I’ve wanted to get solar panels etc on our house for ages; but the last house was shaded too much, and for this one other things felt like they needed doing first. Since then batteries have become more commonplace, and useful for load shifting.
Eventually at the start of this year I started looking again and getting a quote from e.g. heatable.co.uk which came out at £13k ish for panels and a battery (not inc scaffolding). Hmm…. I’ll wait and see I thought. Maybe the price will drop a bit more over the next year.
Fast forward a few months and Donald sticks his oar into the sea around Iran and everything goes a bit wonky and people predict bills will start to rise.
So, I know we spend roughly £1300 on electricity per year (4600kwh) and ~£800 on gas (12000kwh). I can’t do much about the cost of gas, and looked again at solar again.
Eventually, I decided to go for 19 x 450w panels (7kw fox inverter and 12kwh fox battery) through a local Bromsgrove solar installer ( https://gesolutionsuk.co.uk/ ) who did a reasonable price (somewhat cheaper than heatable and octopus, and seemed to be actually designed for my house – split over two roofs so one that faces south (ish) and a larger array on the west (ish) roof. They provided their own scaffolding, which also saved up to £1k?.
Once we decided to go for it, the installer said we’d have to wait for a G99 application. “They say it’ll take 4-6 weeks, although it’s usually quicker” he said. The next day we had the G99 sorted, followed quickly with a
“We can fit you in next Friday, Mr Goodwin”.
Crikey, shit’s getting real. “OK, make it so” I said.
Fast forward to it all being installed, and thankfully it went perfectly. I was starting to fret that the neighbours might complain, about the panels but instead got a “They look good, I might have to run a wire across to yours to steal some power while you’re on holiday!”.
The Fox android app seems pretty good (at least it’s idiot proof for me). Obviously at this time of year we generate more than we use, so we’re exporting and not buying in any electricity. I suspect my view of the app will change when we get into autumn and I want it to top up the battery on a cheap overnight tarriff, but we’ll see – perhaps I’ll have finally installed Home Assistant and Predbat at that point.
In the mean time I joined Axle Energy which might pay £10/month for not very much (well, I guess time will tell).
Aside from a few random comments like “I looked into panels on our house a bit ago, and I couldn’t see how it made sense financially…” to which I suspect my one daughter would answer “there are more costs than money involved in using fossil fuels”.
I remain a little skeptical of the solar quote’s ~6-8 year payback for the system, but we’ll see. I suspect with so many people getting solar this year that the export price will sink further so it won’t earn as much as it might otherwise have done. But if the price of electricity does rise, I’m hoping that 6-8 year payback period will be accurate.
And in the meantime, if we get a power cut, we can flip a magic switch and live in our own little bubble.