Home Solar PV conversion

[evilwebby]

Anyone harnessing the power of Solah?? We're moving home soon and seriously thinking about doing this.

Upfront cost is about £5-7k, after which you can expect to chop your electric bill in half or sometimes better.

Also when we're all forced to buy electric cars a few years from now the savings made will really rack up.

Lots of cool stuff online:

 

[Alanbileysfeathercut]

Classic GoT this

 

[The binman chronicles]

Anyone harnessing the power of Solah?? We're moving home soon and seriously thinking about doing this.

Upfront cost is about £5-7k, after which you can expect to chop your electric bill in half or sometimes better.

Also when we're all forced to buy electric cars a few years from now the savings made will really rack up.

Lots of cool stuff online:

Some of the early people that picked up on this are doing well selling back to the grid. They paid more for the installation but some are making a packet from it now. Unfortunately the rates are nowhere near those in the past but with everything going electric it makes sense if you can afford it and your roof is pointing the right way.

Lots of cool stuff associated also like batteries to store the excess energy during the day, little thermostats and switches to keep your water hot to save even more and so on.

 

[marnie]

Anyone harnessing the power of Solah?? We're moving home soon and seriously thinking about doing this.

Upfront cost is about £5-7k, after which you can expect to chop your electric bill in half or sometimes better.

Also when we're all forced to buy electric cars a few years from now the savings made will really rack up.

Lots of cool stuff online:

Just Sellotape sawdust to the roof

 

[Moomin]

Some of the early people that picked up on this are doing well selling back to the grid. They paid more for the installation but some are making a packet from it now. Unfortunately the rates are nowhere near those in the past but with everything going electric it makes sense if you can afford it and your roof is pointing the right way.

Lots of cool stuff associated also like batteries to store the excess energy during the day, little thermostats and switches to keep your water hot to save even more and so on.

Worth investing in battery storage if getting solar panels.

 

[The binman chronicles]

Worth investing in battery storage if getting solar panels.

The technology was new and quite expensive when I first looked but that was about 10 years ago so I'd imagine like the panels themselves the price will have come down.

Got to make sense if you can run your oven and tumble dryer etc. In the night from what you saved in the day. Electric oil radiators too so if you have gas you only use it on the really cold nights.

 

[evilwebby]

Adding the battery storage is something that I'd probably do just for the extra useability it brings to the system, but just from a cost/benefit perspective it nearly always increases the time it takes for the system to pay itself off, and storage batteries are the least efficient part of the system that see the most performance degradation.


However that dynamic might swing it its favour if or when you add an electric vehicle to your household.

 

[evilwebby]

The technology was new and quite expensive when I first looked but that was about 10 years ago so I'd imagine like the panels themselves the price will have come down.

Got to make sense if you can run your oven and tumble dryer etc. In the night from what you saved in the day. Electric oil radiators too so if you have gas you only use it on the really cold nights.

Yeah, the cost has come down dramatically - installations cost about 1/3rd of what they did a decade ago, and at the same time the technology has improved... modern PV panels can generate 300-370watts/hr. Both these have combined to bring the cost per Kw installed down to a tiny fraction of what it used to cost. It's a really impressive example of how something becomes mass market over time like we saw with PCs in the 1990s. although as Bruce said the rebates selling your excess electricity back to the grid aren't as generous as they used to be.

 

[SteveSC]

I have solar and my electricity bill is practically zero now. Obviously I live in a part of the world where its always sunny so it generates more.

Its still expensive here though. It costs over $10k

Definitely worth it if you can afford it. We haven't got the battery yet. Buddy of mine works in that industry told me to wait in the next generation battery.

 

[orly]

It might always be sunny in Philadelphia but in the UK we only get four days of sunshine

Have you thought of building your own nuclear reactor instead?

 

[The binman chronicles]

It might always be sunny in Philadelphia but in the UK we only get four days of sunshine

Have you thought of building your own nuclear reactor instead?

I find that impacts on making weapons grade nuclear material though. Often households are left with the tough decision on one or the other due to costs and at the end of the day mutually assured destruction in any neighbourly dispute has to come first.

 

[Cool_Blue]

I’ve never figured out how this works for you in your property, all these roofs down our street with panels on. All this “selling the surplus back to the grid” stuff. Do you have to have some massive converter thing installed, or is it simple (or even possible) to run all your electrical requirements ‘for free’ as it were?

 

[The binman chronicles]

I’ve never figured out how this works for you in your property, all these roofs down our street with panels on. All this “selling the surplus back to the grid” stuff. Do you have to have some massive converter thing installed, or is it simple (or even possible) to run all your electrical requirements ‘for free’ as it were?

All part of the installation. Without batteries though you would only be able to suck off the power while it is generating (daytime).

 

[Cool_Blue]

All part of the installation. Without batteries though you would only be able to suck off the power while it is generating (daytime).

What, like a stack of car batteries? Where the hell do you put them?

 

[The binman chronicles]

What, like a stack of car batteries? Where the hell do you put them?

More like a mobile battery. Look similar to those wall radiators you can buy. Or at least did when I last looked...