Solar Panels?

[g40steve]

86 said:

Just buying a second Tesla Powerwall 2 as price has dropped again. Wholesale price £5k.

Where are you seeing these, i’m Leics/Notts & suppliers only want to sell the new one?

Who's fitting yours for you?

Currently got 5kwh Puredrive but 13kwh gives me more options & island mode

[OutInTheShed]

Burrow01 said:

I am looking at solar installations, and a lot of the reasoning for me is that I cannot see electricity getting any cheaper.
......

I'm looking at solar installations too.

Including big ones in fields.
I think we may find that electricity becomes relatively cheap when the sun is shining over the next few years?

I think we maybe back to solar making a lot of sense if your house or business uses a lot of electricty during the day.

It's impossible to know what power will cost in the future, but the 'worst case. price scenarios that have solar panels paying back over a couple of Summers probably mean Winter prices will be extremely painful for many people.

If electricity gets really dear, gas and oil will be really, really dear.

[soupdragon1]

OutInTheShed said:

Burrow01 said:

I am looking at solar installations, and a lot of the reasoning for me is that I cannot see electricity getting any cheaper.
......

I'm looking at solar installations too.

Including big ones in fields.
I think we may find that electricity becomes relatively cheap when the sun is shining over the next few years?

I think we maybe back to solar making a lot of sense if your house or business uses a lot of electricty during the day.

It's impossible to know what power will cost in the future, but the 'worst case. price scenarios that have solar panels paying back over a couple of Summers probably mean Winter prices will be extremely painful for many people.

If electricity gets really dear, gas and oil will be really, really dear.

Should be a decent year for energy prices. European gas inventory levels are higher than forecast and as we're about to head into milder weather, the projection is that gas prices will fall along with wholesale electricity prices. Thats just the short term projection though.

[Cheib]

OutInTheShed said:

Burrow01 said:

I am looking at solar installations, and a lot of the reasoning for me is that I cannot see electricity getting any cheaper.
......

I'm looking at solar installations too.

Including big ones in fields.
I think we may find that electricity becomes relatively cheap when the sun is shining over the next few years?

I think we maybe back to solar making a lot of sense if your house or business uses a lot of electricty during the day.

It's impossible to know what power will cost in the future, but the 'worst case. price scenarios that have solar panels paying back over a couple of Summers probably mean Winter prices will be extremely painful for many people.

If electricity gets really dear, gas and oil will be really, really dear.

Same here and I think the pricing differential with gas will widen as in I think gas will become proportionately more expensive….it almost has to to “encourage” people to move away from it.

Currently have a very inefficient gas fired central heating system…looking at ASHP with ground mounted PV and batteries. Because we’d be installing the ASHP the works to the entire heating system are VAT free which does make a difference.

I think in ten years time there will be a pricing differential for properties with old gas or oil fired heating systems and those where the investment has already been made.

[OutInTheShed]

Cheib said:

Same here and I think the pricing differential with gas will widen as in I think gas will become proportionately more expensive….it almost has to to “encourage” people to move away from it.

Currently have a very inefficient gas fired central heating system…looking at ASHP with ground mounted PV and batteries. Because we’d be installing the ASHP the works to the entire heating system are VAT free which does make a difference.

I think in ten years time there will be a pricing differential for properties with old gas or oil fired heating systems and those where the investment has already been made.

I think 25 years time, gas will be a joke, because enough people will have given it up that the network costs become excessive.
That's a long way down the road. Or is it when politicians like Khan talk about eliminating 'combustion' in London?

If you're going to try to run your heat pump from your own PV, you might need an awful lot of panels in the winter.
If everyone starts doing that, managing the peaks and troughs of demand will be crazy.

With electricty, we don't just pay for the power, we pay for the grid and the knowledge that we can take more or less whatever we like whenever we like.
That service is going to become a bigger slice of the costs for many people?

[Mr Penguin]

I think it's a good idea to hedge against rising energy prices in the medium to long term given some of the potential risks in the world. If it doesn't save money then so be it - I have spent thousands on house and car insurance with no return and very few people would say I was wrong to spend that.

[pingu393]

Mr Penguin said:

I think it's a good idea to hedge against rising energy prices in the medium to long term given some of the potential risks in the world. If it doesn't save money then so be it - I have spent thousands on house and car insurance with no return and very few people would say I was wrong to spend that.

Despite the name, Mr Penguin is not my alter ego .

[dmsims]

I don't think that's a realistic prospect (esp at night!)

OutInTheShed said:

If you're going to try to run your heat pump from your own PV, you might need an awful lot of panels in the winter.

[OutInTheShed]

dmsims said:

I don't think that's a realistic prospect (esp at night!)

OutInTheShed said:

If you're going to try to run your heat pump from your own PV, you might need an awful lot of panels in the winter.

I think batteries were taken as an assumption.
Failing that, I've got 0.1 of the 6000 miles of mains lead you'd need.

If you were looking for a house move, how much would you be influenced by its heating and insulation properties?
Open question.

[pingu393]

OutInTheShed said:

If you were looking for a house move, how much would you be influenced by its heating and insulation properties?
Open question.

When we moved into this house, the one next door was for sale for £1,000 less, but this one had better insulation and proper double glazing.

£44,500 v. £43,500

[Cheib]

OutInTheShed said:

Cheib said:

Same here and I think the pricing differential with gas will widen as in I think gas will become proportionately more expensive….it almost has to to “encourage” people to move away from it.

Currently have a very inefficient gas fired central heating system…looking at ASHP with ground mounted PV and batteries. Because we’d be installing the ASHP the works to the entire heating system are VAT free which does make a difference.

I think in ten years time there will be a pricing differential for properties with old gas or oil fired heating systems and those where the investment has already been made.

I think 25 years time, gas will be a joke, because enough people will have given it up that the network costs become excessive.
That's a long way down the road. Or is it when politicians like Khan talk about eliminating 'combustion' in London?

If you're going to try to run your heat pump from your own PV, you might need an awful lot of panels in the winter.
If everyone starts doing that, managing the peaks and troughs of demand will be crazy.

With electricty, we don't just pay for the power, we pay for the grid and the knowledge that we can take more or less whatever we like whenever we like.
That service is going to become a bigger slice of the costs for many people?

The cost to upgrade the electricity grid is huge, not sure who is going to pay it but I suspect some of that will get passed on the consumer. I don’t see given the state of the nations finances how it can’t be.

We’re lucky that we have a decent amount of space and have a piece of flat land that is perfect for PV….no shading to the South/West. Combine that with the flexible overnight tariffs and some batteries and my hope is that we won’t have to pay the “full price” for much of our electricity at all. Obviously batteries degrade like PV does so that’s a cost too.

Edited by Cheib on Wednesday 27th March 15:50

[AW10]

Cheib said:

The £250 of interest in the bank is subject to tax, the £250 the panels save you is saving you £250 of post tax income. Based on your example above if the panels costing £5k save me £250 it is the equivalent of an 8% return on your investment as a higher rate tax payer.

But it’s not ROI because you have committed your capital and can’t get it back.

[Snow and Rocks]

Basing a huge capital investment on the fact that gas might become expensive or that gas heated properties might be worth less in the future always strikes me as a bit odd.

Surely you can just change heating system when/if that was to actually happen? If anything the cost of the heat pump/renewable installation will be lower and the performance higher in the future as the technology improves.

Basing the decision on current prices and revisiting as necessary is our plan - the numbers don't remotely stack up for us to replace our perfectly functional oil boiler with an ASHP.

[OutInTheShed]

AW10 said:

But it’s not ROI because you have committed your capital and can’t get it back.

People define terms differently.
The psychology of money is complex and fascinating, I'm well aware lots of people look at money very differently from me, it's more interesting to try understanding that than to try changing it!

One reasonable way of looking at it is that the ROI starts after you've got your capital back?
So, you might have 7 yerars of payback, then 10 years of ROI'?

Some people might argue (/hope?) that the capital is added to the value of the house and can be got back when the house is sold.
Personally I think this is at best, only partly true in most cases.

[Cheib]

AW10 said:

Cheib said:

The £250 of interest in the bank is subject to tax, the £250 the panels save you is saving you £250 of post tax income. Based on your example above if the panels costing £5k save me £250 it is the equivalent of an 8% return on your investment as a higher rate tax payer.

But it’s not ROI because you have committed your capital and can’t get it back.

Understand that. When I spend my capital on gas or electricity bills I can’t get my money back either. I want to lower my spending/costs which is out of my post tax income.

I’d argue you probably can get it back to some extent and generate an ROI. I think in five to ten years time houses with good energy efficient infrastructure will have a pricing differential to what you might call a legacy set up….i.e. gas central heating with an old gas boiler, ste insulation and singe glazed windows (what we had until we installed new windows last autumn). If the investments I am making in the house mean that the house is worth a low single digit % more in ten years time then it will have been a good investment.

I realise plenty of people don’t have that view.

[Mars]

Well, I don't have any figures to hand but my solar woke-up from its winter slumber a few weeks ago, and my batteries are usually fully charged again by late morning. Over the last 2 weeks, I've been generating so much that it's exporting again.

Over winter, my Octopus Energy account went negative by about £400, and they're only collecting ~£200 a month off me, so I hope the solar panels help to correct my account a bit.

[PBCD]

Mars said:

Well, I don't have any figures to hand but my solar woke-up from its winter slumber a few weeks ago, and my batteries are usually fully charged again by late morning. Over the last 2 weeks, I've been generating so much that it's exporting again

That's astonishing given the almost incessant rain and/or overcast days this country has been enduring recently.

Are you in a part of the UK that has somehow escaped the gloomy, cloudy weather?

[Boylston]

Likewise, my solar system has woken up in March. I'm based in Wiltshire and whilst the weather is mixed it feels like spring is here. My March stats todate

Generation 808 kwh
Self consumption 527 kwh
Export 281 kwh

Overall consumption 769 kwh
Import 242 kwh

Simon

[Mars]

PBCD said:

Mars said:

Well, I don't have any figures to hand but my solar woke-up from its winter slumber a few weeks ago, and my batteries are usually fully charged again by late morning. Over the last 2 weeks, I've been generating so much that it's exporting again

That's astonishing given the almost incessant rain and/or overcast days this country has been enduring recently.

Are you in a part of the UK that has somehow escaped the gloomy, cloudy weather?

Bloody hell, no . I'm in Worcestershire, which is almost constantly in flood but there's been enough light, if not direct sunlight, to make my 21 panels happy. And It doesn't take much direct sunlight to give me figures around 4KW or more which seems to be enough to fill the batteries quite quickly.

Currently generating 2.8KW at 9am on bright morning. The sun is directly hitting my 7 east-facing panels. The 14 west-facing panels are doing little at the moment but the batteries are at 63% already.

[Mars]

In fact, here you go...

PV1 is the west facing array and PV2 the east:



I'm not drawing much, as you can see. When I start my PC the draw jumps to about 600W but that's usually about it.

Charging the EV off the granny charger is the trick... trying to only plug it in when the solar generates in excess of 3KW, then I'm not drawing from the grid. Fortunately I don't actually go anywhere very often so I can manage that quite easily.

Edited by Mars on Thursday 28th March 09:07