Been thinking about doing this for ages and just noticed a guy doing a neighbours house to give us a quote. Apparently about E5K after the E2K Irish govt grant.
Anyone had them installed or got any advice pro or anti doing so
Solar panels – are they worth getting?
Bump
Got ours quite some time ago, had them upgraded as originally they were running in series so that if a shadow was cast on one or two then they all went down to producing the same amount. Now they are in parallel they work much better. We could have had storage batteries fitted but planned to move, that hasn’t happened yet.
We have 3 kW of generating power and get paid about £750 to £800 a year, plus what we save using stuff in the day. That is of course dependent on the feed in tariff you are offered. Friends have half our generating power but get a similar amount to us as they have a better feed in tariff.
Same here – 4kW rig with micro-inverters (i.e. ‘in parallel’) so that when the chimney casts a shadow over a couple of them the whole array isn’t compromised. No battery – that would have extended the break even too far for my liking (i.e. until I’m likely dead). Only had them 6 months, so no real data yet accumulated to accurately cost the pay-back period, but the installers reckoned about 6 years, and the rig is guaranteed for 25. Every home should deffo have one.
PS our rig cost just under £8k.
If anyone wants the info on the company we used, covering the Somerset, N. Wilts & S. Glos. (Bristol/Bath/Swindon) and surrounding area , just PM me.
I live 3 degrees north of the equator in a country that has sun for probably more than 360 days in the year, yet the use of solar panels here is still incredibly low. I’ve never understood this. (Although it is starting to pick up with solar farms on the reservoir and them being installed on the roof of more apartment blocks).
Yes, my brother bought a a place in Spain a while ago and was asking me about mine, but added that, looking around the area (he goes on long bike rides), there was virtually no sign of solar take up, despite it being so sunny almost all the time over there..
Seriously consider getting a battery. We don’t have one but getting one installed with everything else apparently saves on installation costs… and I wish we had a battery.
We have them as it is a new house. We didnt install a battery as they are too expensive. But when setting up we had them set up the wiring to connect should we decide to get one.
BTW you need different wiring ( 3 phase ) if you want your battery to keep running the house if power grid goes down.
Feedback into the grid tariffs , at least here, have. Changed a lot. I know a mate on an old plan who gets 65 cents a kw for what he feeds in. We get 11 cents.
Quality varies in solar panels and set up competence. Don’t skimp. And Hubes is right re in parallel.
Dont assume that if your area is cloudy they wont be viable. Having the right orientation is critical to efficiency.
It’s a no-brainer in Oz, obviously. We’ve had solar since Dec. 22, my app tells me, and there hasn’t been a single day since that it hasn’t produced some juice, although it dips in the winter obviously. Our FIT is like Junior’s, about 11 cents, but that still adds up to $636.90 since installation, better than a kick in the teeth, so payback in 5-6 years. Plus of course the bills go right down – ours are $80-90 a month on average, roughly halved. We didn’t have the $$ for a battery, plus there was a rash of batteries exploding at the time, but hey ho.
We have had solar panels for over 10 years – obviously we got the original excellent feed in tariff, but they cost us more back then, but we were lucky inasmuch we had the cash sat in an ISA doing very little. However, it is now much cheaper, VAT free, and the payback should be just as quick. It proved one of the best decisions we ever made as we get over £2,500 a year cash and free leccy. We added a battery last year, and it has been well worthwhile – this time of year we are hardly drawing anything from the grid day or night.
I would heartily recommend it for financial reasons, let alone as a contribution to reducing fossil fuel use.
I couldn’t say whether they’re worth getting – they’ve been on the bungalow for years – but they’re certainly worth having, providing a welcome addition to my state pension and disability benefits.
I’d still rather have my Mum, though – she had them fitted, and I only moved in seven months after her death, once I had finished my forty-six days in hospital following my stroke, and had completed four months of rehab elsewhere.
Our local council did a group purchase scheme but I just missed the deadline.
My house is rectangular and runs North to South, so the long bits of the roof face East & West. East doen’t get much sunshine, West faces the road and a park and, as we’re in a conservation area, I’d have to apply for planning permission to alter the appearance of the roof. South-facing end of roof is so small we’d only get three or four panels on there.
Price of panels shot up with Covid but is back down again now, so I’m waiting for the next scheme.
They’d be a no-brainer here too, given the generosity of sunlight in Thailand, were it not for two things: mains electricity here is so cheap you hardly notice it. Last month was exceptionally hot so we had AC running, extra load on two fridge-freezers, fans running 24hr, and the bill came to about forty of your Brexit pounds. Pfft. The second issue is traditional Thai build quality. Down on the Croisette (the stretch of riverfront with restaurants and bars) they installed a magnificent stainless steel structure to support an impressive array of panels which were to power the many ornate streetlamps. Worked fine until the rains came, exploding the fuse box and setting several panels on fire – maybe a first. The manufacturers quickly removed their advertising and the thing hasn’t been touched for years. You can imagine the engineers shrugging their shoulders – “it’s built to work on sunshine, not rain.”
I used to leave my house blissfully unaware that, on a whim, my dishwasher might catch fire and destroy my kitchen until I read it happened to someone (Paul Wadd?) on here. And now I’m reading about solar panels catching fire and batteries exploding.
This place is making me a bag of nerves..
How opportune I had this letter in the paper only three years ago.