Experiment in hand

[alan_m]

Probably the lead up to winter is not the best time to learn that it may not save too much on the heating bill :)

[Theo]

East/west panels are actually not a problem: you get slightly less power compared with south facing but potentially get to use it at a more useful time of day (eg west facing panels in the afternoon/evening).

The cost of solar is so cheap nowadays:

400W panel: £140+VAT 3kW inverter: £325+VAT Prices from: that it really just comes down to the installation costs: mounting, scaffolding, labour etc.

On the outgoing SEG tariffs you can now get 34p/kWh (average rate over the last year*) which if true really changes the calculus against the 4p/kWh under previous offers:

• that figure would need double checking, as really you want the average when the sun is shining as I suspect the figures include periods when wind and solar are low - if you have a battery you can timeshift power to those periods, but not if just bare panels.

It's not a short term solution, but payback has got a lot shorter.

Theo

[RJH]

Anecdotally (ahem, 2), households with plenty of money trying to do something 'green'. Money saved/earned is pretty much bragging rights.

Well, plus storage - far and away the biggest cost after installation.

Watched a couple of blokes install 4 panels the other day - waving about on ladders, done in 3 hours. The rest of the installation took a lot longer apparently - not because of time or complexity, but because they couldn't coordinate what needed doing.

[Andy Burns]

The best tariffs I could see are 12p (but you have to buy tesla batteries, maybe £10k?) or 10p, octopus.

I think I'd need to see more detail on those 15p/2p/3p tariffs compared to the rest of the field still at 3p to 5p ... e.g. do they only apply if you can supply the export at times of day when the sun doesn't shine?

[Theo]

Octopus Outgoing Agile is a half-hourly variable tariff so the 34p figure is an 'average' over the past year - but I haven't dug into what that means. But looking at the graphs it seems the base price over the last few months is minimum 15p and average in the 30p range:

down for links to regional graphs)

which makes sense in a way: gas is expensive so every kWh of export displaces a kWh of gas.

Theo

[Animal]

If it does, it could only be made by Rodney

why do you give us so much bullshit?

It would make more sense if one had one of your controllers that consume more than it gains, but no sane person has such a thing

I'm sure it makes none to you. We might disagree on why.