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Last time I looked around EOn were only offering a decent export rate if they'd installed your panels - their "everyone else" rate was measly.
16.5p export on their ‘normo’ not installed by us rate. Thats 1.5p more than octopus.
Does anyone have any experience of E.On? Currently with octopus who have been good, but Eon tariffs have a longer and cheaper overnight low rate for car charging and 1p higher solar export
have you worked out how much it would save you to move?
I believe octopus CS is good compared to many others so it would take a bit to move suppliers.
@sharkbait my thoughts exactly. It wouldn't be negligible, few pence cheaper and 2 extra hours a night. We're running 2 EV's now so makes it potentially easier. Not sure I can be bothered with the palaver of actually changing though!
I moved from Ollie to eon, I'm on the V4 Next drive tariff. You don't need and EV and a charge batteries up at night at 6.7p. export at 16.5p during the sunny days.
Jan my electric was £27 feb was £16, just done my SEG claim and got £40 for export from Mid dec to 2nd march. I've not done any brown exporting yet just not sure about wear on battery
Their CS isn't great I managed to squeeze a £100+ out of them as a goodwill gesture. The app is poor but I can put up with all that for 6.7p in and 16.5p out
That’s a good plan. Are those values fixed?
Yup fixed to 13/12/25
Think they are on V6 next drive now, no need for an EV. As long as you have panels and battery and be prepared for some hoop jumping to get SEG set up. Need a MCS doc, Schematic of solar set up, photo of smart meter and proof of address. I ended up getting a new smart meter as EON couldn't connect yet I could see data on Hugo, Loop, Bright etc
Anyone wanting a referral link just ask 😀
That's a much better deal than Octopus Flux. Flux is currently ~15p offpeak from 02:00-05:00 and export day rate of ~13p. on an import of 10kWh/d and an export of 20kWh/day, this is around £80p better on the import and 60p better on the export. That's a max delta of ~£40/ vs Octopus Flux on those numbers. On an Annual basis, this would be £300 better off. @bruneep - please send me a link.
If I could get a referral as well please!
Should have links guys. Any questions just ask Thanks
Flux is currently ~15p offpeak from 02:00-05:00 and export day rate of ~13p. on an import of 10kWh/d and an export of 20kWh/day, this is around £80p better on the import and 60p better on the export.
Do you have a heat pump?
If so I'd be looking at Cosy Octopus
I don't, so cosy is MUCH more expensive for me as I don't get the improved export rates that I do with Flux and even those are less than the Eon Tariff.
Just looking at solar plus a battery and there's lots of variation in the quotes. We're in West Oxfordshire, decent size unshaded south facing roof, quotes are based on 14 panels plus 8-10kWh of battery storage. Quotes seem to vary a fair bit so looking for advice and input from people who have done it already.
WFH a fair bit between the 2 of us so can utilise energy during the day, 2 teenagers so washing machine and tumble dryer seem to be on all the time and no gas in the village so oil for heating and hot water, electric for everything else. Will probably go for an air source heat pump when the boiler dies at some point in the future. Have a VW ID5 which will do vehicle to home/grid but the current charger won't cope with that, Sigenergy seem to do a charger that will work V2H but not sure how that would work or cost. On Octopus intelligent go so I'm assuming I can charge a battery at cheap rate overnight as well as the car.
Octopus 14 panels + 10kWh Enphase IQ Battery 5P £14135
e.on 14 panels + Giv Energy 9.5 kWh £13559
Skylar 14 panels + Sigenergy 8kWh £10526
Costco (Fresh) 14 panels + 5.76 Fox £10500
Waiting on local electrician to see what he come in with.
Any thoughts?
Crazy the differences in pricing between "official" installations and what you can potentially do it yourself if so inclined. I just built a 14 Kwh Battery for a mate for about £800 (I will build another shortly). We are about to upgrade his solar installation by buying a pallet of 32 x 410W panels for £1280. Add in £400 for the roof mounting hardwear and £1300 for a 8KW Victron inverter plus a couple of MPPT charge controllers for £300 a pop. His place is completely off grid mind (diesel generator backup) and he has a large south facing cattle shed which is ideal for panel mounting without the use of scaffold.
Indeed it's amazing what you can do if you skip the eng calcs /warranty / certification and training.
Branded Panels are 60 quid a pop locally for 450w these days.
I’m just waiting on a G99 approval before installation, but got 14 x 480w panels, 10kw battery, 6kw inverter for £8.8k through the solar together scheme. I’m in Hampshire.
Do you really believe that many of the fly by night installation companies take more care of aa home installion than you or i would? Training? Just look at the examples constatly being flagged on facebook. Warranty? Most companies seem to have folded before the first sunny day.
Of course there are good companies out there and you will need a qualified electrician to be allowed to export or have house insurance cover so diy won't be an option for most. But knowing the actual costs of hardware should help inform whether a quote is good value or not
@chowsh the Octopus and Eon quotes are adding a premium as there’s usually a premium export tariff you can use to recoup some of the extra costs. I’d work out what that gets you over a few years and see if it then brings its price closer to the middle quote, which I think is about right for the spec. I’d also carefully study the inverter being offered, its warranty, etc, especially across the top 3 quotes. Our inverter is attached to a 5.5kWp array and is specced at 6kWp in the UK but is actually rated to 8.5kWp, so there’s scope in the future to cheaply replace the panels with more efficient units of the same size, raise the power of the array without having to change the rest of the system.
@welshfarmer - what happens when you come to connect it to the grid? It won’t pass muster with a DNO, will it?
Correct. It is only an option if you want to live off-grid. Saying that it is possible to use an electrician for all the wiring, commmioning and certification and you do all the basic installation work, but you would need to be sure everything (notably the inverter) being fitted was capable of meeting current MCS/DNO approval. But good luck finding one unless they are a good friend or family!
Thanks, I did have a look at the prices of all the kit and the panels, assuming the big companies get a significant discount there seems to be a lot of labour or profit in their quotes. As I’m not qualified or capable of doing an install and all the paperwork to make sure I get all the feed in tariffs I will have to pay someone to do it. My trusted builder and electrician don’t do any solar stuff and are busy enough they have no plans to do it or I’d use them as I know their rates are reasonable.
I was working on the assumptions that the enhanced feed in tariff is only fixed for this year and 0% finance is probably built into the cost somewhere. I think Octopus allocated £1k for scaffolding which seemed a bit steep but I haven’t seen the breakdown for the others. I’m waiting on a quote from a local electricians who have started doing solar recently, he’s the only one who has actually come had a look at battery location, loft access etc. They do all the electrical work and fitting of the panels but use a local roofing company for scaffolding and installing the kit into the roof, very honest that that isn’t their area of expertise. Will see what they come back with.
Some of the kit like sigenergy seems to be modular for additional battery, car charging, etc. but what I don’t want to do is spend loads on bigger battery storage when it should become the norm to use what’s available in an EV at 8x the size of most home batteries. Bit of a minefield!
On Octopus intelligent go so I'm assuming I can charge a battery at cheap rate overnight as well as the car.
Yes, that's what I do. The battery is set to charge up and stay at 100% during the cheap rate period overnight.
Do you really believe that many of the fly by night installation companies take more care of aa home installion than you or i would? Training? Just look at the examples constatly being flagged on facebook. Warranty? Most companies seem to have folded before the first sunny day.
No but that's why I used a long established known local trusted company - one I could turn up at their door if they made a mess.
It's why I always say on here to avoid company's aggregating all the orders and farming them out to the lowest bidder where you have zero control over the work. -octopus/council schemes.
Btw only the installer can sign off your MCS can't be retrospectively done or done by an independent party.
The MCS is a racket but it's still worth having currently.
But yes the Facebook groups are great for highlighting how significant amounts of people can see the price of everything but the value of nothing.
Update,
Local firm 16 panels and 8kw sigenergy battery £11266 all installed etc. Can add another 8kw for £2500 plug and play. The only ones with a full breakdown of parts and labour, total of £6770 for all the kit £3750 labour, £745 scaffolding. Can add the module to use the car battery as storage but almost the same cost as the additional battery and apparently the software and bits aren't all playing nicely just yet.
Hive (British gas/Centrica) 16 panels and 13.5kw GivEnergy battery £14000
Decision time now and payback calculations all between 6-9 years.
I had my system installed nearly 3 weeks ago, I didnt opt for Bird Proofing as my road is dominated by seagulls, a day after the scaffold came down last week I hear coo-ing go outside and Doves are trying to get underneath the front panels and a Pigeon is under the back panesl... joy oh joys, couple of phone calls and next morning bird proofing installed for £500... Half the price the OG instaler wanted, but annoying!
Even more annoying is the Brid Proofer being a solar firm too and coming down and asking if the installer was MCS registered... then telling me one of the rails isn't attached to a bracket, spliced rails don't have enough brackets near the join and cables going under a tile haven't been protected... now to find time to call the firm which installed and point this out !
Still waiting for my Export MPAN and tariff to be set up, the sunny days last week it pained me to see export energy for free! Even if it was only a couple of quids worth.
the sunny days last week it pained me to see export energy for free! Even if it was only a couple of quids worth
if that!
At least you didn't have what happened at my mums holiday place. Basically the installers wired the export meter to the incoming side of the main house meter rather than into the consumer unit - so that we were effectively paying for our own generation.
I only discovered it after nearly two years when mum had died and I inherited the house. I fitted an Immersun to use the spare electricity for hot water (as the house is entirely electrically heated) but it just sat there 'waiting for surplus generation' even though I had everything switched off and it was a sunny day!
After I traced the wiring and checked my suspicions on another forum I got in touch with the installers. They had to send someone from Norfolk to NW Wales to correct it! They also had to pay me around £2k as that what I calculated I'd lost in FITs payments because of their error.
Looks like my Spidey senses were right. Fair old shafting from flux.
Import Rates up across the board .
Exports down a 3-4 pence except for the short peak cost export window that's gone up a disproportionate amount - and unless you've got a north facing array that windows next to useless for exporting.
Update,
Local firm 16 panels and 8kw sigenergy battery £11266 all installed etc. Can add another 8kw for £2500 plug and play. The only ones with a full breakdown of parts and labour, total of £6770 for all the kit £3750 labour, £745 scaffolding. Can add the module to use the car battery as storage but almost the same cost as the additional battery and apparently the software and bits aren't all playing nicely just yet.
Hive (British gas/Centrica) 16 panels and 13.5kw GivEnergy battery £14000
Decision time now and payback calculations all between 6-9 years.
do you actually use 8kwh of power in the "dark part" of a day? We just got our 4kw array with a 5kw battery installed, and this time of year is the first time with our base load that we're filling the battery up completely during the day - the battery is then empty at about 6am the next day. If I had a 16kwh battery I don't think I'd be using the majority of it every day - for half the year there just isn't enough light to charge it up and for the other half there isn't enough non-solar need to drain it. Obviously ymmv with things like electric hobs (which we don't have) or you're gaming the realtime tarrifs to earn some cash
Many people with a battery will charge it at a cheaper overnight rate on something like Flux, then use the battery to run the house for the rest of the day. To enable that your battery needs to be sized in line with typical usage. Some installers that quoted for us had a different approach and just sized the battery for evening and overnight but that doesn't work if you're at home (and using power) during the day.
so the flux changes are interesting
previously you could fully charge at night, and any excess be exported during the day would only be a fraction of a pence lost (due to efficiencies etc). after the changes it absolutely makes the most sense to use all that excess solar as it's like a 5 pence loss, so it will mean more accurate prediction of required battery charge, and switching things like washing etc to daytime solar useage.
The welcome thing is the massive drop in standing charge, which will help lessen the impact.
i haven't looked at the latest agile predictions, wondering if now agile with fixed export would be king
The welcome thing is the massive drop in standing charge, which will help lessen the impact.
Ours went up ..... which i thought was ironic given their carbon copy spin in the email about them coming down in most areas......
Equally because we live where the electrics mostly being generated and they are doing massive infrastructure (mega pylons) in our area to take it south..........
do you actually use 8kwh of power in the "dark part" of a day?
Yes if I look at our daily use. With the battery and export it is cheaper to charge the battery at the same time as the car on the overnight rate (7p) then use that up and export any excess during the day back to the grid at 15p. We're on oil for heating in our village so induction hob, 1 of the showers is electric, and tumble dryer/washing machine that seem to be on non stop. Eventually when the boiler goes we will look at a heat pump as well. Skylar have just done the survey and may be able to get a couple of extra panels on which seems sensible while the scaffold is up.
Anyone swapped to intelligent octopus flux? The batteries supported now includes what we have so tempted to try it.
Quick question. I've a new 8 panel system with 6 facing south and 2 facing west in the south of the country. On the last few sunny days the total output appears to be clipping at around 2.7kw (as in the graph goes up then "flat lines" at the top) which is the peak capacity of 6 panels.
Should I expect more than this at this time of year? I'm not sure if the rating is theoretical or practical in the uk
If it's clipping is it the peak output of your inverter? Ours clips at 3.6kW through the inverter but can hit 6+ when the (DC side) battery has space. I think our peak this month (15 panels) has been 5.4.
It's a 5kw inverter (or should be!) so I don't think it would be that, unless I'm misunderstanding the ratings?
Edit : it's a 3.68kw inverter, but that should still be enough I think?
Doesn't sound a million miles off what you might expect from 8x400W panels. Are they all connected in series as a single string?
My system (east/west facing) is still not hitting the target power of the panels but it's still March. Slope of the roof etc will all have an impact. The westerly panels are generating about 80% of their rated power.
You can get an idea of forecast generation each day if you set up your system (free) on Solcast. Though if you have things like shading from trees at certain times of day it won't include that.
https://solcast.com/free-rooftop-solar-forecasting
Are the 2 x west facing panels on a separate string from the S facing panels (and can the inverter handle two separate strings)? if they are then 6 x 400W = 2400Wso it should about right.
If not they will bring the overall potential generation down.
My system (east/west facing) is still not hitting the target power of the panels but it's still March.
Same here but I still quite like an E/W split array - that said I'd giving some thought to an additional 2kW of South facing ground mounted panels.
The panels are all on one string with optimisers on the ones facing the other way (I think). The panels are each 455w, so 6x 455 is roughly where the clipping is today. If it's to be expected that's fine, the clipping just looked odd to me
The panels are each 455w, so 6x 455 is roughly where the clipping is today.
Obvs you'll never actually get the 455W per panel but although the flat line sounds a little odd the numbers are right which is hard to argue against.
I get a dome curve but E/W orientation is different as I get a bit more generation early and late in the day compared to a S facing array.
So that may be part of it - on a clear day your panels ramp up to max power over a shorter period of time, stays at max (flat line) and then drops quite quickly?
(Actually I would have thought the RHS of your curve should taper slower than the LHS due to the 2 west facing panel.)
Edit: maybe it's the software - I wonder how granular the data is 🤔
Well it's all installed! Went with Skylar in the end and very pleased with the result so far, scaffolding up a few days before, and down on the morning of good Friday. Install was 2 guys on day one, electrician did a long day but got everything wired everything up while the roofer was installing all the fixings on the roof. Battery and everything was ready to go but it was too breezy for the roofer to manoeuvre the panels around on the Wednesday so he came back the next day and mounted all the panels and plugged them in to the wiring before doing all the bird proofing. With the bank holiday out of the way we have just paid and are waiting on the paperwork so I can get the outgoing tariff and start figuring out the best way to maximise feed in etc. I will be trying the sigenergy AI via the app to see how that works out to start rather than messing about with settings all the time. Looking forward to much lower electric bills.
figuring out the best way to maximise feed in etc. I will be trying the sigenergy AI via the app to see how that works out to start rather than messing about with settings all the time.
If you're a bit geeky then Home Assistant is worth a look - I leave the charge and discharge up to Predbat which factors in typical daily use, solar forecast, car charging and stuff like Octopus Saving Sessions. It's not super difficult but is a step up from basic use of a PC.
Obvs you'll never actually get the 455W per panel but although the flat line sounds a little od
why not ? is that an east west split thing ? we regularly get the rated nominal power and in the shoulder seasons with adequate cooling regualrly see over the nominal by a fair margin. Ive got a 4.14kw array and have seen sustained 5.7kw a number of times.(with 3.6 going to the AC side and the remainder to the DC )
The solar thermal experiment appears to be going well.
i stuck 2 x Solfex fk250 panels on my dormer roof last year- which couldn't take PV due to differing angles crippling my existing PV strings.
I have a 250l Gledhill unvented solar store in the garage with twin immersions.
I was getting intermittent useful hot water through march - but for all of April ive not had to worry - a 250l tank at 80c lasts us a couple of overcast days with the output mixer next to the tank set at 44
Even on overcast days it keeps the bottom of the tank at a 20-30c (water feeds at 11c) so there isnt a massive differential between the top and bottom.
I'm into it for 2200 quid (and a few beers for a family member to commission the tank) and i calculated prior that with out hot water use (kids baths showers etc) we were spending 600 a year on oil just for the hot water..... +an electric shower.
Lessons learned - i should have got a twin coil tank , immersion isn't ideal - but neither is it crippling , however the heating's on anyway and because my boilers (currently) a combi sized to the ho****er needs its short cycling.
Its certainly showing its self to be a far more efficient way to heat water than using excess PV (of which i have very little) - 4sqm is giving about 20kwh equivalent PV energy - heres hoping it continues till october.