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Solar Panels UK - is it worth it?
- Thread starter jdwuk
- Start date
I think more pragmatically we can all agree they should cancel those horrible ‘roof lease’ schemes so we can be free to upgrade our paltry 180w panels with something more useful 
Solar power incentive referenced here, although it looks a bit lame if interest free loans is the main drive ( plus potential of increase in value of SEG:
archive.ph
Boris Johnson pushes for solar and nuclear energy to cut reliance on …
archived 14 Mar 2022 07:24:03 UTC
RedMod3
Member
Today is a good day; 30 mins ago our first Powerwall was commissioned and it ran the house for 30mins before running out of power. Tomorrow, if it is sunny, it will get partially charged and then after a few days more it will be charged at 5p/kWh and it will discharge at peak times. We are winning.
RedMod3
Member
This is a thank you note to this forum, as without the members here, I would never have considered getting a Powerwall. It is the member experiences here that compelled me to choose battery back-up and the Powerwall in particular. I'm absolutely convinced that I have made the right choices, and if my calculations are correct, with Go rates of 7.5p/30p, I reckon our Powerwalls will cut our monthly consumption from £301 to £99 a month.
Thanks guys.
Thanks guys.
where did you get it supplied? I may be close enough to you to use the same supplier if you found them competitive and good to work with?
RedMod3
Member
Is it possible you could send me the same? Also in Hampshire and looking for a good installer that can handle Powerwalls
scdoubleu
Member
Don't count on it doing much charging at 5p/kWh if there have been previous sunny days. You'll be at the mercy of the "AI", which pays no attention to weather forecasts!
Long-term, you'll still be winning though.
I don't think Solar needs any incentives? Whatever I did in my spreadsheet, regardless of size of array, inclusion of different battery sizes and so on, payback was always between 4 and 9 years? A basic install (sans battery) doesn't actually cost much more than the last couple of years worth of holidays that were cancelled for covid, and the installation bandwidth is pretty much maxed out.Solar power incentive referenced here, although it looks a bit lame if interest free loans is the main drive ( plus potential of increase in value of SEG:
Boris Johnson pushes for solar and nuclear energy to cut reliance on …
archived 14 Mar 2022 07:24:03 UTC
They could incentivise fixing the bandwidth, but Solar can only really appeal to the lucky slice of society that
a) has a roof to install some on
b) doesn't make enough to just not care about power prices.
Anything the gov does has to address the people out side of this slice. Make it matter more to those who a 50% increase in power isn't really going to effect, or make addressing fuel poverty at the bottom end easier. I'm not sure what this looks like, but making all green activity easier for flats would be a good start. Establishing some accepted patterns of installs for chargers in car ports. Heat pumps are only pre-approved for 1 per building, so a block of flats needs something else (some kind of community heat solution I think?), and the same for solar on flats - it gets really complicated even if most in the block are pro. Doing External Wall Insulation for blocks is pretty standard these days, but Greenfelt has rather scared everyone unfortunately, but mass installations on flats and a street at a time is probably the best way to move the dial.
Its some innovative solutions for these things that are needed, not more money off solutions for us that can afford Teslas I'm afraid.
Unfortunately until some tory donner buys a renewables installation company I suspect the answers will be pretty wishywashy.
WannabeOwner
Well-Known Member
Penalising that "slice of society" would be a start ... although before that someone will probably have to do something about listed buildings not being able to have anything green anywhere near them ...
Its surprising what can be done actually: Holyrood park lodge. I doubt you get much more listed than this.
The trouble is finding someone with experience and a willingness to give it a shot. The insulation industry has been orientated to installing a square of roof insulation in as simple a way as possible then moving on. The old stone buildings will never be as good as a modern passivhause build sealed house, but they can be vastly improved, and mostly the people living in them could afford to do it if it was made easily. But it does take a more sympathetic and customised to each house approach. At the moment it feels a bit like everyone is forging a new path (hence this thread I guess!) and there is no accepted easy solutions.
WannabeOwner
Well-Known Member
I have no idea how we upgrade the existing housing stock, for me its in the "too hard" category.
A 3-bed terraced house e.g. Victorian (party walls either side needing no insulation, as inherently warm on the other side) is about £200K to get to Passive House / EnerPHit standard. I see that as being totally unaffordable. Knock-down re-build would probably be easier
An old, detached, thatched cottage converted to Passive House reduces heat loss / requirement by 90% ... impressive as that is, a bog standard modern Barratt Taylor Wimpey type detached 3-bed PHPP calculation shows a 75% saving - and yet we are still chucking them up, and they will all need to be upgraded.
My advice to anyone in the market for a new home is to figure out how to get a Passive House. Less than 7% increased build cost, negligible heating costs (and likely no boiler, so no maintenance / replacement cost either) for the lifetime of the building, huge benefit for air quality / respiratory issues (Wifee and I haven't had winter coughs / cold in the half dozen years we've had outs) and comfort, But I expect they are as rare as hen's teeth
Its a great idea, but there would need to be a huge scale out of the passivhause function at the same time. It doesn't add much cost, but I believe there are more inspections and so on needed. They also certify under 1000 properties a year just now in the UK, so would need a lot of uplift to keep up with the rate of building.
Its a good aim tho, and maybe full passivhouse isn't the right answer, but some -light or -bulk option that, like current build regs, lets an inspector certify a sampling of properties in a scheme per design and so on.
Unfortunately it still doesn't move the needle enough, as new builds are a pretty small % of UK housing. Need to use that EPC to twist the screws on people with old properties. Its nasty, but its probably the only way to do it, and plan it over 10 years so people can react, and support where its needed. Look at the angst, wailly wailly and cottage industries created in Scotland just by changing the rules to require interlinked smoke alarms this year. British people really -hate- people messing with their houses. Its the same for cars, but at least most people get a new one every 3-10 years, meaning you can refresh the fleet in that time. Once a house is built, that's it for ever as far as we are concerned - I am now allowed to complain about both the cost of heat and the cost of fixing my drafty hell hole I call home thank you very much.
WannabeOwner
Well-Known Member
Passive House heating requirement goal is 15 kWh per m² per yr. (Rome closer to 10 kWh, Stockholm closer to 20 kWh)
Maybe Google can find an average-central-heating cost per sq.m. for averagely-insulated UK housing stock?
WannabeOwner
Well-Known Member
The problem I have with that is that people wind up doing a-bit-more every decade. Loft Insulation regs thickness has doubled every decade for the last, what?, 5 decades.
Right-first-time would be a) much cheaper in the long run and b) country gets the benefit immediately - oil-imports / balance of payments imbalance. Less upheaval for the home owner too. Government pay for it to be done (print some money, they are doing plenty of that printing already) and then home owner pay it back over a decade or two ... or several.
What we'll probably get is some ghastly PFI approach which makes it look like the government hasn't spent any money / raised taxes / run up yet more
Perhaps if we increase the Term for Government from 5-years to 50-years they'd be able to take a longer term view? ... I'll get my coat !
If you switch from time control to self power and then back, that should wipe the AI memory.Don't count on it doing much charging at 5p/kWh if there have been previous sunny days. You'll be at the mercy of the "AI", which pays no attention to weather forecasts!
Long-term, you'll still be winning though.
also setting reserve so that it is breached at 00:30 will kick it into life.
