OTish Solar Batteries Economics

F****ng advertising site, you should know better harry

Ya gotta take pity on these people:

'Does it worth it?'

Not English!

'solar battery storage system costs in the UK to typically range between £1,200 and £6,000. Also, considering that a solar battery storage system?s lifespan lasts 5 to 15 years, the battery may have to be replaced several times over the lifespan of your solar panels (typically 15-30 years), increasing your solar battery storage system costs'.

You bet it does!

'By charging the solar battery during off-peak hours'

Off-peak hours are mostly at night!

etc. etc.

The trouble is, people get taken in by these claims.

Like the greater than 100% efficient electric radiators ... that still give off heat after they have been turned off!

Cheers, T i m

Lots of hand wavey information that possibly indicates that installing a battery could be a costly mistake. It looks if your free solar energy may cost £1k per year if a battery system is included, and that?s assuming that you don?t abuse the battery by exposing it to extreme weather conditions etc.

Isn?t the problem with individual household battery storage systems that in the UK solar panels generate excess energy in times when it is least needed. On a winter day how much could you charge up your battery to get any meaningful stored power for when its dark?

All depends on how big your battery and solar array are.

The economics of batteries don't make sense at today's electricity prices/price structure.

However, the price of electricity will go up & the cost of batteries come down.

Another aspect is demand side energy control when we all get smart meters.

There might well be subsidies in the pipe line or the possibility of selling electricity back to the grid.

I can see you're too thick to see the possibilities.

You never bothered to read it did you?

Where are those advertised?

I haven't yet, but, if you pay a percentage of your FIT per word...

Ah. the magic bullet that hasn't so far really occurred with the production of billions of rechargeable batteries. Operational time with a full charge for portable equipment has increased due to improvements in electronic technology rather than improvements to the battery technology.

You also have to consider the green aspects of having a technology that may last only 5 years. The CO2 used in manufacture, transport, maintenance, disposal or recycling may negate much of the zero CO2 suggested by using the system.

The low end cost figures give you system of running a 3 bar electric fire for around an hour. To increase this to 3 hours you would end up paying "FROM" £5.5k.

Subsidies only work if only a very small minority use the system. When everyone has the same they would end up paying their own subsidies.

I note that early adopter subsidies for some other "green" solutions are not as generous as the original FIT payments for domestic solar panels. They are capped, time limited and/or with the provision for them to be reduced if demand exceed available budgets. No longer can you base any cost reductions on the generous payments for previous schemes. However despite the bullshit "free energy" tag green energy has never been about lower costs as it can only work if national energy prices are substantially higher than at present.

He wouldn't have missed a lot! IMO it raises more questions than it answers.

If the grid gets desperate enough that it needs 30p worth of electricity back, it'll have to find some other mug to spend £3-4k on batteries to do it ...

I doubt that winter solar power will ever make sense in the UK. However, if global warming continues (whatever cause you ascribe to it), then perhaps /summer/ solar power will start to make more sense. If we start requiring regular air-conditioning for the summer months, maybe a 4kW array, coupled to a large(ish) Tesla Powerwall (13.5kWh), would be enough to keep you comfortable for most hours of the day and night. Such a system would cost north of £12K. Tesla apparently guarantee their Powerwalls for 10 years, so you're looking at a minimum cost of £1200 per annum for the hardware. How much you'd save on electricity is anyone's guess, as it is so dependent on the weather and electricity supply cost inflation. However, some interesting comments here:

It would be helpful if the figures could be updated to February 2019.

It stopped 20 years ago.

Lots of hand wavey information that possibly indicates that installing a

Yes there is that con.. charge the batteries from the mains and sell it back when there is demand. It the only way as the solar won't cut it. There are already tariffs that are supposed to do that.

The big con in battery storage systems is the quoting of capacity as MWatts.

I have a passive house. Heat loss approaches zero. The main problem is "infiltration".

My main night-timr electrical load is TV/computer and fridge/freezers.

That's not a nice way to refer to your Romanian gardener / butler / chauffeur (that's paid less than the minimum wage out of your FIT profits). ;-(

Cheers, T i m

Probably 99.9% of UK property are not passive houses. Even new builds seem to be going up with single glazing and/or with minimal insulation.

These schemes are not aimed at the very small minority of people who have well insulated homes. They are being sold as a green solution to the masses even though they probably don't stand a chance of working at any level unless the basics are covered first (high levels of insulation etc.)