overall cost of installing Solar panels

[irc]

Condi said:

Battery costs are coming down and are viable at grid scale.

Viable for? Being economic for twice a day use making money from price variations is not the same as being viable for dealing with week long low wind scenarios.

How does GW level battery cost compare with pumped hydro?

PS not being argumentative here just interested in how big battery costs compare to pumped hydro which is AKAIK the best big storage solution we have and is only viable in UK terms for a couple of hours or thereabouts demand.

[DonkeyApple]

Jambo85 said:

Worth noting that in Scotland you still seem to be able to get an interest free £5000 loan for PV and a further £6k for batteries.

How will the bailiffs get the kit back?

[AW10]

DonkeyApple said:

How will the bailiffs get the kit back?

They’ll send seaweed round?

[Frimley111R]

Condi said:

Battery costs are coming down and are viable at grid scale.

As solar/battery installers I can tell you we just had a £300 uplift on trade prices for 5kW batteries! Prices are definitely not dropping. Demand is massive and so why reduce margins? One of our key competitors just added £1k - £2k on their installed solar/battery costs too. This is obviously domestics but batteries are fundamentally the same.

[Condi]

irc said:

Viable for? Being economic for twice a day use making money from price variations is not the same as being viable for dealing with week long low wind scenarios.

Viable/economic for the developers building them. There is a massive pipeline of projects. They're only 2 hour batteries at most, but usually 1 hour - no good for week long low wind scenarios but that's not what they're designed for or being used for, so it's irrelevant.

As for hydro vs battery costs, I don't know without looking. The biggest difference is it's not hard to get a couple of million quid and install a battery or 2, whereas the cost of building pumped storage is hundreds of millions, even if the cost per Mwh of capacity is cheaper. Then you've got additional complexities with planning, environmental stuff, land requirements etc etc. Core Glais (spelling?) has been in the planning for years, decades even, and it's not progressing very quickly, whereas a battery can be 2 years from initial idea to construction finished.

[outnumbered]

My neighbour had a big system (12KW I think plus batteries, due to cost about £15K) put on his garage and house roof over the summer. There were some problems with the installation, and the company was very difficult to deal with and slow to rectify them. I believe he was withholding some of the balance due.

Anyway, it all seems to have come to a head yesterday as after the company visiting, he now has no panels at all, quite a lot of damage on the roof, and the police were there for about an hour trying to mediate some argument...

Probably not a cost that he budgeted for unfortunately, so choose your installers carefully !

[dmsims]

Indeed some of the work by MCS companies is shockingly bad (not mine)

[Frimley111R]

We're part of MCS and it is huge paperwork PITA but it won't stop/prevent bad workmanship.

The sector is struggling due to demand, staffing, parts etc.

People also migrate, often, to large installers who have no/little customer service support too.