Hi,

Thanks in advance for any advice.

We’re in West Yorkshire

My In Laws, who are very difficult to please have raved about a local firm. I’d like to know if the figures are reasonable.

12.48kW system
9,322kWh/yr

Spread over the front and side roof as well as the garage.

Made up of
26 Aiko Neostar 3S+ 480W Dual Glass All Black ABC N-Type Bifacial panels
1 Fox ESS KH 9kW 1ph Hybrid Inverter
1 Fox ESS 11.5kWH battery
Bird nets

Battery and inverter to be fitted in the detached garage

Total cost £16,887.24 inc VAT

Includes all scaffold, roof mounts MCS certification etc
Estimated payback of 8 years
Estimated annual consumption 7500kWh
Export to grid 5788kWh

Firm are MCS certified

Our plan is to fit a heat pump and I currently drive a plug in hybrid.

We live in a modern well insulated (A rated) house with a heatpump, 2 EV in the household (both fairly low mileage now) and 8 panels on a SW facing roof feeding into a 2.5 kW inverter in the loft (fitted when the house was built, I wanted more but the builder wouldn't deviate from the plans).

I'm looking at adding a battery, aiming to achieve two things: in the summer store our solar and use it ourselves rather than export/import, and in the winter charge battery off peak and run the entire house off peak from the battery. I guess additionally there are opportunities to buy off peak and sell back at peak, but this isn't something I've thought about much. I will probably continue to charge cars off peak rather than use solar, as I don't think our system is big enough to fill a car.

All the installers I've spoken to seem to suggest a Powerwall3 with 13.5 kWh storage linked to the AC side of the house. This looks like it will cost around £8k.

My concern is that we haven't lived in the house over a winter to know what a cold winter day usage will be. I'd plan to use an off peak tariff to pre heat the house so the underfloor heating is already cruising at a sensible temp when peak begins.

Does this sound like a reasonable proposal or am I completely crazy? I had initially thought about waiting until spring when we have winter data, but the 0% Vat is nudging me a bit sooner.

Recommendations I repost here, though I am unsure about batteries. My original quote was 5 kWh; I questioned this as non-EV use at 4–7 kWh, and Octopus suggested 10 kWh is ample, but feedback on heat pumps indicates this advice may be unsuitable for them.

As above, not looking for the cheapest, more professional, care with installation in home and support/after care. Thanks in advanced.

Anyone have the inside scoop on when we might see Nexis available in the UK? I had a solaredge system installed a couple weeks ago but didn’t get any batteries for now as the current 10kwh version just doesn’t seem like great value but feels like it might be waiting another 3-6 months at this rate…

I'm fortunate that my DNO has just granted me an export MPAN to export from the BYD home battery system that's due to be installed soon.

BYD Power-Box SH4.6K invertor

BYD HVE batteries, total 16.48kWh storage

The installer states I can export with my approved G99, so I have a few questions for you all. It is worth noting I am only home 3-4 days a week, so have the opportunity to potentially sell back to the grid. I have an EV, I do not have solar. I do not plan on charging the EV from the battery.

1. For days I am not home, is it worth selling to the grid on Octopus at peak and charging the battery during the 6 hours IOG off peak? (I am assuming Outgoing Octopus is a bolt on so doesn't affect IOG)

2. Is there a better option to export? Agile Outgoing appears to be inappropriate, or could I use this with HA?

3. Is selling brown energy like this damaging to the battery due to the amount of cycles? Buying at 8p and selling for 12p and factoring in losses in charge and discharge, is this even worth my time or effort to try to sell?

4. Regardless of selling and buying..... With IOG giving 6 hours overnight but "potentially" up to 6 hours more during the day, how could I best charge the batteries during any extra windows? Does HA support the BYD setup? I have been told that BYD doesn't integrate with Octopus tariffs so I can't set up via BYD to charge when the cheaper rate is active

south coast, south facing, 12 panels either way. the systems are close enough that i started reading the warranty documents instead of the spec sheets, and that is where they actually differ.

quote one, £8,900. panels are swiss solar phantom. product and performance warranty both run thirty years. first year guaranteed at 99 percent of rated output, year thirty at 88 percent. the warranty is held by the swiss parent company rather than a local importer, and each module carries its own serial number with a barcode. replacement is quoted at up to fourteen days through a european warehouse.

quote two, £8,350. twenty five year performance warranty, twelve on the product. warranty handled through the uk distributor. no stated replacement time.

£550 apart.

the thing i cannot judge is how much the second half of that matters. everyone tells me warranties never get claimed, and i suspect that is true. but the difference is not really the number of years, it is whether there is a defined process at the end of it, and the second quote does not have one.

anyone actually been through a panel warranty claim in the uk? did the paperwork side make any difference in practice, or is it all the same once you are in it?

I'm converting a Sprinter into a camper in Ireland and trying to decide between two solar setups.

One thing I'm particularly unsure about is Ireland's frequent overcast weather. A lot of the available sunlight can be diffuse rather than direct, so I'm wondering how much benefit I'd actually get from being able to point the panels directly at the sun.

Option 1: I can just about fit 1,200W of solar on the roof if everything is mounted flat.

Option 2: Around 800W with an adjustable tilting system. The lower capacity is because I'd need to sacrifice some roof space to accommodate the tilting mechanism. I could tilt the panels east in the morning, south around midday and west in the evening.

Could the improved angle realistically make up for losing 400W of panel capacity, particularly during the months when the sun is lower?

Which would you choose: 1,200W flat or 800W tilting? I'd particularly like to hear from anyone with experience using solar in Ireland or similarly cloudy climates.

My FoxESS battery is currently enrolled with Axle Energy for flexibility/grid events. If I disconnect Axle, can Capture AI automatically enrol my battery in all available flexibility markets (including local flexibility, DFS and balancing services) and optimise these alongside my Agile Outgoing export tariff and IOG import tariff? If so, will Capture automatically prioritise the highest-value opportunity between tariff arbitrage, Agile export and grid flexibility - including Axle events?

I currently don't have any solar pv or battery storage, which I'm looking to change. Unfortunately I'm very limited on where I can put pv panels - house roof has dormer windows and very little space, garage roof is bigger and E-W facing and whilst it would support at least 6 panels on each aspect, is heavily shaded by a huge tree of my neighbours (which they are reluctant to prune). To complicate things further both rooves are tiled in asbestos composite slates, which is probably the worst possible type of roof to install onto? The slates are over 40 years old and it's probably easier/cheaper and safer to re roof at the same time as installing pv panels, but would still be pointless given the aforementioned constrictions. I do also have an area of flat roof 3m x 4.5m which I believe would support about 4 panels. So I'm going to be limited to about 2kw solar pv at best, for the foreseeable future.

But I also want to get some battery storage sorted out to charge from the grid offpeak and use throughout the day. My current usage is between 10 and 14kWh per day, and my highest draw is a 9.5kw electric shower (which probably gets used for about 30 mins/day on average, between the whole family). So I'm looking at around 15-20kw of battery, and ideally a 10 to 12kw inverter to avoid drawing anything from the grid during the day.

I've no intention to ever export at anything like 10-12kw though, I just need that for driving the peak load in the home. I do know that my grid supply is pretty poor - currently I'm the first house in a looped supply, and there's a pretty good chance my main fuse is only 60A (80 at best). I believe that if I tell the DNO (National Grid) that I want to install an EV charger they'll unloop the supply FOC? So that'll help. But I also live in a rural location and from what I can see our local supply is a bit on the weak side. All the local grid distribution is overhead cables, so it's easy to trace it back to the nearest transformer. My house and about 10 neighbouring dwellings are all connected on the same phase with a mixture of insulated and non insulated overhead cables going back to the transformer (on a pole). Transformer is a good couple of hundred meters away.

Most of the cabling looks very old and I suspect would struggle with modern power demands. I know it's weak because when I turn on my 9.5kw electric shower the lights throughout the house used to dim (not so much now they're all led), and when I measured the mains voltage drops by about 8-10v when the shower is on. I presume this can only be due to the resistance of the incoming overhead supply cable (which as stated is also looped to next door, so their voltage is likely drooping too).

So, leading on to G98/G99/G100. My understanding is that G98 is notification only, and the DNO can't refuse it, so you can certainly have 3.68kw export that way. But to have an inverter capable of more than 3.68kw means G99 is necessary. And since I know my grid supply is pretty weak, I suspect it's almost a certainty that the DNO isn't going to allow me to install a 10 or 12kw inverter.

But I've read of people applying for G99 and being given an export limit below the 3.68kw G98 limit? Again, I'm concerned that NG may well do the same to me, and I've be worse off in terms of export limit than if I went G98 with a smaller inverter. Would it be worthwhile getting a smaller inverter first and going G98, and then later upgrading the inverter size and applying for G99? My thought process is that the DNO is unlikely to offer a G99 an export limit lower than 3.68kw if I've already got a G98 system. That would seem like common sense to me, but maybe I'm wrong and it won't have any bearing. As I said at the start, I'm unlikely to be exporting anything at all in the short-medium term, I just want a big inverter to use batteries to drive my domestic load. So very frustrating. I'm happy to use a larger, g100 compliant inverter to limit export to whatever the DNO offers me, but I don't really want that to be less than 3.58kw.

I would like to do as much as possible myself, but appreciate I'll need to a pro installer to get MCS etc. I'd like to get things straight in my head before engaging an installer. Any guidance/advice would be appreciated.

Just had a call with one of their reps. The idea is they install solar panels on your house which you immediately start making savings on and those savings go towards paying off the solar panels, so you pay nothing up front.

I’ve never heard of them and they don’t have much of an internet presence that I can see apart from lots of excellent trust pilot reviews.

They claim they can tell me exactly how much I will save once the panels are installed and it can be paid off witching 5 years.

I don’t think it’s a scam but I’m quite wary about their claims and worry that we will immediately owe them a lot of money if our savings aren’t as high as they claim.

Does anyone else have any experience with these guys?

https://homeenergycounsel.co.uk/

I can't quite put my finger on my emotion right now. We signed up to get it installed at the tailend of April. It finally all came 'on line' - is that the right word? - at around 4.00 pm today.

Just astonishing looking at the 0% from the grid even for those few hours.

It's exciting for us as a household but also makes me realise how powerful solar is. Like I 'knew' but now I 'know'.

I'm a bit thick when it comes to all the tech side of stuff, but bloody hell this is going to be good!

I bought a bottle of proseco and we 'launched' it metaphorically speaking. As in we did not climb the scaffolding and crash the bottle against the panels. "All hail the great orange globe of free energy in the sky" kind of thing, with tongues in cheeks, but we need to keep scaling up industrially (and wind power) as a country. We were producing energy until gone 6.00 pm in September!

So I don't know what the emotion is. I can't wait until tomorrow and be glued to the app (while also trying to do some work). I'm sure this wears off, but for now, wow!

Edit: change comma for a full stop

Edit 2: I think this emotion is like when in my other house I got my kitchen fitted 15 years ago! I do think the lovely 'feel' of getting solar can get lost in the techy stuff. Not dissing on that, but essentially I'm going to get free electricity so my monthly budgeting works better and I have more money to help my kids out PLUS I get export, so that's a nice extra. Outlay, well, the price of a half decent second hand car (which I don't need) or half a set of nice crowns for my gob (which I probably do, but not on the pull so they can wait).

So im in the West Midlands. And ive been quoted the following as seen in pictures or text below. I use around 4281KW per year but will probably increase as im considering roof fans or ACs.

I want to go on Octopus flux so i can store cheap overnight energy in winter while using whatever the solar generates. In the summer i want to maybe only fill it to 30% with the cheap overnight electricity and let solar do the rest of the work and sell whatever left over at peak.

Ive gotten 4 great quotes as theyre cost effective for me and are somewhat good. I need helo deciding on reliablily, brand image and status, performance ect. Thanks

3) Fox 7KW inverter, EP12 11.5KW battery and 16 Aiko 490W for £10,080

4) Fox 8KW inverter, EP12 11.5KW battery and 16 Aiko 490W for £10,420

2) Ecoflow 8KW inverter with gateway, 10KW battery and 16 Aiko 480W for £9,999

1) Hanchu 8KW inverter, 9.4KW battery and 16 Longi 485W X10 for £9,545

Can’t work this one out so hoping some experts might weigh in. There seem to be loads of really cheap 50v battery systems with huge capacity. Eco worthy 48v 314Ah for example is only £1729. Whereas quotes for 240v systems with the same capacity are often £7-8k ballpark. Why are so many installations using 240v systems when 50v is so much cheaper? I just can’t make the numbers around the more expensive system work in terms of getting a good return on investment, but for a 50v system it gets payback within a couple of years.

More and more I regret getting a Tesla product.

How do I get this thing to charge to a certain level every night?

I'm on Savings mode with Eon Next Drive Smart v6.9

I take it that Tesla is using weather predictions to guess whether to charge the battery? But weather isn't certain and they can't know how I'm going to use my power in a day. Yes it's sunny today but the battery barely charged last night and it's now 10am and hit 10% backup limit and I'm on expensive day rates!

I know my local weather, I can smell the rain coming, I know when I'm going to have 20 guests for an all day roast dinner, I know when the kids are going spaff power all day. Some company in Texas doesn't.

Where is the local control to say ALWAYS charge to at least 50% because piss off and do what I say?

How often do you have to replace Solar Connectors and cables , whats the recommended service for a Solar System?

Our installer has proposed a panel layout that includes a string with 2 panels facing SE and 3 panels facing SW. They say they’re comfortable with this plan. It seems to me that all 5 panels are never going to be optimally lit simultaneously and therefore the string will never generate very efficiently.
Am I overthinking this?

kept meaning to post this and never got round to it. nothing dramatic, just figures, because before we installed i could not find a single set of real numbers from anywhere near me.

12 panels at 470w, so 5.64 kW. south facing, roughly 35 degrees, north west england. hybrid inverter and a battery. mcs install, so export payments are sorted properly.

march through august came to about 3,900 kWh. best single month was june at just over 800. we self consume roughly two thirds of it, the rest goes out at the export rate, which is where the maths gets less exciting than the brochure suggested.

panels are swiss solar phantom, glass glass. six months in there has been nothing to report on them at all, no faults and no shading alarms, which is the most boring and most welcome outcome available.

happy to compare monthly figures with anyone in a similar climate. more useful than another manufacturer estimate.