solar panels - read the threads , still a simplevquestion.

You don't have to have a smart meter with pv panels.

You do need the assent of your DNO to connect panels to the grid or fot a stand alone battery connected to the grid.

Any qualified electrician can connect the panels and complete the form for the DNO but you must should use a MCS accredited electrician if you intend to claim SEG, AFAIK this is the only support available now.

If you are not happy with organising the scaffolding (possibly not necessary), roofer to fit panels and electrcian to connect them go for a firm who can and are MCS accredited. I recently had a good result with make my house green, I estimate their gross profit on the job was £3k of

I think you will soon be forced to have a smart meter if you use solar. I notice a lot of the local councils now have schemes for this, no doubt cos they get some claw back. There are a lot of things to consider, your direction of the roof, and what the climate is like there. Also both batteries and solar cells are not for ever, what is the life span and what happens at the time you need to replace them?

Brian

And this will improve what, exactly?

In summer your solar will charge your battery. In winter you will use all the electricity the solar produces without the battery being charged at all. To make best use of the battery it may be better to find an electricity tariff with low cost off peak electricity to charge the battery (overnight) to use during the day/evening when the peak units cost are a lot more. I doubt if you will able to adopt this cost saving measure if you do not have a smart meter.

Getting them paid for and installed costs thousands, getting them serviced pretty much the same if climbing the roof (to get rid of pigeon nests). When there would be a payback is a guess. Draining all your savings to pay for it all, and then surviving without a financial buffer

- erm, I rather pay the electricity bills and try and reduce those.

Has the OPs issues with damp been sorted? Should they sell the property and find something built better and more manageable to live in?

Do you mean E7? We already have that.

From Are solar panels worth it

"You need a smart meter to get the smart export guarantee payments

To get a SEG tariff, you'll need a smart meter that's capable of tracking how much solar electricity you're exporting to the grid. This includes what's known as 'SMETS 2' meters – the second generation of smart meters – and certain 'SMETS 1' meters (the first generation).

SMETS 2 meters are capable of tracking solar energy exports and your standard import energy tariff, even if you have a different supplier for each, so you won't need two meters."

Have a look at

Andy Burns snipped-for-privacy@andyburns.uk wrote

The ability to do time of use tariffs.

On second thoughts, that looks like a scam. Sorry.

good point randomly presented, fit pigeon mesh at time of installation

Why does your OH want solar panels and a battery?

Have you worked out the total cost and expected benefits?

As others have said, you will need certified people involved in some aspects of this at the very least.

Can your OH put up scaffolding and do roof work?

Could he fix the panels in place?

In winter you will be lucky to get any significant charge into the battery, probably at the time you need it most. In other words you’ll need to top it up from the mains, implying an E7 or similar contract.

Keep in mind that all meter data is funnelled through a single organisation, which to protect from hacking and manipulation by State and Non-State Actors will need GCHQ/NSA levels of security operated by trustworthy people. The hackers are unlikely to reveal their hand until some critical time. Cutting off the UK’s electricity at the height of winter gives powerful leverage for an antagonistic State; it is a lot cheaper than sending a thousand missiles over and leaves the infrastructure intact.

If you want standby electricity, have a changeover switch fitted and buy a

Not particularly so, we had 20 days in the 21-22 winter when production was below 50% of our daily use, 22 days in 22-23, so even though it was not measured I can guess the battery was charged and did contribute all other days. The battery means we are not buying more that the spurious

I should add this is between March and end October.

We want a battery system because of the flexibility to use it day or night. We have E7 storage heaters. No mains to the area so other methods are not cheaper , easier or even available.( certainly not cheaper now). Originally the idea was to use a battery system to tide over power cuts because we are totally dependent on electricity here but I did see the posts that suggested that isnt easy to do. I am not keen on a spy metewr in my home but hubby is clearly taken by some idea of cutting the bills. I cant see why, so I cant justify it to you.

Supplementary question - can you install PV's on a flat roof? I have a south facing flat roof, sun all day in the right weather but no one ever says if flat roof can take PV panels. We are in Cornwall and house is E facing ( front ) and Wfacing rear but the roof is four sided so we also have South facing roof area ( as well as the flat roof on the South.

I looked up the calculator from Energy saving trust and they said we could save £590 a year with a solar /battery system ( our total bill is around £2K now we have lost our old fixed tariff - which we bought three years ago before price hikes.)

Have the damp problems been sorted? Yes! After the best part of twenty years , I got the solution mostly by accident last year when we had the roof insulation increased . We had a good foot or more of sheeps wool insulation put in and the firm that did it also put in roof ventilation, ventilators in the bathroom and kitchen. Result - almost no condensation, except in the worst cold now.

Sounds good, the residual heat in the storage heaters could tide you over perhaps 18 hours (guessing).

In real life, what sort of power cuts do you get, in terms of how long they are?

No problem.

I believe so, it has been mentioned in the group in the past.

Sounds like your roof is hipped (like a pyramid) or part-hipped, which might limit the amount of panels that could be fitted.

While noting the EST estimate, they might be less than totally realistic. Don’t forget that the £590 might be based on prices that are set to fall - I’m expecting a 17% reduction from the 1st of July, for example.

It sounds like you or your OH need to use the online facilities to calculate what energy you might realistically get over a full year, as well as the critical winter months.

With electric only heating?

Definitely not, we have another renewable energy source for that, also I actually use gas for DHW in the winter months.