19,000 miles at 40 mpg would cost you £3000 odd pounds per year add that in to your figures and they look even better. Great info here for me as ive just had solar and a battery added plus a ASHP so the savings would cover the cost of the ASHP in the winter.
Great to hear your experience Rob. Good comment Derek, I was just thinking the same thing, if Robs paying £500 in electricity but saving £3000, he's saving £2500 a year. I wonder if Rob included these annual savings how many years would his pay back be on his renewable energy installation? + If you're switching from ICE to EV there's some more savings thanks to cheaper maintenance cost & taxes
Your absolutely right!!! With this video I wanted to keep it simple and not complicate the figures too much with including an EV in to mix and help as many people have a clear understanding of how it’s done. Then we add in the EV 😃, my car to lease is actually £20 per month cheaper than its equivalent petrol version, so that cost Id say is equal, so the savings which to be fair you would get with the tariff anyway, but if your approach is just to become more environmentally friendly, reduce reliance on others and costs, then as a package my solar pv system would pay back in 5 years.
People like you are a real asset to society. Thank you for the amount of time you have taken to share these figures and analysis. Really helpful! One question please, what do you anticipate the expected life of this set up to be? 20/25 years?
Very kind words thank you. I would like to think 20+ years. Im not oblivious to things do break etc. i think the main concern would be the battery and if i remember correctly it has a 10 year warranty to a 70% state of charge.
I'm considering getting set up with solar and this was the perfect video. It answered a lot of questions. Thank you for the effort you put in making this.
Cheers for the video, very informative and for those on the fence regarding the 'hot water' diversion, don't spend your money on it, instead buy extra solar panels if you can or a better inverter or a higher spec battery. I have had a system with all the different elements you've got but different brands and my experience is identical. I have 2x8Kwh batteries with 20 solar panels as well as the option of going offgrid if there is an outage (not often at all) as well as heating the water (I don't use it as it is cheaper to continue using the gas boiler). System cost me £14K in May 2024 but I've already recouped around £500 in 3 months including £130 SEG payment. From August and September, I've changed how we use the system and reached the same conclusion, charge batteries during the off-peak rate at night and top up during the day but anything else export to the grid. To be honest the batteries will come into their own during winter since solar production is likely to be very low as we have seen in some cloudy grey days. I wish I had invested sooner...
I don’t understand this “ruin the look of the house” comments it’s not like they look bad if installed correctly and increased the value of the house as it’s more efficient. It’s just strong language which doesn’t make sense.
I suppose everyone has there own opinions. For me, I don’t mind them, however some look simply shocking. Im really pleased with how ours have turned out by the guys at @ovalrenewables
Great Video and welcome update. Watched your video on the start of things, whilst i opted to follow a different install/setup your videos are always real and informative. People often take offence about solar when ever installation, location and hardware applied is unique add how they use it and is a unique scenario. I went down the Enphase solution; the rolls royce of solar kit. The savings i am seeing are huge and like you say free's up monthly cash in bank for other things. We are heavy users of electric and as such seen our Gas/Electrice reduced from £330 to about £100 pcm (Averages!) so the ROI is going to be between 4-7 years. As i say i am sceptical but so far very much so worth it. I went Micro Inverters, oversized panels, 10kw battery and hot water heater thing. Totalling about 7.2kw export capability (clipped). Shame the batteries are so expensive otherwise would have another 10Kw to them. Im year to date average 19kw daily production Jan to end of Aug. Like yourself time is biggest bug bear as it will tell if you made the right choice but yes so far I'm standing next to you in saying yes its worth it if your home work has been done right, becuase i guarantee its not worthy for alot of people too. Nice one - Pat on the back due!
Fantastic feedback, and thankyou for sharing. Really good to hear other people’s experiences and how it works for them, albeit it seems very similar to us aswell.
A great video. I'm thinking of installing a solar system & warm air boiler. Most of my solar questions answered as to the value of doing so. Thank you.
Good video. We have had panels since June 2018, excluding the fit tarif to keep things even, the price per month for gas and electricity in 2018 was £108 per month. We are now fully electric for heating plus doing a smaller 8k of milage and it is looking at aorund £190 per month. Given that in 2018 electricity was 10pkeh and gas 3per unit, we are doing well. As other comments have stated, 8k milage at 40 mpg would be around £1,300. I think our install is saving approximately £3,000 a year in out goings. Put another way, that is £3,000 a year that doesn't need to be earned and have income tax etc paid. The hardest part of pay back is a bit like compound interest, it is the fact these are charges you do not have to pay. We are on course for the solar setup to break even this year and the batteries next year. The heat pump etc will be 2 years after that (aka 6 years after install). The batteries are at 90% state of health (soh) after 5 years but should be good for another 5 to 10 years, once they get below 70% soh we may swap them out, but by then the technology will have changed so much that the replacement cost will not be much.
We had our house valued and they put an extra value of £12500 on the house because of solar system. It cost us 10! Mates rates but definitely value in having them.
DIY, 84 x 410w panels ground mounted, 4 x 15kWh batteries, 2 x 9kW Sunsynk inverters (1 for Heat Pumps and Hot water and 1 for the main house) and 1 x 7kW Inverter to charge the car. 1 x Sunsynk 3.6kW inverter for export only as house and rest of system is off grid but the export inverter is on grid. Payback is less that 2.5 years as we use a LOT of electricity. No gas or oil.
Fantastic, thats good effort. Personally DIY is not something id suggest for solar but if you’re willing to do it, then fair play and by that I certainly don’t mean the workmanship is worse than some of the cowboys out there, Im pretty confident I could do a better job, but with all the regs and paperwork and essential to ensure the DC connectors in particular are done correctly it’s something id rather pass that risk over for a small additional installation cost.
@@DIYJourney1 I hear you, but I think its ok if: A: You really do know what you are doing and B: You pay an MCS guy to sign off your work. Pay back is under 3 years here as we use an insane amount of electric a day. And yes I've had to double check some really dodgy work from electrical cowboys who thought they could do solar at friends houses.
Thanks Mark, a further expansion to our podcast I hope. If anyone wishes to view the podcast I did with Mark, link below: th-cam.com/video/hSqXUzWVWMI/w-d-xo.htmlsi=_0-mxsLPygLhdrDk
Great review. Payback period seems standard regardless of size 8-10 years is often quoted. More importantly though, you're on a tariff to charge battery and car, but not having to do any overthinking to achieve that payback.
Similar setup here with SolarEdge. Same oversizing ratio 6.4kW panels and 3.8kW inverter. DC coupled is a huge advantage to minimize or reduce solar clipping but unfortunately the SolarEdge software doesn’t have the flexibility to harness this. I’m getting fantastic results with using Home Assistant to control my system it’s initially a learning curve (UI driven not coding so not too techie) but allows full control over what the battery does. My system checks the forecast and if the expected peak generation is high then automatically discharges the battery (post Octopus off peak but pre peak generation) to ensure there is always headspace in the battery to capture the clipped solar. They system is then running most of the day in “discharge to match load” so the battery only stores excess above the inverter size and it switches the battery mode if it hits a low or high SOC threshold. It also allows me to fully discharge the battery at night at 15p before it then recharges at 7p. Last month I generated 610kWh, exported 585kWh (at 15p), used 442kWh off peak (at 7p) and 2kWh peak (at 24p excluding the free electricity days) - deffo worth a look in my opinion!
Thankyou, as I say I believe the cost could be returned in the house price and desirability. Nothing to say we wouldn’t move in that timeframe as in my opinion still very justifiable 😃. Play the Man maths game.
I watched all the videos after seeing the start of this one. Thanks by the way for documenting it. I am a bit surprised by the price though. £18.5k seems quite steep, but I suppose the battery was a fair chunk of that, plus the DHW diverter added later? I only had my system installed last March. Also limited with the 5kW inverter, but then I only have 5.2kWp at the moment. After grant, the system was €6k (€2k grant), so around £5k in your money. Adding 10kWh of battery would have nearly doubled that, so I went the DIY battery route and have 2 X 15kWh batteries which cost about €2k each. That's €10k for my system. Getting the extra ~3kWp of panels would have been £200 per panel, so each panel being 435W I would have needed 7 panels more, so £1,400. I didn't have the space for the extra for the install, so it's just an academic exercise. I didn't think prices between Ireland and the UK would be that different. Thanks again for the videos. Always great to see the experience of others, especially from those who also charge an EV on cheap rates.
Thankyou for sharing your experience. I’m not sure what brand equipment you are comparing too, but I imagine it isn’t like for like. What I paid I feel is appropriate as I couldn’t but the equipment for less and then we have fitting on top. Solar edge equipment in my opinion is quite advanced (at the time of purchase) and offered me much more than any other brand could in terms of safety, compatibility and quality. All of which, I believe comes with a higher cost.
The equipment is comparable, as I was also looking at solar edge inverters. I opted for the Solis Hybrid 5kW and 435W Jinko Black panels. All comparable price-wise and performance wise. Your battery was definitely a chunk of change, but you made the right decision to buy one. I was going to do the same before deciding to build a DIY kit which gave me 3X the storage for less than the price I was going to pay for 10kWh. In fairness, I bargained hard for the solar package, as most quotes were twice the price or higher for what I paid. What is important is you are happy with your setup and it looks great too. I might get myself one of those Tesla smart thermostats you had on your channel. I need a better way to heat my water and keep it at the right temperature.
Great explanation for people considering an install and definitely match your inverter to solar size. My recommendations in 2024 is to look at just a battery install if you want to keep costs lower and not worry about panels on your roof. A 13KW Tesla Powerwall 3 with 11KW peak and home back up is £8000 installed and that takes your electric bill from 26p/KW to 7p/kW which is at least 75% off your bill. Then ask yourself if you want to pay extra for solar panels for the remaining 25%? Then factor in winter when you won’t generate enough to fill the battery and at best solar gives you 6 months of that 25% free energy. So your bill will still be 12.5%. Therefore solar is not ever worth it in my opinion unless you want to feel good. I’ve had a 6KW solar install for 10 years so get FiT payments, but adding a battery next month for the above reasons. The home backup is useful if you work from home and suffer power fluctuations and minor one second power outages or live rural where planned power outages can happen a few times a year.
Thankyou, Yes I agree, Iv worked out my panels contribute around £435 per year to our savings of £1900-£2100. I do like the option in consideration to reliance on energy companies that should things drastically change again I can be self sufficient somewhat.
@@DIYJourney1 me too and being able to go off grid is useful for me living out of town. I just meant for someone new considering solar on a budget, a battery is way more cost effective now if you can’t afford both.
Nice video. Rounding out your figures, install cost 20,000 savings 2,000/yr, so 10 years will pay for it and anything beyond is free. I'm in Australia with 6.4kw of panels, pool and aircon, no battery or EV, My power bill for last year, they paid me $1,100, but my generous feedback tariff is coming to an end, I just priced a system for my son and it is no longer cost effective with the new tariffs. He is better off paying the same lump sum off his mortgage. So be aware of possible tariff changes and how long they are locked in.
We have a sunsynk ECCO 3.6kw hybrid inverter which has been pretty good. We have 6kw of panels and because it's a hybrid it can charge the batteries and export what we aren't using at the same time so we don't really loose out unless the batteries are full when there's 6kw of sun kicking about. It was specifically designed for the UK and doesn't need a G99 from the DNO, having said that i still wish I'd have got a bigger inverter just because of the electric cars. love my panels!
Hi. Welcome back... You can maximise your system by force exporting at 5kw early in the morning and afternoon on sunny days to empty the battery for the peak solar (1pm to 3pm) and get the full inverter capacity 5 AC to the grid and 3 DC to the Battery (8 kw total). Also you have a long charge time for you car so limit the car charger to 5kw and this will tie in with your inverter size. Thus maximising your system and saving 1.6 k investment. 🙂🎉
Thats correct for summer months hence my mention of DC coupled. I am unable to limit the charge rate to 5kw, I would have to buy in 2kw, but it’s cheaper to just charge overnight and export at double the price.
Great video, I love seeing how people are getting on with their systems. In Jan this year I had a south facing 4kw Sunsynk system installed, absolutely love it.. My inverter is only the 3.6 and the battery size "was" 5kwh. I've since added 3 5kwh batteries for a total of 20 kwh, my aim is to swap the inverter for a 5kwh and add a further battery as I have an ev and electric under floor heating now. Unfortunately, you learn so much after having the initial system installed, Is increasing your battery capacity one of your options? How would that affect your figures?
Thats really good to hear your experience. Your absolutely right, it’s a bit trial and error, which is why I want to share these videos. For me, id rather export than store, as I believe it is more cost effective
I have solar divert it has paid for itself i agree you don't need one now but you never what happens with the energy import and export prices so I'm happy i paid extra for it
Interesting, we have sometbhing similar, albeit a victron energy system. the maths will never workout in upgrading to a 8Kw inverter. As you'll only be pulling more than 5kw on sunny days in the summer for an hour or two. Great informative vlog as always 👍- ours costs something similar a year on electricity (house n EV), although we still have an oil boiler, using 1000litres (although its an old garde G house)
Yes thats an option for utilising the DC coupled element, however it just wouldn’t give the solution of charging the car at 7kwh if that was wanted as mentioned in the video, saying that its cheaper to charge the car over night. I suppose benefit of Bigger inverter would allow more to be exported at 15p/kwh rather than store it so would rather just export anything above our usage especially if a bigger one is fitted at the beginning at a similar cost.
@@DIYJourney1 I charge my car overnights at 7kwh and also manage to charge by battery at 1kwh per hour at the same time overnight on the cheaper tarriff. I therefore go into the day with a full home battery to enable export early on. On warmer days, i discharge some of the battery capacity during the late morning to create capacity for the peak day sun where more will be generated above the export capacity. The excess generation therefore has somewhere to go back into the battery.
You should be able to limit the EV charging current at set periods during the day ie: charging the car from excess solar if needed as a top up at 1.5kw and then full 7kw at off peak times.
I can charge my car from excess solar, but as I say at the current tariffs their no point using excess for the charging as it’s cheaper to use off peak rates and then export as much as possible during the day
How would your system performance (costs) be affected if you didn't have an EV to charge and does the overall system repayment cost take into account the purchase cost of the EV too?
Good question and was something I was going to put in this video, but felt could be too much information. I have done the sums, and if we didn’t have an EV, it would be: We would spend (import) an estimated £185 on electricity over the year. But export an estimated £294-£350 of electricity over the year. So you end up earning money around £100-£150 back per year based on our system. Giving a yearly saving of around £1500 per year. The overall repayment, purely concentrates on savings from electricity cost with solar panels and what it would cost for electricity without solar panels as the tarriffs are different. I have not allowed for fuel which is additional savings (for me is estimated to be about £300 per month) or the cost of a car as I feel that is comparable when depreciation is taken into account for how I buy my cars and I would need to have that expense regardless.
If an optimiser fails, the whole string will be switched off till the faulty optimiser is replaced. Usually it takes months and you will be charged with roof access cost and labor. The warranty is not great and covers only the optimiser £50-60
What happens to the battery in 10 years time. Assuming a 1 per cent drop in performance every year that means you will lose approx 10 percent in storage capacity in 10 years which is quite a bit of lost energy.
How often do you see your inverter clipping? DC/AC 8:5 = 1.6 is great. The system produces more using the 5kw inverter than 8kw. That’s standard practice in the design of pv systems and Solaredge accept even higher dc/ac
I don’t witness it cause I don’t see it unless the battery is not 100% which is not often, but imagine it would be daily during summer months. Yes solaredge accept 150% or something don’t they?
I have 24 410w panels facing East West 12/12. Two 5kW PV inverters, 11.6kWh of batteries connected via a 5kW AC inverter and a Zappi car charger and an Eddi Immersion controller. Gas central heating. I've been tweaking my settings to maximise my use of off-peak electricity. Charge car off-peak, charge battery off-peak, heat water off-peak. Set up water heater so that it only tops up ftom the panels when I have a massive solar excess, only plug the car in after dark. I'm currently running a £260 credit on my energy bill. Don't be restricted to the auto-approval limit of a 3.8kW inverter. I got approval for my system which is way over that limit. Approval takes about a month and the application costs a bit more, but for me it was worth it. Oh, and the same Octopus tariffs. Prior to installation I was using an average of 10kWh/day including a low mileage EV. Similar payback period.
Yes it can. As explained in the video it is DC Coupled so will automatically divert to battery as it is now. To make solar financially beneficial, the export needs to be maximised therefore that is my priority with the system now.
@@DIYJourney1 I must have misunderstood, when you were talking about the upgrading of the inverter to solar peak if doing it again you said you would have had to up the dno to 9 thats not true, you can upgrade the inverter and still keep the same dno limit on the inverter in the software under install configuration e.g. if you wanted the max gain but if your goal was to say top up the packs so 2kwh went to the pack to recharge off grid and 5 went to the grid was possible , since your battery is already dc only it just as you rightly said bypassing the inverter to charge ,
Your correct, I can limit export, but why would I do that, when the main benefit with solar pv (in the UK) is to export the spare energy at double what it costs to fill the battery. Export is 15p/kw and import 7.5p/kw. Therefore limiting my export defeats any benefit of spending the extra money. Therefore I would need to inform the DNO to be able to maximise full capacity.
@@DIYJourney1 a number of people are limited by export dno limits especially in towns that prevent solar peak being exported, there is no guarantee that you may get approved for an upgrade unless you were on three phase
I’m very aware of that, You have to inform the DNO over 3.78kwh regardless, as I did for my 5kwh and yes no guarantee of them approving but they have to do the exercise to know.
I can’t remember what all the forms mean without doing some research. If i remember correctly Im sure I was told I’d still have to speak to DNO at a cost, regardless, unsure how true. I do have to limit export as have the solaredge modbus fitted to our system.
That’s an option, however just wouldn’t give me a solution for needing to export energy more than 5kwh. As mentioned the use of solar is now all about exporting and get paid rather than using it.
Trouble is your payback calculations are off. If you'd put your £18k into an ISA and assumed an average of 4% interest (currently you can still get 5% so I'm aiming lower), after 5 years you'd have just shy of £22k. Can your solar make you 4 grand in 5 years and still be worth the investment value? No. No it can't. Don't get me wrong, I have a 6.2kWp solar system and am looking to expand it, but the reality is with interest rates and feed in tariffs the way they are right now, it's definitely not a 'no brainer' as you put it. Including an EV might be worth it, but you've also got to consider the depreciation of that car over running whatever you had before, not just fuel usage. You might well have had 19k miles of free fuel vs £4k of diesel/petrol, but it could have lost £20k off what you bought it for. I don't mean to sound negative but there needs to be balance for consumers rather than people blindly following what works for some.
I think your creating a problem that isn’t relating to this video content. I don’t believe my figures are off and are actually correct. You just may have a different desire opinion on the matter. Very different subjects and goals being achieved. Yes absolutely there are better ways to “make money”, invest £18k as a deposit on a property etc etc, but what about environmental benefits, reducing reliance on others i.e gas from other countries, bills fluctuations, house oricing if thats a thing. Each to there own, but its not all about money. Given inflation is reducing its likely interest will reduce slightly too once settles in months to come likely nothing like we used to have. All my figures are at todays rates not rates in 10 years times, which you are not accounting for, who knows what electricity will be then, iv just had an email saying an increase of 10%. Investing money in a hostile market does not protect against gas & electric bills as you could potentially spend more on bills reducing savings. Therefore for me it is a no brainer to reduce risk. As for cars, I lease cars, my ev is cheaper than the petrol equivalent so therefore depreciates less aswell as less to run.
@@DIYJourney1 I'm just trying to show that by not investing so heavily into such an expensive system doesn't mean you're missing out. Keeping your money in a typical savings account can give you a better short term return. That's important for people who are thinking of buying into solar but still aren't sure. As for the environmental factors, I don't think you really believe that either, else you wouldn't be leasing a new car every 2/3 years. Why not buy your EV out of lease and keep it until it's no longer cost effective?
Thats fair, I’m not sure If people are looking to invest their money, that solar panels would be something on peoples mind…I could be wrong. I was being generic for other people for environmental factors, however if it helps to suit your interests in me, MY needs to replace my vehicles to be inline with warranties and remove the risk to allow me to deliver my work due to high mileage. I do feel changing an EV is not an issue in my opinion due to it being passed to someone else, so I suppose it’s therefore being recycled 🙂.
@@DIYJourney1 And that's fair too. As I said before - I'm not trying to be negative, just that it's a big decision for people and isn't always the right one. I'm more than happy with my solar setup, but having created a spreadsheet to show me payback, among other things, it's actually shown the timescales to be far longer than I 'thought' I'd understood beforehand.
19,000 miles at 40 mpg would cost you £3000 odd pounds per year add that in to your figures and they look even better. Great info here for me as ive just had solar and a battery added plus a ASHP so the savings would cover the cost of the ASHP in the winter.
Absolutely, as a whole package it just makes sense.
Thankyou, good to hear feedback. Would be really keen to hear your ASHP experience so far.
Great to hear your experience Rob. Good comment Derek, I was just thinking the same thing, if Robs paying £500 in electricity but saving £3000, he's saving £2500 a year. I wonder if Rob included these annual savings how many years would his pay back be on his renewable energy installation?
+ If you're switching from ICE to EV there's some more savings thanks to cheaper maintenance cost & taxes
Your absolutely right!!!
With this video I wanted to keep it simple and not complicate the figures too much with including an EV in to mix and help as many people have a clear understanding of how it’s done.
Then we add in the EV 😃, my car to lease is actually £20 per month cheaper than its equivalent petrol version, so that cost Id say is equal, so the savings which to be fair you would get with the tariff anyway, but if your approach is just to become more environmentally friendly, reduce reliance on others and costs, then as a package my solar pv system would pay back in 5 years.
People like you are a real asset to society. Thank you for the amount of time you have taken to share these figures and analysis. Really helpful! One question please, what do you anticipate the expected life of this set up to be? 20/25 years?
Very kind words thank you.
I would like to think 20+ years. Im not oblivious to things do break etc. i think the main concern would be the battery and if i remember correctly it has a 10 year warranty to a 70% state of charge.
I'm considering getting set up with solar and this was the perfect video. It answered a lot of questions.
Thank you for the effort you put in making this.
Thankyou, really pleased to hear it has helped you.
Cheers for the video, very informative and for those on the fence regarding the 'hot water' diversion, don't spend your money on it, instead buy extra solar panels if you can or a better inverter or a higher spec battery.
I have had a system with all the different elements you've got but different brands and my experience is identical. I have 2x8Kwh batteries with 20 solar panels as well as the option of going offgrid if there is an outage (not often at all) as well as heating the water (I don't use it as it is cheaper to continue using the gas boiler).
System cost me £14K in May 2024 but I've already recouped around £500 in 3 months including £130 SEG payment.
From August and September, I've changed how we use the system and reached the same conclusion, charge batteries during the off-peak rate at night and top up during the day but anything else export to the grid. To be honest the batteries will come into their own during winter since solar production is likely to be very low as we have seen in some cloudy grey days.
I wish I had invested sooner...
Thank you for an incredibly honest look at your setup. It’s not easy putting yourself out there.
Great Video . Thank you for taking the time to make it .
Very Informative.. 👍
I don’t understand this “ruin the look of the house” comments it’s not like they look bad if installed correctly and increased the value of the house as it’s more efficient. It’s just strong language which doesn’t make sense.
I suppose everyone has there own opinions. For me, I don’t mind them, however some look simply shocking. Im really pleased with how ours have turned out by the guys at @ovalrenewables
@@DIYJourney1 I agree. It looks really good. Houses in their own right are generally pretty unattractive.
Great overview - thanks Rob! Totally agree with all the benefits and lessons learnt.
Great Video and welcome update. Watched your video on the start of things, whilst i opted to follow a different install/setup your videos are always real and informative. People often take offence about solar when ever installation, location and hardware applied is unique add how they use it and is a unique scenario. I went down the Enphase solution; the rolls royce of solar kit. The savings i am seeing are huge and like you say free's up monthly cash in bank for other things. We are heavy users of electric and as such seen our Gas/Electrice reduced from £330 to about £100 pcm (Averages!) so the ROI is going to be between 4-7 years. As i say i am sceptical but so far very much so worth it. I went Micro Inverters, oversized panels, 10kw battery and hot water heater thing. Totalling about 7.2kw export capability (clipped). Shame the batteries are so expensive otherwise would have another 10Kw to them. Im year to date average 19kw daily production Jan to end of Aug. Like yourself time is biggest bug bear as it will tell if you made the right choice but yes so far I'm standing next to you in saying yes its worth it if your home work has been done right, becuase i guarantee its not worthy for alot of people too. Nice one - Pat on the back due!
Fantastic feedback, and thankyou for sharing. Really good to hear other people’s experiences and how it works for them, albeit it seems very similar to us aswell.
A great video. I'm thinking of installing a solar system & warm air boiler. Most of my solar questions answered as to the value of doing so.
Thank you.
Good video. We have had panels since June 2018, excluding the fit tarif to keep things even, the price per month for gas and electricity in 2018 was £108 per month. We are now fully electric for heating plus doing a smaller 8k of milage and it is looking at aorund £190 per month.
Given that in 2018 electricity was 10pkeh and gas 3per unit, we are doing well. As other comments have stated, 8k milage at 40 mpg would be around £1,300. I think our install is saving approximately £3,000 a year in out goings.
Put another way, that is £3,000 a year that doesn't need to be earned and have income tax etc paid. The hardest part of pay back is a bit like compound interest, it is the fact these are charges you do not have to pay.
We are on course for the solar setup to break even this year and the batteries next year. The heat pump etc will be 2 years after that (aka 6 years after install). The batteries are at 90% state of health (soh) after 5 years but should be good for another 5 to 10 years, once they get below 70% soh we may swap them out, but by then the technology will have changed so much that the replacement cost will not be much.
Fantastic, thankyou for sharing. Really good to hear people with more experience of these systems.
Excellent video, I’m already onboard and saved pounds, next step for me is a battery, scheduled for later this year. All the best.
Fantastic, hopefully works out well for you as it has us.
We had our house valued and they put an extra value of £12500 on the house because of solar system. It cost us 10! Mates rates but definitely value in having them.
Oh wow, that’s interesting to know. I have heard a few people say estate agents have said that. Did the property sell?
@@DIYJourney1 no it was just to get an idea what we had added to the house with the work we have done.
Fair enough, thanks for sharing. It’s good information to know.
DIY, 84 x 410w panels ground mounted, 4 x 15kWh batteries, 2 x 9kW Sunsynk inverters (1 for Heat Pumps and Hot water and 1 for the main house) and 1 x 7kW Inverter to charge the car. 1 x Sunsynk 3.6kW inverter for export only as house and rest of system is off grid but the export inverter is on grid. Payback is less that 2.5 years as we use a LOT of electricity. No gas or oil.
Fantastic, thats good effort. Personally DIY is not something id suggest for solar but if you’re willing to do it, then fair play and by that I certainly don’t mean the workmanship is worse than some of the cowboys out there, Im pretty confident I could do a better job, but with all the regs and paperwork and essential to ensure the DC connectors in particular are done correctly it’s something id rather pass that risk over for a small additional installation cost.
@@DIYJourney1 I hear you, but I think its ok if: A: You really do know what you are doing and B: You pay an MCS guy to sign off your work. Pay back is under 3 years here as we use an insane amount of electric a day. And yes I've had to double check some really dodgy work from electrical cowboys who thought they could do solar at friends houses.
Absolutely agree 👍🏼
Fantastic video Rob. 💪
Thanks Mark, a further expansion to our podcast I hope.
If anyone wishes to view the podcast I did with Mark, link below:
th-cam.com/video/hSqXUzWVWMI/w-d-xo.htmlsi=_0-mxsLPygLhdrDk
Great review. Payback period seems standard regardless of size 8-10 years is often quoted. More importantly though, you're on a tariff to charge battery and car, but not having to do any overthinking to achieve that payback.
Thats it, absolutely, it’s working the best it’s ever been so far and just happens. Really pleased with this last 12 months.
Similar setup here with SolarEdge. Same oversizing ratio 6.4kW panels and 3.8kW inverter. DC coupled is a huge advantage to minimize or reduce solar clipping but unfortunately the SolarEdge software doesn’t have the flexibility to harness this. I’m getting fantastic results with using Home Assistant to control my system it’s initially a learning curve (UI driven not coding so not too techie) but allows full control over what the battery does. My system checks the forecast and if the expected peak generation is high then automatically discharges the battery (post Octopus off peak but pre peak generation) to ensure there is always headspace in the battery to capture the clipped solar. They system is then running most of the day in “discharge to match load” so the battery only stores excess above the inverter size and it switches the battery mode if it hits a low or high SOC threshold. It also allows me to fully discharge the battery at night at 15p before it then recharges at 7p. Last month I generated 610kWh, exported 585kWh (at 15p), used 442kWh off peak (at 7p) and 2kWh peak (at 24p excluding the free electricity days) - deffo worth a look in my opinion!
Iv also got Home Assistant, however not had chance to fully play and understand it just yet.
Welcome back. Useful to see the payback, still really want it at our house but the mrs keeps saying she might want to move in the next 5-10years 😢
Thankyou, as I say I believe the cost could be returned in the house price and desirability. Nothing to say we wouldn’t move in that timeframe as in my opinion still very justifiable 😃. Play the Man maths game.
Missed your videos. Very informative, particularly as we are planning an electric car purchase. 👍👍
Thankyou, any questions by all means ask away 👍🏼
I watched all the videos after seeing the start of this one. Thanks by the way for documenting it. I am a bit surprised by the price though. £18.5k seems quite steep, but I suppose the battery was a fair chunk of that, plus the DHW diverter added later? I only had my system installed last March. Also limited with the 5kW inverter, but then I only have 5.2kWp at the moment. After grant, the system was €6k (€2k grant), so around £5k in your money. Adding 10kWh of battery would have nearly doubled that, so I went the DIY battery route and have 2 X 15kWh batteries which cost about €2k each. That's €10k for my system. Getting the extra ~3kWp of panels would have been £200 per panel, so each panel being 435W I would have needed 7 panels more, so £1,400. I didn't have the space for the extra for the install, so it's just an academic exercise. I didn't think prices between Ireland and the UK would be that different.
Thanks again for the videos. Always great to see the experience of others, especially from those who also charge an EV on cheap rates.
Thankyou for sharing your experience.
I’m not sure what brand equipment you are comparing too, but I imagine it isn’t like for like.
What I paid I feel is appropriate as I couldn’t but the equipment for less and then we have fitting on top. Solar edge equipment in my opinion is quite advanced (at the time of purchase) and offered me much more than any other brand could in terms of safety, compatibility and quality. All of which, I believe comes with a higher cost.
The equipment is comparable, as I was also looking at solar edge inverters. I opted for the Solis Hybrid 5kW and 435W Jinko Black panels. All comparable price-wise and performance wise.
Your battery was definitely a chunk of change, but you made the right decision to buy one. I was going to do the same before deciding to build a DIY kit which gave me 3X the storage for less than the price I was going to pay for 10kWh.
In fairness, I bargained hard for the solar package, as most quotes were twice the price or higher for what I paid.
What is important is you are happy with your setup and it looks great too.
I might get myself one of those Tesla smart thermostats you had on your channel. I need a better way to heat my water and keep it at the right temperature.
Great explanation for people considering an install and definitely match your inverter to solar size.
My recommendations in 2024 is to look at just a battery install if you want to keep costs lower and not worry about panels on your roof. A 13KW Tesla Powerwall 3 with 11KW peak and home back up is £8000 installed and that takes your electric bill from 26p/KW to 7p/kW which is at least 75% off your bill. Then ask yourself if you want to pay extra for solar panels for the remaining 25%? Then factor in winter when you won’t generate enough to fill the battery and at best solar gives you 6 months of that 25% free energy. So your bill will still be 12.5%. Therefore solar is not ever worth it in my opinion unless you want to feel good.
I’ve had a 6KW solar install for 10 years so get FiT payments, but adding a battery next month for the above reasons. The home backup is useful if you work from home and suffer power fluctuations and minor one second power outages or live rural where planned power outages can happen a few times a year.
Thankyou, Yes I agree, Iv worked out my panels contribute around £435 per year to our savings of £1900-£2100.
I do like the option in consideration to reliance on energy companies that should things drastically change again I can be self sufficient somewhat.
@@DIYJourney1 me too and being able to go off grid is useful for me living out of town. I just meant for someone new considering solar on a budget, a battery is way more cost effective now if you can’t afford both.
Nice video. Rounding out your figures, install cost 20,000 savings 2,000/yr, so 10 years will pay for it and anything beyond is free.
I'm in Australia with 6.4kw of panels, pool and aircon, no battery or EV, My power bill for last year, they paid me $1,100, but my generous feedback tariff is coming to an end,
I just priced a system for my son and it is no longer cost effective with the new tariffs. He is better off paying the same lump sum off his mortgage.
So be aware of possible tariff changes and how long they are locked in.
We have a sunsynk ECCO 3.6kw hybrid inverter which has been pretty good. We have 6kw of panels and because it's a hybrid it can charge the batteries and export what we aren't using at the same time so we don't really loose out unless the batteries are full when there's 6kw of sun kicking about. It was specifically designed for the UK and doesn't need a G99 from the DNO, having said that i still wish I'd have got a bigger inverter just because of the electric cars. love my panels!
Big thanks. Well explained.
Thankyou, hope it helps.
Hi. Welcome back... You can maximise your system by force exporting at 5kw early in the morning and afternoon on sunny days to empty the battery for the peak solar (1pm to 3pm) and get the full inverter capacity 5 AC to the grid and 3 DC to the Battery (8 kw total). Also you have a long charge time for you car so limit the car charger to 5kw and this will tie in with your inverter size. Thus maximising your system and saving 1.6 k investment. 🙂🎉
Thats correct for summer months hence my mention of DC coupled.
I am unable to limit the charge rate to 5kw, I would have to buy in 2kw, but it’s cheaper to just charge overnight and export at double the price.
Great video , when are you going to patch that ceiling 😆
Thankyou, When the garage gets skimmed and Im done with needing the access, unless you fancy coming and doing it? 😃
Great video, I love seeing how people are getting on with their systems.
In Jan this year I had a south facing 4kw Sunsynk system installed, absolutely love it.. My inverter is only the 3.6 and the battery size "was" 5kwh. I've since added 3 5kwh batteries for a total of 20 kwh, my aim is to swap the inverter for a 5kwh and add a further battery as I have an ev and electric under floor heating now. Unfortunately, you learn so much after having the initial system installed, Is increasing your battery capacity one of your options? How would that affect your figures?
Thats really good to hear your experience. Your absolutely right, it’s a bit trial and error, which is why I want to share these videos.
For me, id rather export than store, as I believe it is more cost effective
I have solar divert it has paid for itself i agree you don't need one now but you never what happens with the energy import and export prices so I'm happy i paid extra for it
Absolutely, it’s good to have and was the right decision at the time. We shall see, at least it keeps us not using as much gas.
Interesting, we have sometbhing similar, albeit a victron energy system. the maths will never workout in upgrading to a 8Kw inverter. As you'll only be pulling more than 5kw on sunny days in the summer for an hour or two. Great informative vlog as always 👍- ours costs something similar a year on electricity (house n EV), although we still have an oil boiler, using 1000litres (although its an old garde G house)
Thankyou for sharing, Thats really good to hear the outputs of our system match that of others.
Brilliant vid very interesting
Thankyou
Rather than match the inverter size, I dump some of my battery mid morning to generate additional capacity for the peak generation window.
Yes thats an option for utilising the DC coupled element, however it just wouldn’t give the solution of charging the car at 7kwh if that was wanted as mentioned in the video, saying that its cheaper to charge the car over night. I suppose benefit of Bigger inverter would allow more to be exported at 15p/kwh rather than store it so would rather just export anything above our usage especially if a bigger one is fitted at the beginning at a similar cost.
@@DIYJourney1 I charge my car overnights at 7kwh and also manage to charge by battery at 1kwh per hour at the same time overnight on the cheaper tarriff. I therefore go into the day with a full home battery to enable export early on. On warmer days, i discharge some of the battery capacity during the late morning to create capacity for the peak day sun where more will be generated above the export capacity. The excess generation therefore has somewhere to go back into the battery.
Same here 👍🏼 but if I was doing it again, I would match the inverter size to the array for not much cost difference.
You should be able to limit the EV charging current at set periods during the day ie: charging the car from excess solar if needed as a top up at 1.5kw and then full 7kw at off peak times.
I can charge my car from excess solar, but as I say at the current tariffs their no point using excess for the charging as it’s cheaper to use off peak rates and then export as much as possible during the day
How would your system performance (costs) be affected if you didn't have an EV to charge and does the overall system repayment cost take into account the purchase cost of the EV too?
Good question and was something I was going to put in this video, but felt could be too much information.
I have done the sums, and if we didn’t have an EV, it would be:
We would spend (import) an estimated £185 on electricity over the year.
But export an estimated £294-£350 of electricity over the year.
So you end up earning money around £100-£150 back per year based on our system. Giving a yearly saving of around £1500 per year.
The overall repayment, purely concentrates on savings from electricity cost with solar panels and what it would cost for electricity without solar panels as the tarriffs are different. I have not allowed for fuel which is additional savings (for me is estimated to be about £300 per month) or the cost of a car as I feel that is comparable when depreciation is taken into account for how I buy my cars and I would need to have that expense regardless.
If an optimiser fails, the whole string will be switched off till the faulty optimiser is replaced.
Usually it takes months and you will be charged with roof access cost and labor.
The warranty is not great and covers only the optimiser £50-60
Random comment, What else would you expect? Of course warranty only covers the equipment.
They are worth it 110 %
Agreed
What happens to the battery in 10 years time. Assuming a 1 per cent drop in performance every year that means you will lose approx 10 percent in storage capacity in 10 years which is quite a bit of lost energy.
It wont store as much. If it drops below 75% of capacity (if i remember correctly) it is covered under your warranty T&C’s for mine.
How often do you see your inverter clipping?
DC/AC 8:5 = 1.6 is great. The system produces more using the 5kw inverter than 8kw.
That’s standard practice in the design of pv systems and Solaredge accept even higher dc/ac
I don’t witness it cause I don’t see it unless the battery is not 100% which is not often, but imagine it would be daily during summer months. Yes solaredge accept 150% or something don’t they?
I have 24 410w panels facing East West 12/12. Two 5kW PV inverters, 11.6kWh of batteries connected via a 5kW AC inverter and a Zappi car charger and an Eddi Immersion controller.
Gas central heating.
I've been tweaking my settings to maximise my use of off-peak electricity.
Charge car off-peak, charge battery off-peak, heat water off-peak.
Set up water heater so that it only tops up ftom the panels when I have a massive solar excess, only plug the car in after dark.
I'm currently running a £260 credit on my energy bill.
Don't be restricted to the auto-approval limit of a 3.8kW inverter. I got approval for my system which is way over that limit. Approval takes about a month and the application costs a bit more, but for me it was worth it.
Oh, and the same Octopus tariffs. Prior to installation I was using an average of 10kWh/day including a low mileage EV.
Similar payback period.
Sounds like a very similar experience to us 👍🏼, great to hear.
Which company you use pal?
The install was done by oval renewables.
They are on all social media etc 👍🏼
Go for a sunsynk 8.8kw with export limited to 5kw so you don't have to go back to the dno
I don’t wish to limit, exporting is where you make the savings.
Can’t the inverter be configured to keep your dno export rate like other brands ? Yet divert to other sources internally like solis inverters
Yes it can. As explained in the video it is DC Coupled so will automatically divert to battery as it is now.
To make solar financially beneficial, the export needs to be maximised therefore that is my priority with the system now.
@@DIYJourney1 I must have misunderstood, when you were talking about the upgrading of the inverter to solar peak if doing it again you said you would have had to up the dno to 9 thats not true, you can upgrade the inverter and still keep the same dno limit on the inverter in the software under install configuration e.g. if you wanted the max gain but if your goal was to say top up the packs so 2kwh went to the pack to recharge off grid and 5 went to the grid was possible , since your battery is already dc only it just as you rightly said bypassing the inverter to charge ,
Your correct, I can limit export, but why would I do that, when the main benefit with solar pv (in the UK) is to export the spare energy at double what it costs to fill the battery. Export is 15p/kw and import 7.5p/kw. Therefore limiting my export defeats any benefit of spending the extra money. Therefore I would need to inform the DNO to be able to maximise full capacity.
@@DIYJourney1 a number of people are limited by export dno limits especially in towns that prevent solar peak being exported, there is no guarantee that you may get approved for an upgrade unless you were on three phase
I’m very aware of that, You have to inform the DNO over 3.78kwh regardless, as I did for my 5kwh and yes no guarantee of them approving but they have to do the exercise to know.
Great video … wish you’d stand still tho’ makes me feel a bit seasick watching 🤢😀
Im not sure whether you’ve ever made a video, but its not always easy to do. Id maybe suggest if you watch any of my future videos to listen only.
@@DIYJourney1 didn’t mean to offend you with that comment…it was supposed to be constructive from a viewers point with no malice intended
....could you not get 7kW inverter and apply a G100 export limit if the DNO needs it?
I can’t remember what all the forms mean without doing some research. If i remember correctly Im sure I was told I’d still have to speak to DNO at a cost, regardless, unsure how true. I do have to limit export as have the solaredge modbus fitted to our system.
@@DIYJourney1 your DNO should give you a quote price for your application without paying anything though. Might be worth asking them
Thats correct, £370
Don't change your inverter, get a bigger battery, if you are not able to use the excess solar.
That’s an option, however just wouldn’t give me a solution for needing to export energy more than 5kwh. As mentioned the use of solar is now all about exporting and get paid rather than using it.
If you just got an ac coupled system with no solar panels , the payback would be maybe 5 years
Very subjective to what you want out of a system that may be more important than payback time, as I mentioned in the video, such as safety features.
Trouble is your payback calculations are off.
If you'd put your £18k into an ISA and assumed an average of 4% interest (currently you can still get 5% so I'm aiming lower), after 5 years you'd have just shy of £22k. Can your solar make you 4 grand in 5 years and still be worth the investment value? No. No it can't.
Don't get me wrong, I have a 6.2kWp solar system and am looking to expand it, but the reality is with interest rates and feed in tariffs the way they are right now, it's definitely not a 'no brainer' as you put it.
Including an EV might be worth it, but you've also got to consider the depreciation of that car over running whatever you had before, not just fuel usage. You might well have had 19k miles of free fuel vs £4k of diesel/petrol, but it could have lost £20k off what you bought it for.
I don't mean to sound negative but there needs to be balance for consumers rather than people blindly following what works for some.
I think your creating a problem that isn’t relating to this video content.
I don’t believe my figures are off and are actually correct. You just may have a different desire opinion on the matter.
Very different subjects and goals being achieved. Yes absolutely there are better ways to “make money”, invest £18k as a deposit on a property etc etc, but what about environmental benefits, reducing reliance on others i.e gas from other countries, bills fluctuations, house oricing if thats a thing. Each to there own, but its not all about money.
Given inflation is reducing its likely interest will reduce slightly too once settles in months to come likely nothing like we used to have.
All my figures are at todays rates not rates in 10 years times, which you are not accounting for, who knows what electricity will be then, iv just had an email saying an increase of 10%. Investing money in a hostile market does not protect against gas & electric bills as you could potentially spend more on bills reducing savings. Therefore for me it is a no brainer to reduce risk.
As for cars, I lease cars, my ev is cheaper than the petrol equivalent so therefore depreciates less aswell as less to run.
@@DIYJourney1 I'm just trying to show that by not investing so heavily into such an expensive system doesn't mean you're missing out. Keeping your money in a typical savings account can give you a better short term return. That's important for people who are thinking of buying into solar but still aren't sure.
As for the environmental factors, I don't think you really believe that either, else you wouldn't be leasing a new car every 2/3 years. Why not buy your EV out of lease and keep it until it's no longer cost effective?
Thats fair, I’m not sure If people are looking to invest their money, that solar panels would be something on peoples mind…I could be wrong.
I was being generic for other people for environmental factors, however if it helps to suit your interests in me, MY needs to replace my vehicles to be inline with warranties and remove the risk to allow me to deliver my work due to high mileage. I do feel changing an EV is not an issue in my opinion due to it being passed to someone else, so I suppose it’s therefore being recycled 🙂.
@@DIYJourney1 And that's fair too.
As I said before - I'm not trying to be negative, just that it's a big decision for people and isn't always the right one.
I'm more than happy with my solar setup, but having created a spreadsheet to show me payback, among other things, it's actually shown the timescales to be far longer than I 'thought' I'd understood beforehand.
Absolutely, Thats why I thought id share my experience on TH-cam to help people make those difficult decisions.