to pay back what you invested. You spend £7000, and after 10 years you will start earning.

MSE's article is laughably wrong, but they don't seem to want to fix it.

They say:

The price of a typical 3.5 kilowatt-peak PV solar panel system is about £7,000

They've essentially doubled the price; £7k will get you 7-8kW of solar PV, not 3.5kW.

Newbie_John said:

Put that £7000k to savings account at 4% now, for 10 years.. it will make £280 a year (which you could use to pay your electricity bill). And after 10 years you will still have £7k...

Or put 7kW of solar PV on your roof and earn maybe £1000 a year. After 10 years you'll have made £10k, which is more than the (£7k+10x£280=) £9800 you'll have in the bank. And the PV will be good for another decade-plus.

Have you seen any of @Screwdriva 's posts? Or his thread?

QrizB said:

Newbie_John said:

b) selling excess generated, some providers pay better than others, but what will they pay in 5 years?
How much in general? 
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/free-solar-panels/
It says 10 years to pay back what you invested. You spend £7000, and after 10 years you will start earning.

MSE's article is laughably wrong, but they don't seem to want to fix it.

They say:

The price of a typical 3.5 kilowatt-peak PV solar panel system is about £7,000

They've essentially doubled the price; £7k will get you 7-8kW of solar PV, not 3.5kW.

Newbie_John said:

Put that £7000k to savings account at 4% now, for 10 years.. it will make £280 a year (which you could use to pay your electricity bill). And after 10 years you will still have £7k...

Or put 7kW of solar PV on your roof and earn maybe £1000 a year. After 10 years you'll have made £10k, which is more than the (£7k+10x£280=) £9800 you'll have in the bank. And the PV will be good for another decade-plus.

Have you seen any of @Screwdriva 's posts? Or his thread?

QrizB said:

Newbie_John said:

b) selling excess generated, some providers pay better than others, but what will they pay in 5 years?
How much in general? 
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/free-solar-panels/
It says 10 years to pay back what you invested. You spend £7000, and after 10 years you will start earning.

MSE's article is laughably wrong, but they don't seem to want to fix it.

They say:

The price of a typical 3.5 kilowatt-peak PV solar panel system is about £7,000

They've essentially doubled the price; £7k will get you 7-8kW of solar PV, not 3.5kW.

Newbie_John said:

Put that £7000k to savings account at 4% now, for 10 years.. it will make £280 a year (which you could use to pay your electricity bill). And after 10 years you will still have £7k...

Or put 7kW of solar PV on your roof and earn maybe £1000 a year. After 10 years you'll have made £10k, which is more than the (£7k+10x£280=) £9800 you'll have in the bank. And the PV will be good for another decade-plus.

Have you seen any of @Screwdriva 's posts? Or his thread?

QrizB said:

Newbie_John said:

b) selling excess generated, some providers pay better than others, but what will they pay in 5 years?
How much in general? 
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/free-solar-panels/
It says 10 years to pay back what you invested. You spend £7000, and after 10 years you will start earning.

MSE's article is laughably wrong, but they don't seem to want to fix it.

They say:

The price of a typical 3.5 kilowatt-peak PV solar panel system is about £7,000

They've essentially doubled the price; £7k will get you 7-8kW of solar PV, not 3.5kW.

Newbie_John said:

Put that £7000k to savings account at 4% now, for 10 years.. it will make £280 a year (which you could use to pay your electricity bill). And after 10 years you will still have £7k...

Or put 7kW of solar PV on your roof and earn maybe £1000 a year. After 10 years you'll have made £10k, which is more than the (£7k+10x£280=) £9800 you'll have in the bank. And the PV will be good for another decade-plus.

Have you seen any of @Screwdriva 's posts? Or his thread?

QrizB said:

Newbie_John said:

b) selling excess generated, some providers pay better than others, but what will they pay in 5 years?
How much in general? 
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/free-solar-panels/
It says 10 years to pay back what you invested. You spend £7000, and after 10 years you will start earning.

MSE's article is laughably wrong, but they don't seem to want to fix it.

They say:

The price of a typical 3.5 kilowatt-peak PV solar panel system is about £7,000

They've essentially doubled the price; £7k will get you 7-8kW of solar PV, not 3.5kW.

Newbie_John said:

Put that £7000k to savings account at 4% now, for 10 years.. it will make £280 a year (which you could use to pay your electricity bill). And after 10 years you will still have £7k...

Or put 7kW of solar PV on your roof and earn maybe £1000 a year. After 10 years you'll have made £10k, which is more than the (£7k+10x£280=) £9800 you'll have in the bank. And the PV will be good for another decade-plus.

Have you seen any of @Screwdriva 's posts? Or his thread?

QrizB said:

Newbie_John said:

b) selling excess generated, some providers pay better than others, but what will they pay in 5 years?
How much in general? 
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/utilities/free-solar-panels/
It says 10 years to pay back what you invested. You spend £7000, and after 10 years you will start earning.

MSE's article is laughably wrong, but they don't seem to want to fix it.

They say:

The price of a typical 3.5 kilowatt-peak PV solar panel system is about £7,000

They've essentially doubled the price; £7k will get you 7-8kW of solar PV, not 3.5kW.

Newbie_John said:

Put that £7000k to savings account at 4% now, for 10 years.. it will make £280 a year (which you could use to pay your electricity bill). And after 10 years you will still have £7k...

Or put 7kW of solar PV on your roof and earn maybe £1000 a year. After 10 years you'll have made £10k, which is more than the (£7k+10x£280=) £9800 you'll have in the bank. And the PV will be good for another decade-plus.

Have you seen any of @Screwdriva 's posts? Or his thread?

Hi John 

I haven't seen any of screwdriva threads .
Will check him out shortly..
It's only today I've started looking into this again . 

Just wondering if any of the government grants are worth the time ? 
Or if it's better to just pay outright and then get the full rewards from the system .
As I presume any government grants come with t&c . 
Also looking for the better quality panels with the best service etc.  
Highest return for cost etc . 

Newbie_John

@QrizB, every calculation assumes that you save against 25p/kWh.
And that's not true - with many providers offering TOU your price can be different - like on my case 10-13p.
The 4% saving account was just a basic example - if you want to make most of your money you could invest in Bluefield solar / Next energy solar / octopus renewables - all paying around 10% back.

I understand if you want to be green then that's the way forward - but as a business, to earn money after 10 years? 

Screwdriva

I prefer to base my recommendations/ conclusions on numbers (Vs. anecdotes) as far as possible. Try using a calculator with your actual consumption/ import and export £ per kWh/ and system cost (£11K) etc. to arrive closer to yours.

In my experience, the poorest returns (<12% p.a.) are achieved by those who invest in a low end battery that lacks access to Intelligent Flux, without the high consumption numbers to justify it. On the flip side, I am seeing ~20+% per annum for larger (30+ panel) installations with the PW3/ AIO on Intelligent Octopus Flux. 

I do agree that no one can predict which tariffs will offer how much or last for how long (interest rates too for that matter). That said, I have observed is that energy prices have trended upwards consistently, and that the price you pay for energy is (rather obviously) somewhat linked to the price you are paid for the energy you export. 

Given your high consumption numbers, I expect you will benefit from a Powerwall 3 based system, assuming you can fit a decent number of panels on your E/W/S facing aspects.   

QrizB

phill2-0-0-3 said:

 Just wondering if any of the government grants are worth the time ? 
Or if it's better to just pay outright and then get the full rewards from the system .
As I presume any government grants come with t&c

I didn't think there are any generally-available government grants for solar PV. There are some schemes intended for low-income households who are in energy poverty, but they're whole-house upgrade schemes not just PV.

JKenH

I have had solar panels for 7 years and depending which version of man maths I use they have now paid for themselves. I do though get around 4p/kWh FiT irrespective of what I do with the electricity generated, which has earned me around £1500 which you wouldn’t get with a new installation. I have also had the benefit of the panels through the energy crisis when the savings against imported energy and particularly the export earnings on Octopus Flux were much higher than today. When I got my panels in 2018 we were expecting electricity costs would come down not go up and therein lies the biggest problem - we just don’t know what electricity prices will be like in the future and/or what tariffs, particularly export tariffs will be available. 

I am on Octopus Agile tariff and many days we see either very cheap or plunge pricing. Since I signed up to Agile two months ago, my average import cost has been 13.3p/kWh and export 15p/kWh and that is without using batteries. I don’t see these export rates as being sustainable and with more solar farms in the pipeline there is going to be an excess of solar PV generation at the time your panels are generating. In Australia some consumers with solar panels are actually being charged for exporting to the grid at peak hours and the possibility arises that it could happen here. If you are going to do some calculations of what you might earn from export in the future I would base these on what Octopus Agile Outgoing pays, not the current rates. 

Also, another point to bear in mind is if you have solar panels you can’t take full advantage of plunge pricing so the benefit to me for much of the day might be lost. You may find if export rates go negative it would be better to turn the panels off or get a battery to store your generation. This also lets you buy electricity at cheap rates and store it to use when import costs are higher. 

If I was starting out now, would I invest in solar panels again? Yes, but mainly because I find them fun - I actually find numbers interesting and being retired enjoy matching consumption to generation. I think though a battery might be a better investment. 

Martyn1981

Newbie_John said:

Put that £7000k to savings account at 4% now, for 10 years.. it will make £280 a year (which you could use to pay your electricity bill). And after 10 years you will still have £7k...

Not sure that's right, you seem to be excluding any value of / from the PV after the 10yrs.

So, during the 10yrs, let's say you generate 7,000kWh pa, consume 3,000 displacing day rate leccy at 20p/kWh, that's £600pa, plus export 4,000 at 5p/kWh, adds another £200, taking us to £800. So that's much higher than your £280 figure. [I think those leccy rates are reasonable to low.]

Yes you can argue you still have the £7k, but only if you take the money out of any investment. For the PV, it's still invested and earning far more pa.


Or, using your saving account idea, then the interest provides £280pa for energy bills as you suggest. So we can do the same with the PV earnings/savings, deduct the £280, and invest the £520 remaining in that 4% account, which with compounding interest will give us a total of £6,243 after 10yrs.

So you can contribute £280 to your energy bill each year, and have £7k at the end of 10yrs, or

contribute £280 to your energy bill each year, and have £6.2k at the end of 10yrs, and a PV system.


Edit - By the end of yr 11 the PV savings account will reach £7k, and therefore from yr12 onwards will be earning £280+ pa.

Newbie_John

Martyn1981 said:
(1) Not sure that's right, you seem to be excluding any value of / from the PV after the 10yrs.

(2) So, during the 10yrs, let's say you generate 7,000kWh pa, consume 3,000 displacing day rate leccy at 20p/kWh, that's £600pa, plus export 4,000 at 5p/kWh, adds another £200, taking us to £800. So that's much higher than your £280 figure. [I think those leccy rates are reasonable to low.]

(1) No, I just trying to make it clear that it's an investment where you put £7000 and you will start making some pounds after minimum 10 years. Imagine a saving account where you put £7000 and after 10 years you have £7000 and then you will be getting 5% a year, this sounds bad.

(2) It's all really down to numbers, as with any business I try to take realistic/pesimistic point of view before putting a lot of money into something and then regret. 
A: generation - this is probably the most reliable based on number of panels
B: consumption - 3000kWh at 20p rate - if sun is out you can run dishwasher during the day for free, but without panels you could be on one of the TOU tarrifs with cheap time slots like 6p at night - and run dishwasher then. So what's the actual saving here? 6p? We know the price in July will drop from 27p to 25 but what will it be in 2035?
C: export - another tricky one, fine now but I will give you example from Poland where solar market became oversaturated - on a sunny summer day when the generation is too high - people simply get switched off and electricity is not being purchased from them. Will this happen in UK in 10-20 years? It's a possibility.
Savings, yes similar story here, can go down to 0% but some of the funds Bluefield solar / Next energy solar / octopus renewables can continue paying diivdends of 10% for that time..

All in all, it's an investment - you can make it work - but it's not guaranteed.