Panels are currently at rock bottom prices (under £100 inc. VAT). Fill up as much roof space that you can afford. Even north facing panels will generate something (roughly 50% as if they were south facing) Either utilise optimisers or micro inverters to account for the shading of the different elevations at different times of the day.
@@UpsideDownForkthis is what we did, our house is northeast southwest and we just filled the roof with 30 panels but the key component is a battery which we opted for 20kw. As Jim says panels are cheap so fill the roof 😊
As others have said, don't overthink it, just stick as many as you can on. We went for a GSE in-roof system because I was slightly stressing about the weight. They look great. Definitely go for a 5.0kW inverter (or bigger) if you can. We got a 3.6kW and regret not having a beefier one and waiting for DNO approval. Also, go as big as you can on battery too!
You have more space for panels in the southeast direction. Look up wall mounted panels you could put a few on the centre forward section of wall. Also you could put panels on the porch roof and extend the panels all the way along the wall at the same elevation, I think one of heatgeeks videos has that setup, it saves additional cooling costs in the summer by blocking the sun from entering the south facing windows in the summer while allowing it to enter inn the winter (when the sun is lower in the sky). The cost of the octopus quote is very high. Panel prices have nearly halved this year. $400 watts from a good brand for £70. but a lot of installers haven't lowered their prices yet!
Options I would explore: 1) ground mount panels in the garden facing south, or south west (evening power is when you need it and peak price). You can tilt them quite steep since power is at a premium in winter, and there's usually 'enough' (depending on how many panels you have) in summer whatever the angle. 2) invest in Ripple or other community solar schemes (eg Big Solar Coop pay c. 5%) and then get a bigger battery 20 KWH. 3) If you get solar, get as many panels as you can on the roof with any angle facing S-. 4) don't bother with north facing panels - I'd reckon they're a waste of money. 5) If going for a battery only option, it may be worth waiting a couple of years for prices to drop. Solar install prices seem quite high now relative to panel prices, as the scaffolding costs and labour costs are high. If you went ground mount, you could do most yourself and just get a sparky to wire in the inverter (subject to MCS & export regs, etc).
Thanks for the comment and giving me some good food for thought. Unfortunately no room for ground solar as my 3 young boys think we have a football pitch back there 😭 I'll do some more investigating into those other ideas.
Some good points made by other contributors, but you also need to think about inverter capacity vs battery size as this limits the amount of charge you get in winter at cheap rate. Even large solar arrays generates v little when it's cloudy, and with ASHP your batteries will be the only thing keeping your costs down. Good luck!
I guessed 6 panels split across both sides so they did well to shoehorn 6 onto that one roof. Yes you needed more South facing roof space to maximise the numbers & investment. I have 10 panels on my ESE facing rear roof so we get early morning sun right up to around 2pm when it comes around the side of the house & onto the front roof until late afternoon early evening (in summer). I had the option to put 5 more panels on the front roof to catch the mid & late afternoon sun but I decided against it to keep the front of the house "clean" & uncluttered. After 9 months of use I have come to regret that decision because those 5 extra panels could add quite a bit extra to the daily generation total. That said, in peak summer the 10 rear roof panels (415w) were charging a 9.5kWh battery by mid morning & we were then exporting back to the grid. Now we have an EV we are able to soak up some of that summer excess generation - but not all of it. The indicated breakeven point on my quote was 8-10 years which I reckon is high. Reason I say this is because after the install I kept our DD payments to Octopus the same as before & as a result we are currently in credit to the tune of £1,400 - in 9 months! I also had a car charger & a new consumer unit installed as part of the same install to maximise the 0% vat so my costs were not just the solar / battery system. Things I wish I had done differently now after 9 months of use. 1. More panels on the front of the house. Should have taken the extra 5 panels. Yes it was another set of scaffolding & bird protection cost but it would have gained us more generation. 2. Bigger battery storage. 9.5kW is not big enough. My installer originally offered a 5.2kW battery & I talked him up to to 9.5kW. I'm now thinking about adding another 9.5kWh when 0% vat on batteries comes into effect next month. 3. A higher output inverter. Ours is a GivEnergy 3.6kW Gen 2 hybrid inverter which is not enough to run more than a few appliances at the same time from the battery without drawing from the grid. A inverter larger than 3.6kW needs a G99 DNO application / approval which takes longer & can be refused which is why most solar companies don't offer larger inverters unless requested. 4. If I was doing this all over again today I would go for the new GivEnergy All In One system which has I believe an AC output of 6kW & a 13kWh battery - expandable to 80kWh. It also has an emergency power supply circuit built in. Hey ho. So it looks like you're not going with Octopus but are you still planning to get a solar system?
Thank you for the comment. This kind of real world experience is invaluable to me! I'll have to digest all you've said but it is reinforcing my idea to go big on the solar panels and invest into significant battery storage as the capital allows.
The problem is, you get virtually sod all input from panels during the months when you use most leccy. The summer months ain't a problem, it's the 3 or 4 wintry months which needs to be designed for, hence cheap off peak is the way to go.
@@MikeGleesonazelectrics Yes, that makes sense. The summer generation can only offset the winter consumption so much. I guess if you can export at 15p/kWh and then import on Octopus Tracker at 16p/kWh, it could make financial sense if you can generate enough solar throughout the summer and you can keep the capital investment low enough.
My roof was like this, I had a builder remove the front gable as it was just a frame on top of the normal roof joists. Took a week, had solar fitted at the same time so the roof modification was vat free and both companys shared the scafolding. I hope this helps as I havent looked back since my solar was installed!!
If you do install panels, then efficiency will be everything given the limited space. Monocrystalline is a must. Also either micro-inverters or (probably preferably) DC load balancers so that any shaded panel won't reduce total efficiency.
Thanks for commenting. Panels installed for 5 months now and very happy with how they're performing. Full details here : ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Jr7ntB1eOLg.html
I installed a string of 4 panels vertically to the south gable end of our house . The performance lost in summer is made up when the sun is lower in the winter .
Some excellent comments below about extra panels. You are going to need lots more generation. Just installed a over 8KW system with 10KW expandable pylontech batteries for sub 5K. You could easily do the same.
@@alanclark2584 thanks for commenting. Things have moved on a lot since this old video. Here's my latest video about my solar : ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Pn7DnLbjlwQ.html
A few comments based on experience: a) This seems expensive for what you’re getting. b) With Octopus Intelligent, your daily usage and the direction of your roofs, I think you should focus on battery, rather than solar. c) I wouldn’t bother with any north facing roof. You get a bit of generation, but your cost per kW will be high. d) Look at high voltage battery/inverter combinations to get higher charge/discharge rates. e) The above should be able to save you 75% of your current electricity spend, assuming a big enough battery. Once you have done that, solar will shave off a bit more, even with a small install, and you will love sunny days even more than you currently do. We have a big Fox ESS HV battery (28 kWh) and inverter and just 7 445W panels, and we are saving £3200 per annum just from the battery. Anything we generate from the panels is a bonus. Last point: find a reputable local installer. Do your homework on component costs and ask them to quote each line item, including labour, separately. Then pay them a decent price for the install. It's in everyone’s interest that solar installers make a reasonable profit without ripping us off on component costs.
My two pennorth, briefly.. 1) 5.2kwh battery is far too small for your needs, you need the 9.5kwh Givbattery at least. For the future if / when you get an ev you can then get a cheap off peak tariff of around 7 - 9p per unit for 6 hrs; it may even be worth buying a cheap 2nd hand Leaf or Zoe for £3k, get an octopus paired charger, like an ohme or a zappi so you can get this rate. If nec then sell the ev if it doesnt work for you, (altho I bet you will keep it) This is where the real savings will be made and IMO would be a better route if expenditure is a problem, altho Im not discounting the solar. 2) I would install pv panels if at all posible even if its only the 6 panels, altho not sure about the north facing roof. you can get 420W panels on the same footprint, 500w will be bigger. I would also fit optimisers on them to mitigate the shading, so a bit more cost. Can you also not fit 1 or 2 panels on the western side of the hipped part? Do you have a shed or garage in the back garden? If not get one/build one! I reroofed my garage and did a mini 5 panel E and W pv system on that, only 1kw peak in the summer but it works fine, cost me less than £1k. Modern panels are very good at indirect light btw. 3) the price seems high to me, good quality pv panels are about £80 each now and I got my 9.5 giv battery for £4k FITTED! no vat remember, altho I did do the supply cables myself. 4) Dont make the mistake of designing a system that will cover the 5% of the worst days of the year, it will be over designed for the remaining 95% of the time.. rather make it work for 70 - 80% days say and the ROI will work out better. Its the same for an EV, get one that will do 90% of your trips, not 100% otherwise you could be spending twice as much for 10% of your trips. I have the same ashp as you and my battery during this cold spell is lasting until about 7 or 8pm, the cheap rate starts at 11.30pm and ends at 5.30am. So during this worst part of the year Im using the grid for 4 or 5 hrs, for the other 9 months of the year it will close to 100% covered on battery and PV, not including ev charging. I also charge my ev overnight and this works out at about 2p/mile or better with surplus solar during the sunnier days. Hope this helps, oh I also have 2.8kwp on the house roof, facing south but at the moment even during this sunny spell it only contributes about 4 or 5kwh a day.
Yes, I agree that a much battery is needed. We mostly cycle/walk so use of a car is very low on our priorities unless we can use it for V2G. I am determined to fit panels, whatever that may look like. Thanks for the positive reinforcement. Unfortunately due to 3 young boys and using the garden as their football training area as well as trampoline, my shed area is fully shaded for most of the year but I will be rebuilding that come summer time. I built the ultimate shed at my last house, 2 years before we moved! I'm crying that the new owners were desperate to hang onto it. Yes, totally agree about designing a system that balances the energy consumption with financial investment. Thanks for your thoughtful comment!
Same here, pigeons galore, a rookery and loads of small birds and in 14 years have never had birds under my panels. Also I thought that panel prices had fallen since I had my IKEA supplied system installed. 39 small panels cover ¾ of my SW facing roof, cost from initial survey through to signing off and FITS registration including EVERYTHING in 2010 cost me £6000 (and I got a further £250 discount for using my IKEA Famiily Card so cost to me was £5750) from a local installer subcontracted by IKEA/ Hanergy. The same company that installed my system had quoted me more than £18000 for the same installation. It’s a 3.9kW system with a Sunnyboy inverter and so far nothing has failed ‘ broken/ stopped working but I now rarely see more than 2.8kW generation at 14 years old and on really sunny days generation does drop off as the panels get hot. I’ve looked into getting a battery added to my Zappi car charger and Eddi diverter but I’m not sure it’s a justifiable investment as it wouldn’t benefit me at this time of year as my consumption is quite low and a battery would recharge my usage pretty quickly but then it wouldn’t be economical to have a battery to cover consumption in mid winter with next to no solar generation even on a cheap rate supply. I still export to the grid most summer days but I get paid 19p/kW for 50% of what is GENERATED not exported.
I had a similar conundrum to you. Octopus were very competitive to install on 2 aspects of my roof but would not consider the 3rd which was a deal breaker. I went with effective home and with 11kw storage I am self sufficient for electric (except when the house draws more than the invertor can deliver from the batts but this is evened out by the export), and the use of Octopus Agile to top up at negative pricing in the early hours or even during the middle part of the day is the icing on the cake.
I have 2 ideas you could choose from which are possibly both cheaper: 1: You could get a micro inverter for 4-6 panels and floor mounting gear (for example those tubs like sol fuel shows them in some videos) and then set them up in the front of the house or in the back garden. They are just plug and play for normal socket or you can/let hard wire them. 2. Option: Get a carport with a solar roof. Free standing ones or partly integrated. Obviously more expensive than the micro grid inverter but possibly more power and additional benefits for parking the car. Note for both possibilities I'm not sure what the rules are in UK. You need to look it up.
I would say you need at least 20 kwh battery. Charge up cheap rate overnight to help heatpump. I've got pylontech us5000 4.5kwh batteries at moment they cost about £1100.
£1100 fitted? 4-5 of those is going to be a chunk of change. Good calculations on the heat pump consumption, so far since mid November our mean consumption is 20kWh per day.
A similar story here. My house has a south-west facing roof slope that's quite a bit smaller than the north-east facing one, has a chimney in the middle of it, and in the summer, doesn't get the sun until around 10:30. After two solar PV installation companies had wasted my time over quote visits (the local one twice, before and after the pandemic), I made one more attempt last year and invited Octopus to quote. Their initial pitch, based on a satellite photo, was for a disappointingly small 6 panels, and a GivEnergy "5.2kWh" battery in the loft. (The previous two companies had pitched 10 and 12 panels respectively with PowerWalls in unspecified locations.) The sales contact recommended I have the survey anyway as it might prove possible to squeeze in an additional panel. This would still be disappointing, but I agreed. In the event though, the survey resulted in a quote with the number of panels _reduced_ to 5! There was no way just under 2kWp (after the shading factor) of generation and a battery with a usable capacity of only 4.16kWh could serve a three-bedroomed house, an electric car, and any future electric heating. I gave up on solar PV altogether at that point and am the happier for it, although I may revisit the battery idea at a later stage. I've no complaints about Octopus though. The sales rep's obvious overenthusiasm sometimes had to be taken with a pinch of salt, but I felt the survey result was realistic. Octopus refunded my deposit and included a further £5 on top, which was a nice surprise.
I'm also investigating solar (amongst other things), so by no means an expert and learning something new - as well as realising how much I don't know! - every day. It seems the panels themselves are a comparatively low-cost element of the overall system - especially when batteries are part of the solution. With that in mind, I'd definitely further investigate the vertical hanging of panels on the SW facing gable end. Could be that you can get the same result from a vertical array as that which you might realise from a larger (and more expensive) array on the 'dark side' of the roof. Only other comment is around that shading you mentioned and how it can dramatically reduce overall array performance if its' effects haven't been considered in the design. Hopefully Octopus have factored that into the solution so that a) you're optimising your investment and/or b) the real-world performance doesn't fall short of the forecasts.
The problem with vertical panels is that they need planning permission. Roof-mounted does not. Crazy I know. Yes, panels are now so cheap that the bigger cost is the scaffolding and labour. So just throw as many as you can on, even north-facing.
The wisest thing is to purchase the main equipment yourself after choosing a design plan that suits you, and then find an installer to install it. In this way, you should be able to save half the cost, because the price of buying goods from wholesalers is far less.
Thanks for the comment. If the equipment is purchased through an installer then the VAT can be zero rated so I'm curious how much I could really save by doing it this way. Do you have a personal example of this?
Yes I was going to say that, 0% vat on solar and battery if you go through an installer. This price from octopus is very pricey. Look into the Givenergy all in one, 5.8k for 13.5kwh AC coupled battery.
@@UpsideDownFork We could help as an installer because we are an excellent installer indeed, but I just can't make sure the team would have time for the small household project, please kindly understand. However, I could try to find the better purchasing plan for you as long as you figure out the size of the battery or inverter you need .😊
Yes that's what I did for my battery, looked online and saw a good Givenergy deal from Powerland, i had to register with them for a trade account anyone can do it altho I am a retired sparky, if you then share the quote to an installer they will at least match it.
@@MikeGleesonazelectrics Yes, I found Powerland has a better retail price there, but haven't apply for the account yet, may I know how much discount you got by it?
I got a 3 bedroom detached bungalow with a 7 KWh heat pump with solar panels facing south west. I also have a 30kwh Leaf. I am on vehicle to home so I charge my car up at night and use the car for my bungalow for electricity. ( I have no gas ). Cost at the moment about £88 a month. As far as your solar I am not sure if is worth it. To get the most out of solar looks like you will have to move. 😢
@UpsideDownFork Yes I was one of the lucky one's. As I am retired the car is in the garage most of the time. So a win win . Now the sun is rising a little bit I got 5Kw from my solar yesterday which goes into the car.
Hi, not sure if you are still looking. But have a look at RAE FUSION 2 Solar panels. They are ideal for your type of roof, even on the northwest roof. 😃
It seems that octopus installer are only offering JaSolar & givenergy and do only simple installation ,they are not offering a dual zone and are not offering any customisation , bear in mind that 1 or 50 panels would still need the fixed costs (including the installer and octopus margin) And yes the battery are super expensive !
With a tricky roof like that I don't rely on the satellite imagery alone - you need to CAD model it in something like sketchup to really optimise the layout. With all those triangles you can possibly fit more overall capacity by using physically smaller panels although this may push up the cost. Counting tiles can give you a really accurate drawing before a scaffold has gone up. You can measure the pitch from the inside of your loft with a smart phone app. Are you thinking of moving house anytime soon? If not, I would at least plan for PVmax even if you never do it - by that I mean design a system for easy expansion of PV and battery. There is a fair amount of phycology in solar design and for some it is addictive. Some people want to set and forget, others watch the app like a hawk and significantly adjust their behaviours to take maximum advantage of what they have. Then there are the true enthusiasts who constantly fiddle, end up covering all their walls/sheds/mothers in law with PV and are probably running a home assistant instance that integrates the PV with a bunch of other home tech. From watching one video, I would asses you at the top end of the middle bracket but with a serious risk of falling into the enthusiast category. If that happens, you will forever be annoyed that you didn’t put more panels up there. You will know better what your tendencies are. For the set and forget category I tend to suggest a solis inverter, for the middle category givenergy work very well and for the enthusiast it has to be a Victron (subject to location - Victron is noisy). That North West facing roof is large and easy to do. The fairly shallow pitch means it should generate well. On an overcast day with diffuse light (i.e. the days when you really need the extra power) you would find that, watt for watt, the rear would generate exactly the same as the front. the panels are cheap, the scaffold and labour are more expensive. My suggestion if you are not yet convinced on the rear elevation or to ease cash flow: fill all of the front space you can whilst the scaffold is there but design the system to easily be expandable to take another inverter running the rear elevation.
Thank you for such a comprehensive comment! 1. I have measured the size and angle of the roof from the loft, those are the dimensions I referenced in the video. I've played around with the 550W panels to see if they could offer better overall output compared to the 430W ones. Unfortunately the silver frames rule out the larger panels for the front of the house. 2. This house is relatively new to us and we love the area. 3 young kids so we are planning to stay here for the medium-long term. 3. I'm the kind of person that starts researching as an average consumer and ends up falling down a rabbit hole of wanting to investigate and know everything. My recent series about heat pumps probably shows that pattern as I ended up knowing more than half of the installers through my obsessive nature! 4. Thanks for the positive reinforcement on the NW facing roof. That is my understanding on the diffuse light situation. I thought I could fit 12 panels on that back roof, but by flipping the panels to landscape it seems I can actually fit 16 panels back there. 5. The biggest question mark for me is around home battery storage. I'm still doing my sums on that one and working out the ROI utilising smart tariffs.
For what it's worth I got 66kWh from my 3.6Kw south facing system in December, and by charging my 5kW battery during cheaper periods on octopus agile I used 176kWh of discharge with a total load on the house of 1259kWh. I think this is where the real value of a battery can come in, being able to power your home during peak periods and using cheaper tariffs the rest of the time. Ideally I'd have a 10kWh battery as that would comfortably cover my needs 4-7pm. Back in July this year we generated 616kWh and the total load was 366kWh, leaving export of 295 (£44.25 on our account basically) We got our panels along with the battery and heatpump with a grant and 0% loan. hope I've made sense/been helpful
Thanks. That is good food for thought. Do you have to manually program the agile times every day into your battery or do you have a GivEnergy one that Octopus take control of on their intelligent tariff?
@@UpsideDownFork i do it manually through the solis cloud website, but by and large i daily charge before typical spikes (7am and 4pm) If i see any other spikes I'll do a charge then or if the price drops before 15p then I'll charge from that. There were a few hours of negative import prices in december to so I was running all sorts in the house just because!
I would stay away from Givenergy for the moment. When it works great but when you get a problem then it's an issue. I waiting for my second visit for the inverter to be replaced. Been faulty for 7 weeks now.
Ouch, i've already discovered quite a few horror stories. The main thing putting me off givenergy is their lack of compatibility with other brands which limits the future upgrade possibilities! Thanks for your comment.
The quoted system is a G98 system under 3.68 and therefore never gonna be huge savings long term. We agree on most of the comments regarding storage and batteries being priority as this is where the money saving comes in during winter on off peak savings and grid charging. The shading issues would also benefit from panel optimisers to reduce system degradation through the shading reduction across the system. Interesting to see this from a consumer point of view, would you mind if we contacted you to offer some advice?
Thanks for the comment and sharing your expertise. All of the other quotes have included panel optimisers so far. I'll be sharing them in the next few days. Can a larger solar array without batteries export enough in the summer months to offset the winter usage? Effectively using the grid as a virtual battery over the course of the year?
@@UpsideDownFork this would very much depend on the agreed DNO approved export on the application, I would need know the potential maximum generation the system could produce but I would say it’s unlikely, hence the battery side of things. The idea is to store and reduce grid demand on a daily basis and utilise overnight reduced rates to top up overnight in the winter when the solar isn’t quite covering the property demand. Grid usage increases would almost certainly be more expensive against the payments of export during the summer months against the winter.
I installed a 2kwh system in my garden for £1500. Solar seems to be the new double glazing. Since the extentsion of the grant from £5lk to £7.5k, Octopus increased my quote for installing a heat pump from £1500 to £4100. You might think Octopus, like other installers, are taking advantage of taxpayers money? It left a sour taste in my mouth and that's why I left Octopus for Eon.
Octopus were making a loss on heat pump installations for the early adopters. Of course that is not a sustainable business model. They still undercut their rivals by a substantial chunk in most cases.
With an e/w roof, and surrounded by massive trees solar is a no go for me. Instead i went with ripple, which given recent energy coats gives a quite fast payback.
I’m a bit late to the party, but Gary Does Solar has some very informative videos regarding modern panels (especially half cell and shingled) that actually questions whether optimisers / micro inverters are actually worth it or not. He thinks not except for some edge use cases.
Our roof was built in the 60s. It's barely robust enough to take increasing wind loadings. No way would I mount solar panels on it thus greatly increasing uplift forces in a game.
That's a shame. Structural calculations should always be performed before mounting equipment on the roof. Our chosen solar company was meticulous with this.
NW is really no good. The reduction in yearly output would be massive. My roof faces SE and Dec-Jan is awful. They should be able to estimate quite accurately the yearly output from their app and your roof geometry if they do it properly. There is also the question of how many strings and how they are attached to the inverter. A small amount of shading on part of a string can drastically affect the output even with modern panels that are supposed to compensate. If there is shading on part of the solar array for most of the day as is likely with your front roof then this could also affect the output. I have panels with shading compensators and it really doesn't do that much. In late autumn next door's roof starts to shade a few of our panels by about 5% in the afternoon and the output drops by 75%. Of course this depends on the make of panel. The technology is constantly evolving so this may be out of date info. In summer we can generate 40KWh per day with 6KWp of panels which is enough for car charging, hot water, heating/cooling, household electricity. In winter the solar production can be between 0-5KWh per day so it is very lob-sided.
Thanks for commenting. I've set up a timelapse of our roof and the shading issue in the last few days of sunshine and the south east facing roof doesn't get shading from the gable until about 1pm and then only a very small amount. In the summer the gable doesn't cause any shading from what I can as I have a picture of the front of the house at 6pm so I guess it's fine because of the sun being much higher. Thanks for raising the other points. I have slowly been learning about these from gary does solar whilst trying to work out what's best for us.
I have 7 of the same panels with a pylontech battery half the size of the GivEnergy. I honestly wish I had got more battery. I’m really happy with my installation though and the price you were quoted seems really reasonable. For me the solar is about reducing my electricity demand, not covering all of my needs. I would have just asked for a quote including more battery.
You would need micro inverters for the shaded areas of your roof which do incur a higher cost but it really winds me up when a company refuse to install panels where you want them. You are the customer, you should get the system you tell them to install. The same thing happened to me, I wanted three panels on my bit of rood pointing towards the evening sun and the company doing the job refused.
The proposed system you have been given is actually very similar to mine, I’ve got 7 panels and a battery with a usable storage of 3 kWh which was installed last March and cost me £9k. The projected savings you have been shown are way off in my opinion, they are in my limited experience a lot under what you would expect. My system saved me £600 in ‘23 and I didn’t really get going, and if I had a bigger battery those savings would be much higher. You obviously get savings from generating your own energy and using it, then payments from exporting excess. The other factor though is time of use savings. I’m on Octopus agile and because of my battery I was able to get my December electricity costs down to just 12p/kWh. This was done by filling up the battery overnight. My best day was a ridiculous 0.6p/kWh which will take a lot to match. Then you have the saving sessions and in December I got £26 for exporting 5 kWh which would normally only earn £0.75!
I wouldn't bother, remember that winter is when you use the heat pump the most and that is when solar gives you the least. I have 5.8kw west facing solar and in December I got 60 kwh January was 90 kwh so not great. You could switch your tariff to Octopus tracker it's a lot cheaper, usually under 20p per kwh, or wait until you get an EV then Octopus intelligent makes more sense especially if you have a home battery, it give 7.5p per kwh for car and home for a minimum of 6 hour a night and often if you plug the car in you get the cheap rate in the afternoon or evening.
Many people are looking forward to the battery, but I have to say that even if the 20% value-added tax is exempted from February 1, its cost is still very high. Regardless of whether it is analyzed from the perspective of investment or environmental protection, there is a lot of room for optimization.
Thanks for your comment. I am inclined to agree. I have done some pretty basic calculations and I'm unsure of how a battery could save us money in the short to medium term. The payback period is very long for battery is seems.
Don't bother with the panels and get an All In One 13.5 kWh battery from Givenergy. Charge it cheaply at night and run on it during the day. Possibly buy some solar from one of the shared ownership schemes. Alternatively, is there any room at the bottom of your back garden for a ground mounted setup?
Thanks for the comment and suggestions. Unfortunately no garden space to spare with 3 young boys playing football there! I've signed up on the waiting list for ripple energy so waiting for their next project now. Unfortunately a 13.5kW won't be sufficient as we have a heat pump so need a minimum of 20-30kWh of battery I think 🤔
@@UpsideDownFork Igree that 13.5 might be a bit limiting but that translates to over 40kWh with a COP of 3. Loving your journey, keep control of the costs! As you said before, it's not a cheap process!
Although the pannels are important also make sure you spend time to consider your inverters they have come a long way and can make a big difference in your system performance.
@@UpsideDownFork I am no where near an expert so I can't recommend a specific brand or technical spec. but I would definitely go as big as you can. I think 6KW is the biggest you can go before you have to notify your local Grid Operator. But if you are planning to get an electric car and you want to draw from batteries from example they can draw up to 7.5kw your oven I would guess would draw 2-3kw, you kettle etc. Also if you have a bigger inverter and you want to discharge back to the grid during saving sessions or generally the bigger inverter will let yoy push more out and get paid back faster. One thing to get for sure is a hybrid or a DC coupled inverter that would be essential. Because it essentially allows the power from solar to pass directly into the batteries without having to be inverted and you reduce your losses You should also consider ensuring your house has a gateway to isolate it from the grid. So in the rare occasion we do have blackouts in the UK your house can operate off the grid for the duration. Also VAT is coming off batteries in February so keep that in mind. Finally you should think about it you should get the battery first or the panels. Because with the battery you could essentially start off setting your use into cheaper parts of the day. Some of the octopus rates are 7.5p so you could store that power and use it later all year. Where as your solar would be variable output depending on season and weather. Not sure how the math would work out there.
@@UpsideDownFork glad to be of help. I am currently helping a family member go through a similar journey to you so have been watching countless videos on RU-vid a out heatpumps and batteries. Thanks for your great content keep it up! Don't forget that many battery systems are modular these days. So you could start by getting a system that just helps you flatten your peaks between 16:00-19:00 when it is super expensive and later add more capacity to get you through the day. Lots of ways to cut it. Look forward to see in a later video what you decide on.
@@rajus0thanks. I was thinking about 10kWh now and 10 later when I can afford it, but if I abandon solar panels completely then maybe I just go straight for 30kWh? A bit of research into GivEnergy rang alarm bells as all their batteries are not compatible with all of their inverters and they don't work well with other brands of batteries so you seem to be firmly locked in. I'm looking into sunsynk more now.
@@UpsideDownFork Don't forget that if you only have a 3.6kWh inverter you are limited to how much battery storage you can achieve within the 4-6hr cheaper night rate window (depends on the tariff).
All the surfaces at the front with micro inverters to negate the shading at different times????? Probably cheaper than they wanted. I have a perfect angle rear roof angles and want more that they wanted to fit, also I want the bigger inverter and battery. I paid for the survey but might not go ahead and get more quotes but there are few fitters here but the nationals all queue up to get my money. They octopus quote state no possibility of an EPS but that is the reason I want solar to stand alone in the coming grid down scenario, I have the schematics for the EPS and a simple retro fit that even I can do. Maybe , maybe not, they are also dragging their heels on any time scale.
Thanks for the comment. The installation cost does seem to be a very significant part of the overall price. Price per panel seems to come down considerably once you start fitting 12 or more panels. Tesla power wall seems very overpriced compared to it's competitors.
You can get 500w solar panels although I dont know if thats with the same footprint. Be tempted to do nothing and wait for panels to increase further. Could you get a row on the lower part of your house that seems to stick out like a bay window? its not clear in the photos though
Thanks for the comment. I'll have a look at 500W panels. No one has quoted for any that high yet! The lower roof unfortunately could only get 1 panel on it and it would breach the MCS recommendation of leaving space around the edges.
@@mentality-monster Correct! I've documented my installation since this video went live: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Sdc7v8G3lnU.html
Thank you, the first 3 are very well known brands in other electronics already. Should I expect to pay a premium for choosing one of those? How much more efficient are these premium brands?
Looked at Octopus too and wasn't worth it due to small roof. If you're looking at an EV, try waiting till the Renault 5 is out as that will have V2G and a ~50kwh battery.
Thanks for the comment. I'm very keen on V2G as our car sits on the drive virtually all the time anyway. Unfortunately although several vehicles already support it (even the 10yr old nissan leaf does!) but the UK doesn't have bidirectional chargers that are currently commercially available. Fingers crossed 🤞 P.S. the Renault 5 does look great from a design perspective. Too small for us though.
Cover as much roof as you can afford and have as much battery as you can afford. We had 3kw solar put on 12 year’s ago on the sw roof and last year we add 7kw to the ne roof with 16kw batteries and it’s ok. I need to double the batteries when we get ashp and will be ok.
@@UpsideDownFork last year it did 5.7mwh compared to 3.04mwh for the other, so I think it’s worth the outlay. You have to remember that on a dull day the more panels anywhere the more power so it could just keep you ticking over. I use solar edge to monitor the panels and hopefully make the most of the dull days. We now have two EV’s so in the summer we charge them for nothing.
@@angusgeorge8003 sounds like a no brainer if we're already going to have scaffold and men on site. With the comparatively low cost of the actual panels themselves it seems silly not to utilise the NW roof 🤔 Thanks for replying 👍
It is a difficult decision. The battery is pushing out your payback time, but it could yield stuff on playing the tariffs. Might be worth exploring additional solar panels on your favourable gable end that is pointing East, not only will it increase yield but it will give that boost in the morning. EV Puzzle on YT has done exactly that and was upbeat about the result why not get in touch with him? I think you are getting wrapped round the axle about the solar production not hitting the sides - especially with ASHP and EV - it would be ever thus unless you had a massive barn. The best way to look it - it’s just netting off some of your annual bill.
Thanks for the comment. You're absolutely right. I need to have a play with one of the solar tools and see what kind of production is realistic from my vertical gable end. I might get the tape measure out tomorrow and see if it's 4 or 6 panels that will fit up there.
Hi, I added a further 1.2 kw of panels (south facing) vertically under our bedroom windows last year. The idea was to maximise autumn winter gain. They have worked very well and I have been pleasantly surprised with their efficiency this winter. I have a friend with roof mounted east/ west arrays and that has at times out performed our own south facing system because of the extra hours over the day they get sunshine. You can now get twin feed inverters so you could run the south facing roof and the east facing wall panels on one inverter. Another comment on the battery, four neighbours had solar and batteries fitted last year all 5.2 and three have upgraded to 10.4. Due to the winter we have had one is now looking at adding more. We have a 13.5 Tesla Powerwall 2 which incidentally outputs peak at 5k and gives us power in the case of a power cut. We do not use peak electricity at all just off peak through Octopus’s Go Intelligent. We do have an EV so that’s why we get GO Intelligent. The rules of the solar “game” used to be use all the production you can. With new tariffs being brought out like Octopus Flux or their own export scheme it’s now cheaper to export as much as you can and buy in cheap. They also do a ASHP tariff called Cosy which supports users with ASHP. In conclusion, in your situation I would look as others have said fitting the south east panels and the east facing wall panels ( but see how much shading your neighbours house intrudes), if it’s only suitable for the south east roof go big on the battery. Look at the peak out put rates as some only kick out 2.5 kw enough to run a kettle but nothing else meaning you will be dipping into peak electricity rates if your panels aren’t generating. Hope this helps
@@UpsideDownFork no problem, the other thing I didn’t mention was the opportunity presented by the saving sessions that are becoming more prevalent in the winter. Briefly if you use less than your normal use during specified periods you are rewarded on days when the scheme is run, usually days with poor renewable production. For those with batteries if you export during the saving session the payments have been as high as £2 per kw exported. Hence buy in, say at 35p prior to the saving session to fill battery then export some capacity during, then fill up again if you have access to cheap night rate. Whether the rewards will stay as high as that is debatable but grid management and such schemes are here to stay so there always will be rewards on top of the normal SEG payments.
I make that proposed system £2800 at current prices, and the installer will back claim VAT on that, with a cool £6000 profit. Expect that's a £1000 referral backhander to boot.
Thinking about batteries, £3k for a 5.2kWh battery is way too high; online prices put the battery itself at about £1500 + VAT. If you are serious about solar power then do consider getting an "open" inverter that accepts batteries from other manufacturers (48V, CAN BMS communication, crimp lug terminals), at which point a Fogstar Energy15.5kWh battery is £2100 + VAT. It is depressing to look at the margins placed on solar products; MCS certificates add so much overhead and a barrier to normal sparkies taking part in solar stuff.
Thanks for the comment and sharing your knowledge. I have started to move away from GivEnergy for exactly that reason. Sunsynk looks like a good option for inverter and seems to work well with other brands.
@@UpsideDownFork My mother got a 5kW Sunsynk Ecco and I build 2 x 13.3kWh batteries for her; it seems to work reasonably well, although the user interface is confusing, Octopus Flux integration did not work the last time I tried (a couple of months ago), and the efficiency is not great in the low light conditions of winter!
@@UpsideDownFork Seplos Mason battery boxes from Fogstar, battery cells from Alibaba (not Aliexpress) although Fogstar now do them too. Protected with DC rated NH1 fuses from Bimble (also good for crimp lugs), wired together with 25mm2 twinflex cable. To be honest I overdid the complexity, and using the Fogstar ready-made battery would eliminate a lot of complexity (per-battery fuses, special battery connectors and extra-chunky 50mm2 wiring, no worries about freezing conditions in the garage). However it was a good learning experience.
The only reason anyone sensible would put 6 panels on a second storey roof would be to save the cost of VAT when fitting a battery in order to time-shift supply, that of course is no longer necessary as VAT will imminently be removed from further renewables including batteries. You need a battery [or batteries] that near covers your daily consumption! Better still is to get an EV first if needed for your life style...
Thanks for the comment. Unfortunately we would need a minimum of 30kWh of batteries to cover our average daily consumption throughout the winter at least. We don't need an EV and don't drive enough miles to make it worthwhile to swap just yet. Thanks for the comment.
Tesla battery. They are stackable so you can have 2 (cost around £17000 for 25 kilowatt capacity ) charge overnight for 7.5p per kilowatt hour which is about £2.50 per day with the standing charge - only need 25 kilowatts for a couple of months a year so work out how often you need to fill 1 and how often 2. For me with the lack of solar capacity this is your best way forward. There are grants and interest free loans as you have a heat pump and the savings start immediately.
Thanks for the comment. That's well outside my price range unfortunately. I've been looking at Sunsynk batteries which are £7500 for 25kWh but the payback is fairly slow, even on the good octopus tariffs. I'll get back to my spreadsheets to analyse my usage.
In Scotland you get £1250 as a grant and up to £4750 as an interest free loan for them if you have a heat pump - the savings on electricity useage would more than cover the loan repayment. You still have to pay the extra up front as the batteries are more than £6000, not sure if the same deal is available in England.
#Jackperry - he was my intial advisor too and was ridiculously repsonsive picking up queries on weekend (non work days for him).. Obviously an old video but octopus are much more competitive now than they were back in Jan.... I'm just waiting for them to install. your roof is a bit "crap" for solar but I think you are missing the point of the battery.. At least for me by baseline use is about 10kwh during the day (i.e. excluding EV / etc) ... the battery will be partly charged by sun and partly by cheaper tarrif.. I think through this arbitrage my battery pays back in a reasonable time (15p out 7p in) ... still waiting for my install date, but have always had a good experience with Octopus so Im confident it will be a good install... Also I suspect they are quite prudent with their calculations... they were about how many panels they could get in given the virtual survey.
Jack definitely gave me the impression he was on commission by his work rate! I've done plenty of other videos about home batteries since this one. Over-simplified but here goes: 10kWh battery saves you 80p per day, £292 per year. (best case ignoring conversion and standby losses) 10kWh battery costs you approx £3000. 10kWh battery will not pay for itself in 10 years. That same £3000 could be used to cover more of the roof with solar panels which will earn you more over the same 10 year period. If we look at the opportunity cost, £3k in a 5% savings account will yield £1941 in interest earned. Anyway, here's my latest solar video which shows my solar panel system and how it's performing. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-0fDacb0yNnY.html
@UpsideDownFork I work on it being the arbitrage between 25p and 7p ( assuming I can charge at night and discharge in day so 18p x8 kwh is £1.44 a day which makes payback about 6-7 yrs. Anyway semantics as main reason for doing it is to avoid exposure to grid pricing I.e. make use of solar power rather than giving it back to grid.
You probably need at least 4 x 5kW batteries and 8kW inverter because with what Octopus are suggesting will only allow up to 3.6kW without the engaging the grid. The key to your project is dual tariff with off peak at 7.5p v 31p. You may even be waiting you money on Solar. Stick with batteries a I believe the VAT will be removed on battery installation only soon. Previously you only got zero rate if Solar was involved This not rocket science and it just shows how useless some designers are.
Thanks for sharing once again. You wanted comments, here is my two penneth worth. Don't let anyone put you off putting solar on EVERY possible surface. Solar panels are comparitively cheap, installation (scaffolding, labour, etc) is a one off necessary expense and you want to throw as much generation capacity up there that you can when that investment is already committed. So what if it isn't as effective on a north facing roof. It still generates useful electricity! Your Octopus proposal is fairly pitiful in output and chases the standard dogma that only installs on east, south and west faces. For battery, get as much as you can afford. Less than 5 kWh useable is almost useless. Irrespective of your solar output, having a decent battery capacity means you can run your house on the cheap overnight electricity rate, provided you have enough battery and a beefy enough inverter to fill that battery during the off-peak period. We have a 6 kW inverter and 20 kWh of battery. We haven't got a heat pump installed yet, but even so we occasionally use practically the whole useable battery to run the house and export an hour of battery to the grid when there is a DFS event. We currently run the house on 7.5 pence per hour in the winter and on solar during the summer. Just becaise we have sufficient battery. Once we get a heat pump to replace our gas boiler I will be bemoaning not having enough battery! There are plenty of RU-vid contributors who will back up what I am saying. Gary Does Solar is awesome and has some tools to calculate a potential business case. Tim from Tim and Kat's Gren Walk is already wishing he had more than the 14 kWh battery that he has and is building his financial case to add more. That is a household of just 2 people... Antony Dyer, Ian Sampson, the list goes on. They all wish they had installed more battery than they did.
Just another thought. Consider optimisers too, that way you can put panels on any facet and link them into a single string without compromising the output of any particular panel. During the winter the solar angle is so shallow you will have impingement from anything on the horizon. Watching my strings I can see massive percentage gains in string output due to optimisers.
Thanks for the comprehensive comment! I'm convinced that we need to get as much solar installed as possible, finding the firm for the job is the harder bit, as well as having the necessary budget. My current thinking is that I'm going to plough my full budget into solar for now, ride out the summer wave and revisit batteries in autumn time if I can afford it by then. My mean consumption for the heat pump is 20kWh since mid November, so I'd like to get at least 20kWh of batteries, which would seriously impede the budget for solar panels right now. Glad the government just changed the VAT policy on batteries by themselves 👍
Why don't you get a small battery from the start and scale it up when you can afford to? Fox Energy Cube Master starts at 2.9kw and scales up to 20.16kw.
@@guy0811 the way I'm looking at it and I may be completely wrong. To make the batteries work financially, you need to fully commit to a smart tariff strategy like flux, go or cosy from Octopus. Unless you can cover a significant portion of your consumption, then it seems pointless to invest capital at all? 🤔 I'll have to throw myself into the spreadsheets with our consumption usage to explore this further.
2.4kw in panels pointless if you don't have space for at least 6kw just get 20kw in batteries charge cheap rate at night .PS zero vat on batteries from February.
Thank you. I thought the same as you. 6 panels on the front by itself is pointless financially speaking. Yep, I noticed the change in VAT on batteries from February and that is pushing me to throw the whole budget at solar panels to cover the entire roof as it will be cheaper to add a battery later on. What do you think?
@@UpsideDownFork l would still add batteries at the same time as they save you money 12 months of the year on cheap rate overnight charging where solar is poor in winter. Pylontech batteries are far better priced than what you have been offered and so easy to add to.
@@bazworld thank you. The dilemma I have is that the tariffs that have a good nighttime import rate also have a poor solar export rate so it seems like you really need to commit to one strategy or the other to make the most of it. Otherwise compromises have to be made. Because of my heatpump, I can't load shift all of my consumption so need a reasonable rate throughout the day it would seem.
@@UpsideDownFork luckily I still get FIT payments for my solar which helps, I am looking at a heatpump but still on the fence at the moment need to make my mind up before they scrap the grant. Good luck with your decision making.
@@bazworld you're living the dream with the FIT payments! Our heat pump has been great so far over the last 2 months. I'll keep posting updates on that as we go through the various stages of use.
@@UpsideDownFork Not really I have just started my self looking into it , I am talking about mini ones though that sit on the ridge tile so no matter which direction the wind is it would generate energy, it just doesn’t make sense in my head having solar that is only generating energy when the sun get up having lots of sleep during each night , yet the mini wind turbines will generate day or night , have tried to find anyone on RU-vid that has had let’s say 400w solar going against 400w mini turbine and chart it out so you can see which is more efficient over day,week, month, year. They are roughly the same price but my feeling is that wind would generate a lot more , it’s as though there’s a cover up somewhere, should not be that difficult one panel one mini turbine set it up and take or see how long each day how much each one does , that actually would generate a lot of interesting viewing obviously not for the solar companies.
@@kavanobrien6547this sounds really interesting. If you need to put up scaffolding for solar on the roof you might as well put ridge turbines in too? I just watched a video of Cory Mac putting a wind turbine on a boat in Portsmouth. Hope there's a follow up on the performance data!
@@UpsideDownFork there’s loads of different types some you don’t have to put on your roof at all , the more you look it’s mind blowing excuse the pun, there’s small ones you can have in the garden so you don’t need to use the roof at all , the more you look into it the more you start to ask more questions like wait a minute why am I looking at something that only going to work when the sun decides to get out of bed at least that’s how I’m looking at it,
😂 We definitely don't get as much sun as other countries but I've been told that a tiny silver lining is that our cooler temperatures help the panels operate more efficiently. 👍 Got to hold onto those small silver linings! 😁
@@UpsideDownFork as others have commented, a large battery to time shift cheap electricity might be a better option, also less hassle on the roof and ultimately can be taken to a new property (with a bit of hassle)
Have you considered installers the panels yourself and the inverter then just get a spark to commission the system. I would love to chat to you via WhatsApp or Facebook maybe if that’s ok with you? I have a full system that I’m more than happy with and can give you plenty of valuable advice you may l like.
I honestly this your best option for now is to most of your budget on a much larger battery only system. Then the solar can be added at a later date if you wish. Your return on investment can be greatly reduced if you load shift and make max use of octopus intelligent tariff or similar rate night time tariffs. Charge at night and use the battery all day. I’m pretty much 99% pure night rate all year round. Solar is only worth doing if you can minimise the cost of install or your getting a huge array and able to sell your generation as much as possible.
Thanks, I have joined the DIY Solar Facebook group and have been learning a lot on there. 2 things that put me off DIY roof solar. 1. MCS certificate for best export. I know Octopus have unlocked that somewhat recently though. 2. Zero VAT seems to make up at least a small part of the cost difference between DIT and a local firm. You can send me an e-mail to the address listed here and let's get talking! www.youtube.com/@UpsideDownFork
