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Those of you with solar panels, what's been your experience? (feddit.uk)
submitted 1 year ago by [M] to c/askuk@feddit.uk
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I'm thinking of getting solar panels and a battery for our house.

What's your setup like, and is there anything you wish you'd set up differently if you were going to install it again? What supplier are you with?

A company extremely local to us is offering 12x Aiko Energy panels (465 watt), with a Sunsynk 5 kW inverter and a 5.32kWh battery. Octopus Energy are offering a similar set up for a similar price, but they're using 450 watt panels, so with using 12 panels I'd be potentially be losing 180 watts vs what the other company is offering. Is that a significant amount or would it basically not really amount to much additional power?

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[–] [S] 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)

The quote I received from the local company (the 12x 465w) panels has come to £8,500ish, including installation. I might ask to see what it is with a 10kWh battery, and see if it makes sense. I did wonder if 5kWh would be enough throughout the winter, I'd imagine it might be only enough to get through the peak period.

Octopus's provisional quote was £2k extra although I need to give them more specific information, so that quote might come down.

The way our roof is means we'd basically use all of it and it's facing east/west which should give us a longer sunlight duration.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago* (1 child)

    Check the quote which should state which battery is supplied, then one of the general suppliers, itstechnology, bimble solar etc.

    A battery installation should be zero vat, so a single 4.8kWh US5000 Pylontech battery is like £720 ex vat These are 15 cell batteries and they are essentially plug and play. Some batteries are 16 cell batteries so have a little more power stored but seem to cost a lot more. Can't mix and match batteries of different numbers of cells.

    The batteries should essentially be supplied at cost, there is zero work to install more.

    Decent price TBH. Should pay back in 5 to 8 years with the bigger battery and the right tariff (I think the best tariff is Intelligent Octopus Go and the fixed export tariff, ~15p/kWh export, but 7p/kWh cheap rate import, and need an EV)

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  • [–] [S] 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    The battery is a Sunsynk L-Series.

    Luckily the whole package is VAT free, apparently that ends in 2027.

    They're partnered with EDF although you don't have to use EDF. Unfortunately we don't have an EV yet, and won't for a while as I'd rather run our current car into the ground!

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    Yeah I ran my car until the engine light came on and swapped later on. It's fine, no point trading in unless you can get a good deal IMO.

    Personally, I'd ask for a quote with a different battery, that looks to be overpriced compared to others so extending the battery size will be more expensive than it should be.

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