The Solar Thread

anyone had an install done lately? I’ve just had a quote for a 4kw system without batteries, installed during building work so scaffolding is present and wires will be easier to do (no running in etc). its come back at £7k with no batteries, plus an extra £1500 if we want it embedded in-roof (which seems like a pss take if the builders are the people doing the trays as they build the roof).

This seems expensive, but I’ve no idea if it is or not..

7k.

prices are meant to be coming down not up. Was someone not that long ago in the thread not getting 4kwp and 5kwh battery for that money

Got mine installed last winter. 

4.5Kw array for ~£6300. That was just the solar panel part of the work.

I got a 10Kw battery for £7100 as well.

That was the best quote by quite a margin.

Stabilizers – I’m assuming that included scaffolding etc? I might also add a battery but not at these prices 😕

Just been quoted £7850 for

– roof survey
– 8 solar panels (Exiom 425W Mono All Black Module)
– Growatt Ark 5.12kWh battery storage (usable capacity 4.6kWh)
– Growatt Inverter and (I assume) Growatt AC Coupled Battery Inverter
– installation, scaffolding

Example upgrades: to 7.68 kWh battery would be +£400, to 12 panels +£1000

No idea if that’s decent or not, so links/thoughts appreciated whilst I read back through this thread!

*Should add this is from the Solar Together scheme (Bristol)

got 3.9, and 10.4 battery in august, for 11k

the battery is a no brainer

Example upgrades: to 7.68 kWh battery would be +£400, to 12 panels +£1000

You can never have too much battery, and more battery afterwards is more expensive as it will include VAT. I would take the larger battery. £1000 for just four more panels seems a lot though, doesn’t it? I thought the panels were the cheap bit of the whole thing…

I genuinely don’t know if that’s expensive or not. Supplied breakdown for number of panels and cost below.

PANELS PRICE

• 4 £3,463.00
• 5 £3,833.00
• 6 £4,125.00
• 7 £4,472.00
• 8 £4,841.00
• 9 £5,217.00
• 10 £5,484.00
• 11 £5,649.00
• 12 £5,838.00
• 13 £5,999.00
• 14 £6,206.00
• 15 £6,355.00
• 16 £6,506.00

Battery wise, 3 options are given:

• DC – SMALL 4.60 £2,516.00
• DC – MEDIUM 6.90 £3,134.00
• DC – LARGE 11.50 £4,370.00

I’ve filled out a form with my energy provider to see what they come back with, and may contact a specialist solar company also.
Anyone in Bristol/SW able to recommend a good one?

Anyone in Bristol/SW able to recommend a good one?

We got a fairly competitive quote from

Home

Based in Cardiff but cover a wider area. We didn’t use them in the end but they were quick to quote and set out the options clearly.

Solar Together scheme

Rarely a good option on both cost and quality.

Generally Subcontracted to lowest bidder by reverse auction.

Based in Cardiff but cover a wider area. We didn’t use them in the end but they were quick to quote and set out the options clearly.

Thanks. If you’re happy to post, who did you use in the end?

Rarely a good option on both cost and quality.

Can you elaborate please? Do you mean terms of the products used (Exiom and Growatt)? 

Generally Subcontracted to lowest bidder by reverse auction.

rarely results in quality install.

plenty of horror stories of solar together installs all over the internet. particularly solar forums.

equally horrible stories from “installers” doing the same.

a good installer is more important than the kit installed.

a good installer is more important than the kit installed

Fair point. Will certainly get alternative quotes and advice. Thoughts on install via energy companies e.g. Octopus?

North Yorkshire, quote through from reputable and well reviewed business:

– 13*410w Inset black mono panels

– 5kw Fox ESS inverter

– Solar iBoost

– Tesla Powerwall 2 (13.5kwh)

– All installation, sign offs and scaffolding

£13,600.

I’m interested to understand what putting some on some of our east/west aspects can do (above is pure south facing).  We’re also looking at going ASHP, and we have an EV, so I’m keen to generate as much as we can.

My array is entirely E/W facing (well 11° towards south on the East side). It works really well. 10 panels on the E side and 8 on the W side on separate strings. Get as many panels as you can, they are cheap. Just make sure they are on different strings where needed.

I’m interested to understand what putting some on some of our east/west aspects can do

You can just plug some numbers into PVGIS to get a forecast for a particular size of array – it’ll be better if you know azimuth, roof pitch and any shading issues but it’s pretty much the same merhod as any installer would use.

@Jolsa – we ended up going with a local installer (Surrey/Hants borders) and they wouldn’t cover your area.

Yeah, I’m thinking keep the 5.5 on the south roof, then try and stick 2kwh each on the east and west, should really increase our early and late generation and when the sun is a bit higher our peak generation should be fairly chunky 

Generally Subcontracted to lowest bidder by reverse auction.

Installer on the Bristol scheme is Infinity Renewables. Does anyone have any experience with them?

I have the same quote as @Jolsa

Quick one – our proposed install is peak 8.6kwh production, with 5.5kwh south facing and then 1.5kwh facing east and west respectively. The installer is proposing a 6kwh solar edge inverter. Do you think this will be ok, and we won’t see too much clipping?

what have you read about clipping and why do you believe it to be a concern ?  just interested as everyone seems to cry about it as if its an issue . 

But realistically if you had the roof space and money your array would sized to take advantage of the lowest sun production not the highest. independantly you would size your inverter to your peak power requirements. 

IF you dont suffer clipping id say your array is undersized or you have not the space for a bigger array but its not the mega issue folk make out. 

realistically, id say you’d probably only have an issue late afternoons peak summer time, so potentially lose a smidge, on a good day, as it transitions through. what you will get though is a nice little trickle of later noon power. 

Perfect. Thanks! I hadn’t realised the impact on low power situations, so makes total sense!

I picked up the loop app the other day which is great for showing usage at different times of the day. What I’m struggling to find out is how much energy a (say) 3kw system really generates per hour (from an unbiased source) – south facing roof in the south east. Do any of you have stats that’ll give me a rough idea in say winter vs spring/autumn vs summer?

@5lab

Have you tried plugging your location and roof details into the PVGIS website. Lots of variables to play with and from all accounts the results are very accurate.

https://re.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pvg_tools/en/

@5lab

3.9kw south roof, near portsmouth

quick data gathering, from my inverter

mid Aug to mid Sep 503 kw/h

mid Sep to mid Oct 315kw/h

mid Oct to now 161 kw/h

Perfect, thanks!

hasten to add, get batteries, its a no brainer to allow you to charge at cheaper rates

Does anyone know of a company with experience of Huawei systems, that would be up for a nice easy inverter swap? I’m north west Leeds/Bradford.

5KW Huawei invertor

16 panels

270l iStore hot water/heat pump

$7860 (4k in GBP)

At the moment pulling in 40kWh / day (light hitting from 430am to 730pm)

Heads up for any octopus/battery users. There’s a saving session in about an hour and as far as I can see, you can discharge and export and get £4 per unit.

We’ll be out of the house anyway so should be able to send 5 units or so. Not going to pay for christmas but if there are regular events it will soften the blow a bit.

yup been doing this, first hour session got me over 8 quid.. next one was hour and half and twice the money so i have no idea how much that would be (not calculated yet)

It’s just because there’s high demand and no wind ATM.
I’m not sure it’s anything to do with how much you export.
I think the payment is worked out on the difference between what you use during the saving session and what you would normally use in the same period.
So if you’re usually using battery power (and not importing much) then you’re not going to get much money.
We’re away from the house this weekend so it’s our best chance to earn a little – but we don’t use that much between those times normally so the saving won’t be notable!

I’m not sure it’s anything to do with how much you export.

It wasn’t last year but it is this year. Reducing your import will earn you a bit; exporting from a battery can earn you a lot…

My 4.8kwh (+1kwh after a few months) system, with 14 KW of battery storage, has now been up and running for 12 months. It supplies 2 households (me and bro) and a farm business. System is grid tied to import when no solar, but is set to zero export. Figures for the 12 month period are as follows

5876 KW total consumption

4512 KW solar generation

1915 KW imported from Grid

My business tariff over this period has been 60p a kw. So figures are;

cost of imported electric £1149 (was actually less as there were some government subsidies up until April 2023)

due to inverter inefficiencies the actual energy saved via the Solar amounts to 5876-1915= 3961KW, or a saving of £2376 over the year.

System cost was around £12K as a DIY install using Victron equipment. Next 3 years I have fixed tariff at 29p/kwh so I expect savings to halve. Would suggest a 9-10 year pay back on the system on current usage.

£4 per unit, wow need to pay attention more often.

Ha. Well that didn’t work!

The Solar edge battery controls are still beta and the new manual control has a “discharge” option, but it seems that doesn’t mean forced export. I’m not sure exactly what it does, because for the savings period we imported significantly more than normal despite having a full battery 🙁

I guess, looking on the bright side, it’s shifted our baseline so any future export will count for more.

Even if you’re not on octopus you can use the free loop app to opt in

I’m not sure it’s anything to do with how much you export.
I think the payment is worked out on the difference between what you use during the saving session and what you would normally use in the same period.

Where did you read that because it’s wrong.

So far I’m around 55 quid in the black from the saving sessions this yearpurely from exporting – as I never use electric at peak due to peak rate being 45p/KW so it’s nothing to do with reduction in use

If your an octopus user you can join a whatsapp Chanel where the announce the sessions sometimes at short notice so remote access to your inverters programming is critical

looking on the bright side, it’s shifted our baseline so any future export will count for more.

Not a lot as I think octopus go back quite a long way to get your average use.

30 kWh exported so far, hope they carry on at £4/kWh. 🤑