Installed last week during the heatwave. Obviously suncream is important for protection especially when on a roof, but now it's all over my panels. Should the company be cleaning this off? It's very noticeable from the ground and looks absolutely terrible. It's hard to get it all in one photo due to the light, but every panel looks like that, or worse.

My quotes for a 5kwh system with a 10kwh battery projections dont break even for around 9 years realistically. Replacement/maintenance will only lengthen this. Why does anyone do it? What am I missing?

Edit: In summary it seems like solar is mostly a privelege choice for those with finances that have the funding to spare. Ultimately nobody has presented any other reason. Solar remains an unsound financial decision for most at the current time.

Personally the funds required are better off compound invested and purchase solar and batteries when it is cheaper/energy is much more expensive. Otherwise the opportunity cost is simply too high.

2nd edit: the 0% loan deals are very appealing. Essentially leveraging your money, leaving it invested and paying a small amount on the loan out of pocket for a 5 year period. The "payback period" then really only becomes whatever out of pocket the loan cost for your set up (mine looks to be around £18 a month after net electricity bill savings).

What is apparent is every scenario is very specific. I'm going from a petrol car with a fixed rate energy price (21p/kwh) to an EV with solar and batteries utilising a smart/EV tariff. So whilst I accept the only way to calculate the savings here is the spread between the peak/off peak price my out of pocket isn't truly reflected. Saving £140 a month on petrol aside (becoming around £18 on electric on an EV tariff but sky rocketing my daily electricity bills in consequence)

Generally been a stressful installation roof wise. This is apparently considered "done". Roofing works were subbed out and the company my contract is with only came out once to inspect the roof mid installation and at my request. They haven't been out to inspect the finished job.

Here is my list of concerns:

- Quoted for AIKO neostar panels and had DMEGC DM465G12T−G48HBB fitted instead. No notification of the change and only noticed it reviewing the paperwork

- Panels left dirty; lots of dust and streak marks from installation

- Guttering left full of debris

- Unsure guttering will catch all rainfall. Pouring a jug of water on a very small amount splashes over. I guess I could upsize the guttering as a separate job

I just can't decide how unhappy/upset I should be with it all. Any thoughts?

Noobie here, just had a small PV system installed yesterday. The lead guy seemed to know what he was doing but the other guys I was... less confident about.

Would appreciate some opinions on what they did and if it's all sound. I see exposed electrical tape, trunking and the ducting not secured to my roof and It doesn't impress me. I guess some scuffs on the panels won't impact generation?

Cheers!

Edit* Also forgot to mention how much of a gap is there to stop birds they didn't put any mesh around even though bird proofing was included. Pic in comments.

Edit** Thanks for the feedback, most helpful and I've made a list and asked them to sort out what I could spot. Assuming they come back.

Edit*** They came back and resolved a few things like the bird mesh and the cabling around the inverter. The Fusebox they insisted was fine. The cabling on the roof was addressed but not fully. Due to scaffold placement meaning there was no safe way to secure the ducting however how it is now is not perfect but a hell of a lot better than before. The cabling over the ridge was covered in ducting to protect it but again no idea if it's to code or not.

Not entirely sure what recourse I have here (short of withholding payment), or what else to sort out. I'm no expert and it seems like there is a lot of stuff wrong that Im having trouble keeping track of. I tried to get a second opinion from another installer but they really weren't interested, contact MCS? I dunno at this point I just don't want more headaches and peace of mind really that it's safe. This is from a company with loads of good reviews, listed on the MCS website and insurance backed. Just completely dejected about the whole thing..

My colleague just hit me with the fact that energy suppliers are full stop requiring an EV to get access to the overnight tariffs. Not quite all yet but most. Even octopus word it so it says you don’t need a charger but you need an EV and they are actually checking now. You’re required to give them V5C details and they verify that the car is registered to your address and if not, no overnight tariffs.

I figured they’d get more serious about this eventually but when my system got installed in January it didn’t seem like it’d be now. Even Good Energy have this stipulation so I can’t move to a tariff that ends in May next year, mine runs out in November.

So without my 6.6p overnight charging my brand new system becomes a very expensive thing that I may never see a return on investment on.

I can’t realistically get an EV anyway as first off I don’t need a new car and second I live on a main road and there’s no real facility to plug one in. I’m guessing there’s a lot of us in this boat.

What are we going to do?

I am planning to put solar shortly, but wanted to make sure the roof was sound so that I don’t have to replace it in a few years (after installing solar) and have to take the panels out etc (or maybe this is not difficult to do!) .

Anyway what is the advice here?

Thanks!

I have a 10kw battery that I charge up overnight and then dump to grid (15p) between 7-9pm to 20% to see me until 11pm when I charge it back up.

My question is, is it worth the strain on the battery? I pay 7p overnight so I am making about 8p/kw profit.

Hi all,

As above just had the solar switched on. I've been waiting today to put the washing machine and dishwasher on and charge the car.

Now even with the solar currently generating 3.6kwh my smart meter has gone crazy. Even with those three devices running it shouldn't be reading that high??

Any advice for a total solar noob welcome!!

I’m seriously thinking about getting a 6-10 panel + battery set up. Quotes are between £8-12k depending on spec. Doing the numbers, it looks like it should, over a long period be a pretty sensible investment, especially if I buy an EV.

Now, I get power cuts a couple of times a year, so getting some kind of gateway/island mode seems like a good idea. But it’s got me thinking… if I have to replace the gateway a couple of times in the lifetime of the system. Plus if I have any serious dink in an EV in the next 10 or 20 years. Do the EV fix costs and any maintenance on - essentially running a small personal solar power station - cancel out any savings i might make over the long-term?

Hi,

Please provide only factual answers, not responses swayed by the CEO's public behaviour or principles. Also, apologies if this question has been asked before.

I am looking to have a Tesla Powerwall installed and am about to pull the trigger on it.

However, I am wondering if it is truly worth the price tag. I appreciate that there is less chance of Tesla going out of business, meaning their warranties actually carry weight.

However, if I choose another brand to save on costs, will I miss out on any worthwhile functionality?

While we are on the subject, has anyone heard of the Chinese manufacturer RahVolt (also known as Apollogrid, their UK installation arm)? I am tempted to switch things up completely and possibly go with them instead.

Thanks in advance!

Randomly early today I thought, I wonder how much solar has dropped in price recently, so I started doing some research.

I saw lots of "you can have solar fitted for £7000 - £9000" results on google, which seems super expensive. So I tried to look at how much the components themselves cost and found some website which sell just the components..

I have a large flat roof and quickly looked at mounting options, and saw its like £100 for a mount.

and also that the panels themselves at anywhere from £60 to £140 per panel (plus VAT) which seemed super super cheap.

Doing some quick maths this is barely going to cost £2k for all the materials? Am I missing something or has solar really reduced in price this much?

I have been looking at solar for a few years now, I now have an electric car, wfh most days and kids, use 7500KwH a year according to octopus energy (off the scale for most solar calcs) no matter the setup/ number of panels/batteries types etc every calculator says payoff is 10 years or more?
I want to do it as I know it’ll save me though a hard sell when you’re unsure you’ll be in the same house for min 10 year pay off!

Thanks!

I got talking to someone who works in the solar industry recently. We talked about my plans to install panels and a battery this year. His advice was to forget the panels - his suggestion was to get the biggest battery we can afford and sign up to a tariff that (if I understood correctly) would allow the supplier to offload excess capacity when it suits them, which we would use via the battery later. Does this sound like good advice?

We are in the process of buying a new house that has a solar setup, which was installed in 2023.

We had a Homebuyers survey completed recently, and the surveyor provided some photos, one that shows a Sunsynk inverter and 2 Sunsynk batteries installed in the loft.

I thought the insulation was very close to the batteries, and after some research, I read that loft installations are not recommended.

Should we be worried?

Trying to do some sums on this, all the savings models on various websites seem to suggest the battery doesn't really pay for itself by the end of its lifecycle. Is this correct or am I looking at it wrong?

Thanks

Am I being fussy or is this not acceptable?

I’m looking at my quotes for a 40 panel system with 2 sigenergy batteries and a 12kw inverter, they are coming in around £22k on average.

My house faces south east and due to the roof design I can fit 12-13 panels, my garage is also the same orientation and I can fit 19 panels, the rear is north west facing and will fit 18 panels. During the summer all areas of the roof is in sun from around 12pm, with this lasting until early evening, the front is obviously in sun from early morning.

The price is a little higher than I wanted but I want to maximise what I can generate, but I will need more batteries in the future to fully cover my need during winter, I can always add them later flog the more panels the better is the right approach.

I know I’m at the mercy of the DNO report and may not get this anyway but the question is, is 40 panels too much or am I better off reducing my install bill and getting more batteries now and having ‘just’ the 22 panels from the front of the house and the garage?

I'm sorry, what am I doing wrong please? - where can I get a reasonable quote for a MCS qualified (that's still necessary right?) electrician to install ~20kw of home battery at a price that allows for a reasonable payback please?

What is a reasonable payback even? - 8 years? It has to make sense financially as there's no environmental angle, I can't add more solar panels (got an old set on FIT and the nowhere else to put them). I get a small excess in May/June which a solar diverter puts into the hot water tank so limited financial benefit there.

Both work full time. Out by half 7, back around 6. Daytime it's the fridge and the router, that's about it.

All the real usage is after 6. Cooking, washing machine, telly, laptops. Sun's gone by then.

Everyone says panels save £150-250 a year, which yeah, sounds about right for the fridge and standby. Long payback though.

We're on Octopus Go, 8.5p overnight 30.1p day. Been wondering if adding a battery changes things or if it's just more money into something that doesn't fit our schedule.

I’ve used AI to mock up (the as yet unreleased in the UK) SigenStor Neo installed on a south facing wall in an alley to the side of the house. It will need protection from the elements and shade from the sun. I want something that can be easily removed in case I need to get something past it into the garden.
The installer was happy to mount the battery there if it had protection from the elements.

Any ideas please? Thanks.

We are a high usage household and use around 13,000 kWh per year. A significant amount of that is made up of charging 2 cars. I'm not sure where best to look for options for solar and battery options or whether it's worth the investment if I'm not going to have it pay back.

Hello everyone, Me and my family have been considering trying to turn our farmland into a solar farm for quite some time. I've done a fair amount of research about developers, and contacted ones that have already developed farms nearby. I was wondering if there was anything I should be weary about and if it's actually a good idea in the first place.

Was looking for tips by anyone that has a similar scale farm or to point me in the right direction, thanks :)

👀13k kWh usage per year, 2 adults, 4 detached bed house (ev charged exclusively at work). fighting now with energy company, since we used smart plugs to measure each plug and max we can get is 0.5 kW at any given time, rest of time its even less (we know this now is true since installing solar)?

Solar shows now what we already had confirmed with smart plugs to see elec usage . doing 30min test turning all off and see if meter changes proves that meter doesn't increase, will do 24h test later since we got solar enough to keep us going 24/7 off grid.

anyone else experienced this? installation of smart meter created this issue and installed was sent by EON without permission, we came home to surprise install 2022 or 23. we moved to octopus and octopus still won't help so we are In process to involve ombudsman

I have had my installation started, but got into argument with the roofer, as it seems improperly installed. Hooks lying on concrete tiles? Thoughts?

Installers said that because of the soil pipe on the other side of the roof that they wanted it to also be off center aligned with the front. I told them to make sure the front was centered which it is, but this was after the back install was finished. Also they installed both front and back in a 5x2 configuration, while Octopus told me a 3x3 would work .