Should I be looking to add a Battery?

JKenH

I note you say you aren’t in a position to fork out £11k but a Tesla PW3 is about £7k installed. I added one with another £5kW of panels late late last year (with @Screwdriva’s help) and all in that was around £11k. I have had solar panels for almost 8 years and I have never enjoyed them as much as I have this year with the battery. If you interact with your solar panels a lot, rather than just fitting them and forgetting them, you will get so much more satisfaction out of a battery. It removes the need to be constantly looking at your IHD before using an appliance.

You will save some money by time shifting and using TOU tariffs but it is hard to justify a battery or extra panels just on financial considerations alone. You need to decide if it will make you happier , just as you do when, say, refitting your kitchen. Our kitchen is 36 years old. Would I have been happier with a kitchen refit rather than a more panels and a battery? Not on your life! Other people have different priorities but if you already get some satisfaction out of your solar panels you will get even more out of a battery.

Is buying a battery worth it to you? Only you can answer that question.

Niv

I get lots of satisfaction from my panels, I am on the soalredge app nearly every day! Recently changed my incoming tariff to agile so also watching that like a hawk at the mo as concerned it will go crazy expensive. Always a bit of a game to decide when to put the dishwasher on too.

I must add - that I now feel more justified in adding the diverter for the hot water , with oil going so expensive and in some cases deliveries being cancelled etc.

PW3 has my eye for sure, just the cost is a concern, in that I don't have the money right now, so thinking that it may be as well to wait until I have the circa 11k then revisit the plan. I do want something that has decent customer service as I don't want the constant chasing if there is an issue - I appreciate that there is a premium to pay for that.

JKenH

I was on Agile until the beginning of January then switched to Go. My average import cost over the last 60 days has been 8.783p/kWh. Essentially virtually all my consumption is now at cheap rate. Over the last 365 days my average import cost was 12.125p/kWh and that average includes a lot of bingeing on very low or even negative Agile pricing in the summer. The PW3 is designed to minimise your electricity bill. It can respond to changing half hourly Agile rates and import and export at the best times for your pocket. It also can predict how much solar you will get and adjust grid import accordingly. It takes a while to get used to it and it is difficult to resist the urge to override it. It’s not foolproof but it’s pretty good.

By the time you can afford one the PW3 might be even cheaper.

Niv

Yea, thinking this is now a bigger project to replace inverter now rather than just add a battery. Got to think long term. Will see how it goes and I feel but may just end up waiting for the inverter to go pop and do it then.

Qyburn

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81919193#Comment_81919193

Just noticed that "Go" locks you out of any export tariff ..

https://octopus.energy/blog/outgoing-faqs/#tariffcombinations

NedS

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81921551#Comment_81921551

Maybe a mistake. The full list still shows export tariffs available on Go:

https://octopus.energy/help-and-faqs/articles/which-export-tariff-can-i-combine-with-my-import-tariff/

Qyburn

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81921563#Comment_81921563

Hope so as Go/Outgoing is my planned Winter tariff.

JKenH

I am currently getting paid 12p on Outgoing alongside my 8.5p Go import. Let’s hope it continues. BTW I don’t have an EV but cleared it with Octopus over the phone before switching online to Go a couple of months back.

badmemory

Solar can get even more interesting when your usage is averaging 20kWh per day so annual around 7k. I think export becomes a little less important though & effective use becomes more important. I have a neighbour whose summer export finances their whole years usage. That is never happening here.

Reed_Richards

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81910321#Comment_81910321

My inverter is made by a company called Goodwe and it seems to be popular in Australia. it can limit export to a preset amount, including zero export so I should be able to prevent export if it ever came to being charged for export.

I had a battery installed along with my solar panels in 2019. I have made much better use of it since I got an EV in 2024 because I moved to a tariff giving cheap overnight electricity and I use that to charge my battery. Even in January, the worst month for solar, 48% of my electricity consumed was at the cheap overnight rate. I also have a heat pump so I consume a lot of electricity.