Discussion
Biggus thingus said:
So what are you planning/hoping to achieve from the system? Minimize grid usage by X% in summer and Y% in winter?
Realistic ROI?
My idea was to be a bit more self sufficient & do my bit, perfect South aspect & even in winter we have some sunny days in our sunroom.Realistic ROI?
Hoping to tick over small amount Nov-Feb & the rest should be decent on average.
Inflations 10%, my current account is 1.5-2% & if anyone can show me an investment that can match crack on.
The fact that prices have risen beyond belief since Jan is just good timing for myself.
I am six weeks in & have used £1.82 E from the grid, all my evening use from battery, awaiting my SEG payments due soon.
Using immersion to heat water saving on gas (turning on immersion 20 mins before boiler comes on heats the tank super quick)
My ROI was 8/9 years at 26p, changing 26p to 60p drops to 3/4 years & 70p is happy days.
Condi said:
Some people are happy installing them to reduce CO2, some people just want to be independent of the grid, some people want a hedge against future prices, there are loads of reasons... no right or wrong ones.
The panels and batteries will likely last longer than expected, the inverters are what go. In 30 years time when power is £2/kwh Future You might be thankful of Past You, nobody knows for sure. It could be 2p/kwh. Who knows?
I've started all the research in this field over the past two weeks - and i would add another reason: it's also sometimes just fun to get involved in a complicated project and learn about cool sh*t. The panels and batteries will likely last longer than expected, the inverters are what go. In 30 years time when power is £2/kwh Future You might be thankful of Past You, nobody knows for sure. It could be 2p/kwh. Who knows?
If we didn't like cool sh*t, we'd already be in EVs, or 15 year old Nissan Primeras, wear quartz watches, etc- and life would be that much more boring.
But a project where i can learn about new technology, get some cool technology, and all the lovely data that comes with it - save and even one day make some money? (looking like 10 year payback now, but could easily be less when/if get an EV, and when/if energy prices go even higher); this area at the moment is looking a lot more attractive than putting 20-25k into another old car I don't have space for , or time to keep running properly.
(currently at early stages of planning a 10-11.2kw system with likely a Powerwall 2 - spreadsheet already has a "manmaths" factor, where i can make my business case better by said cool ***t factor
)g40steve said:
Biggus thingus said:
So what are you planning/hoping to achieve from the system? Minimize grid usage by X% in summer and Y% in winter?
Realistic ROI?
My idea was to be a bit more self sufficient & do my bit, perfect South aspect & even in winter we have some sunny days in our sunroom.Realistic ROI?
Hoping to tick over small amount Nov-Feb & the rest should be decent on average.
Inflations 10%, my current account is 1.5-2% & if anyone can show me an investment that can match crack on.
The fact that prices have risen beyond belief since Jan is just good timing for myself.
I am six weeks in & have used £1.82 E from the grid, all my evening use from battery, awaiting my SEG payments due soon.
Using immersion to heat water saving on gas (turning on immersion 20 mins before boiler comes on heats the tank super quick)
My ROI was 8/9 years at 26p, changing 26p to 60p drops to 3/4 years & 70p is happy days.
Invested into a SIPP you would have also got 20 or 40% uplift due to tax relief.
rustyuk said:
g40steve said:
Biggus thingus said:
So what are you planning/hoping to achieve from the system? Minimize grid usage by X% in summer and Y% in winter?
Realistic ROI?
My idea was to be a bit more self sufficient & do my bit, perfect South aspect & even in winter we have some sunny days in our sunroom.Realistic ROI?
Hoping to tick over small amount Nov-Feb & the rest should be decent on average.
Inflations 10%, my current account is 1.5-2% & if anyone can show me an investment that can match crack on.
The fact that prices have risen beyond belief since Jan is just good timing for myself.
I am six weeks in & have used £1.82 E from the grid, all my evening use from battery, awaiting my SEG payments due soon.
Using immersion to heat water saving on gas (turning on immersion 20 mins before boiler comes on heats the tank super quick)
My ROI was 8/9 years at 26p, changing 26p to 60p drops to 3/4 years & 70p is happy days.
Invested into a SIPP you would have also got 20 or 40% uplift due to tax relief.
If you justified all big purchases that way you'd likely die with an enormous fortune. And not much stuff.
As the chap above said, there is more than just ROI - it's also for some doing their bit.
My forthcoming build is a combination of me genuinely feeling a bit guilty our energy use is embarrassingly high (11kwh p/a),and new job means i'm covering 2.5k miles a month at the moment, on my own, in a big estate car. I'm no tree hugging crazy green - but i am i think a reasonable human, and can see if i'm going to burn that sort of energy and have the ability to do something to significantly reduce it, i probably should. That's about 30% of the justification. Add another 30% to the ROI not looking too bad - especially over much longer time period. The rest as I mentioned above -is i just like technology and gadgets...
Making irrational financial decisions for mostly subjective benefits is pretty much what manmaths is. I might go for a PHD in it one day.
rustyuk said:
g40steve said:
Biggus thingus said:
So what are you planning/hoping to achieve from the system? Minimize grid usage by X% in summer and Y% in winter?
Realistic ROI?
My idea was to be a bit more self sufficient & do my bit, perfect South aspect & even in winter we have some sunny days in our sunroom.Realistic ROI?
Hoping to tick over small amount Nov-Feb & the rest should be decent on average.
Inflations 10%, my current account is 1.5-2% & if anyone can show me an investment that can match crack on.
The fact that prices have risen beyond belief since Jan is just good timing for myself.
I am six weeks in & have used £1.82 E from the grid, all my evening use from battery, awaiting my SEG payments due soon.
Using immersion to heat water saving on gas (turning on immersion 20 mins before boiler comes on heats the tank super quick)
My ROI was 8/9 years at 26p, changing 26p to 60p drops to 3/4 years & 70p is happy days.
Invested into a SIPP you would have also got 20 or 40% uplift due to tax relief.
cidered77 said:
Condi said:
Some people are happy installing them to reduce CO2, some people just want to be independent of the grid, some people want a hedge against future prices, there are loads of reasons... no right or wrong ones.
The panels and batteries will likely last longer than expected, the inverters are what go. In 30 years time when power is £2/kwh Future You might be thankful of Past You, nobody knows for sure. It could be 2p/kwh. Who knows?
I've started all the research in this field over the past two weeks - and i would add another reason: it's also sometimes just fun to get involved in a complicated project and learn about cool sh*t. The panels and batteries will likely last longer than expected, the inverters are what go. In 30 years time when power is £2/kwh Future You might be thankful of Past You, nobody knows for sure. It could be 2p/kwh. Who knows?
If we didn't like cool sh*t, we'd already be in EVs, or 15 year old Nissan Primeras, wear quartz watches, etc- and life would be that much more boring.
But a project where i can learn about new technology, get some cool technology, and all the lovely data that comes with it - save and even one day make some money? (looking like 10 year payback now, but could easily be less when/if get an EV, and when/if energy prices go even higher); this area at the moment is looking a lot more attractive than putting 20-25k into another old car I don't have space for , or time to keep running properly.
(currently at early stages of planning a 10-11.2kw system with likely a Powerwall 2 - spreadsheet already has a "manmaths" factor, where i can make my business case better by said cool ***t factor
)I like the fact that I can run my house and even charge my EV a bit for free during summer days, it makes me happy.
Using no gas for six months of the year is great.
Was it expensive? Yes. Was it the best investment? Maybe not, but I don't care any more. I had the money at the time and that spend is long forgotten, but the cool ***t keeps on giving.
We have hearts as well as heads
.
FarmyardPants said:
A refreshing viewpoint. So many of these threads end up being about ROI with advice to "just put it in an ISA" or somesuch.
I like the fact that I can run my house and even charge my EV a bit for free during summer days, it makes me happy.
Using no gas for six months of the year is great.
Was it expensive? Yes. Was it the best investment? Maybe not, but I don't care any more. I had the money at the time and that spend is long forgotten, but the cool ***t keeps on giving.
We have hearts as well as heads.
I like the fact that I can run my house and even charge my EV a bit for free during summer days, it makes me happy.
Using no gas for six months of the year is great.
Was it expensive? Yes. Was it the best investment? Maybe not, but I don't care any more. I had the money at the time and that spend is long forgotten, but the cool ***t keeps on giving.
We have hearts as well as heads
.
SoliD said:
I can't see the cheaper night rates going anywhere any time soon. Yes people are jumping on them with EVs and battery storage, but this is all new demand to the grid and will be countered by all the various chargers that are still being used during the day everywhere(supermarkets, businesses etc), and because of this there will still be the huge differential in demand between day and night that the networks will try to balance, they may become less lucrative but they'll still be significantly cheaper than the day rate.
......
I'm really not sure about that.......
Demand last night was never less than 25GW compared to 31GW right now and a peak of 33GW over the last 24 hrs.
We're burning a lot of gas at night, it provided 15GW of generation all through the Octopus Go hours last night.
The standard rate is controlled by the cap, which must put pressure on everything else?
I think the whole electricity market in the UK is in need of a big shake up.
I really don't see that selling electricity for less than it costs to generate is a model built to last.
With vast investment in solar farms, the rules are changing, night rate seems like a hangover from the 60s.
cidered77 said:
FarmyardPants said:
A refreshing viewpoint. So many of these threads end up being about ROI with advice to "just put it in an ISA" or somesuch.
I like the fact that I can run my house and even charge my EV a bit for free during summer days, it makes me happy.
Using no gas for six months of the year is great.
Was it expensive? Yes. Was it the best investment? Maybe not, but I don't care any more. I had the money at the time and that spend is long forgotten, but the cool ***t keeps on giving.
We have hearts as well as heads.
I like the fact that I can run my house and even charge my EV a bit for free during summer days, it makes me happy.
Using no gas for six months of the year is great.
Was it expensive? Yes. Was it the best investment? Maybe not, but I don't care any more. I had the money at the time and that spend is long forgotten, but the cool ***t keeps on giving.
We have hearts as well as heads
.1. Monthly cost of ongoing bills.
2. Doing my bit for green energy.
3. Payback and weather over the 20 years of FIT payments it would cost less than buying the Electricity.
So ROI was a consideration but not the primary one, Really glad i did it and I would probably do it again now just for the cheaper electric. Still not sure about batteries but hoping they will become viable before my FIT ends.
OutInTheShed said:
I think the whole electricity market in the UK is in need of a big shake up.
The UK needs to give microproducers (aka people in this forum with solar panels) a far better rate when they sell, ideally it should just be a few % less than the hourly spot price. This is what we have here in Sweden and it means that solar is far more viable and the take-up of this tech is very widespread now. Traffic said:
OutInTheShed said:
I think the whole electricity market in the UK is in need of a big shake up.
The UK needs to give microproducers (aka people in this forum with solar panels) a far better rate when they sell, ideally it should just be a few % less than the hourly spot price. This is what we have here in Sweden and it means that solar is far more viable and the take-up of this tech is very widespread now. For a start, you have a great deal of Hydro power.
Hydro is nice to have, controllable, easily ramped up when the sun goes in.
The UK's hydro is good for about 0.5 GW on a good day.
Sweden is also burning oil for electricity generation and suffering record wholesale prices 54euro cents/kWh?
Giving lots of money to microproducers just puts a lot of cost on the grid. That has to be paid from somewhere.
There are fundamental issues with electricity grids as the world changes.
As more people have panels, they start to see the grid as some sort of back-up for when the sun doesn't shine.
The costs of running the grid and having power available for all the dull days doesn't get any less.
I used to think our latest nuclear power station was a very bad deal, what is it 15p/kWh or something?
I don't have a problem admitting I was wrong about that!
OutInTheShed said:
Traffic said:
OutInTheShed said:
I think the whole electricity market in the UK is in need of a big shake up.
The UK needs to give microproducers (aka people in this forum with solar panels) a far better rate when they sell, ideally it should just be a few % less than the hourly spot price. This is what we have here in Sweden and it means that solar is far more viable and the take-up of this tech is very widespread now. For a start, you have a great deal of Hydro power.
Hydro is nice to have, controllable, easily ramped up when the sun goes in.
The UK's hydro is good for about 0.5 GW on a good day.
Sweden is also burning oil for electricity generation and suffering record wholesale prices 54euro cents/kWh?
Giving lots of money to microproducers just puts a lot of cost on the grid. That has to be paid from somewhere.
There are fundamental issues with electricity grids as the world changes.
As more people have panels, they start to see the grid as some sort of back-up for when the sun doesn't shine.
The costs of running the grid and having power available for all the dull days doesn't get any less.
I used to think our latest nuclear power station was a very bad deal, what is it 15p/kWh or something?
I don't have a problem admitting I was wrong about that!
We have a shortage of electricity in Sweden as we are exporting a load to Germany right now, but whilst the electricity prices today are really high, the energy I sell I get paid for at a higher price. I sell for 3% hourly spot price, I buy for =3% hourly spot price - so the energy company does well out of me either way and I still pay for the grid supply charge. I think it's time the UK was a little more creative, I'm not saying this exact model would work, but something a bit fairer would certainly help alleviate the obvious problem of relying on big energy companies. As we sell the electricity into the local network it takes strain off of the larger national network which is also a benefit I should add.
As I say, it might not be a perfect solution, but something along these lines would be better than what is on offer now from what I reading on all these pages (except those on FIT).
Sweden and the UK seem to have very different systems but fundamentally both are markets with a lot of government rules and intervention.
Buying and selling at +/- 3% probably doesn't even cover transmission losses and billing costs.
I'm not defending the UK's system or situation, it's a mess.
Anyone know how export of solar power is done in other countries?
Buying and selling at +/- 3% probably doesn't even cover transmission losses and billing costs.
I'm not defending the UK's system or situation, it's a mess.
Anyone know how export of solar power is done in other countries?
Traffic said:
OutInTheShed said:
Buying and selling at +/- 3% probably doesn't even cover transmission losses and billing costs.
?
We still pay a grid fee for transport of electricity so those are covered. ?
Chris Type R said:
Traffic said:
OutInTheShed said:
Buying and selling at +/- 3% probably doesn't even cover transmission losses and billing costs.
?
We still pay a grid fee for transport of electricity so those are covered. ?
Traffic said:
Chris Type R said:
Traffic said:
OutInTheShed said:
Buying and selling at +/- 3% probably doesn't even cover transmission losses and billing costs.
?
We still pay a grid fee for transport of electricity so those are covered. ?
I was with our battery and solar teams at work for the last two days, and it’s been interesting to understand where the market is and where it’s going.
Fire risk hasn’t yet become a thing in domestic installations, but there’s a growing belief that it will very soon and that will create added issues (and likely cost) for home BESS.
beanoir78 said:
BESS is in my opinion the way forward for domestic solar applications, but it is expensive at the moment, and likely to be so for some time.
I was with our battery and solar teams at work for the last two days, and it’s been interesting to understand where the market is and where it’s going.
Fire risk hasn’t yet become a thing in domestic installations, but there’s a growing belief that it will very soon and that will create added issues (and likely cost) for home BESS.
I'm surprised that fire risk is not something that is discussed more often - I assume solutions encased in metal and installed outside are mitigating the risk (combined with per cell temperature monitoring).I was with our battery and solar teams at work for the last two days, and it’s been interesting to understand where the market is and where it’s going.
Fire risk hasn’t yet become a thing in domestic installations, but there’s a growing belief that it will very soon and that will create added issues (and likely cost) for home BESS.
I don't think I'd want a battery mounted inside our integrated garage in close proximity to a fuelled vehicle.
The OP asked for real life details of costs savings of which there seem to be lots of people confirming that you don't really save any money unless Putin invades another country and you don't move house for 20 years.
One poster then says nothing can beat his solar investment when in fact buying premium bonds probably will, putting the money in a SIPP definitely will.
Personally I have no issues with people buying solar panels or batteries. If you did actually save money I'd buy them myself!
One poster then says nothing can beat his solar investment when in fact buying premium bonds probably will, putting the money in a SIPP definitely will.
Personally I have no issues with people buying solar panels or batteries. If you did actually save money I'd buy them myself!
Someone was asking on another forum about the risk of having a Tesla battery mounted on the wall outside their property as shown in someone else's installation pictures. Given how some Scallies are cutting catalytic convertors off the underneath of cars, then surely an £8k battery on a wall should have better protection from theft?
I have a built in bin/meter cupboard that I currently have an old wooden (interior) door on and we're planning to replace it with something newer and smarter. That is where I expect the battery and invertor will be put as it's next to the consumer unit, etc.
I think I'd rather lose the convenience of having somewhere the delivery drivers will put things if we are out and using the lock on whatever door we do fit. Also wondering about ventilation as it currently has a basic vent I put in the old door, but not sure how much a battery and the invertor would need? Thinking partly in terms of overheating equipment, but also in terms of fire risk too, the bin cupboard is built with breeze blocks.
We've got some quotes booked so hopefully at least get a foot on the ladder soon.
I have a built in bin/meter cupboard that I currently have an old wooden (interior) door on and we're planning to replace it with something newer and smarter. That is where I expect the battery and invertor will be put as it's next to the consumer unit, etc.
I think I'd rather lose the convenience of having somewhere the delivery drivers will put things if we are out and using the lock on whatever door we do fit. Also wondering about ventilation as it currently has a basic vent I put in the old door, but not sure how much a battery and the invertor would need? Thinking partly in terms of overheating equipment, but also in terms of fire risk too, the bin cupboard is built with breeze blocks.
We've got some quotes booked so hopefully at least get a foot on the ladder soon.
Edited by OldSkoolRS on Friday 19th August 10:52
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