I think the move to solar and battery storage although expensive to initiate is looking at the bigger picture and long term future.
Many years ago I bought a house that was wooden windows and single glassed - so plastic double glazing was put in, new patio doors were also fitted as the old one were aluminium double glassed - but the runners were worn out, Loft wasn't insulated but the wall cavity was - so I did the loft.
I took out ever incandescent bulb in the house, garage and shed and replaced them with LED - which were very expensive at the time.
I'm no eco warrior and only did it all to save on bills - I saw it as investing to save.
My boiler was about 30 years old but working perfectly fine but i had a new Worcester Bosch condensing boiler fitted and Hive controls plus thermostatic radiator valves.
At this time we were in the last couple of months before solar FIT was to be abolished so I ordered 12x 365W LG Neon R solar panels that came with 25yr warranty on construction and a guaranteed output capacity of 92% after 25yrs service, and all panels have their own optimiser fitted to ensure maximum output even if one panel gets shaded or perhaps develops a fault (without optimisers if one panel is shaded or has a fault all panels are restricted to the lower output)- this was November 2018, I also had 3x 4.5Kw Solax triple power batteries.
The savings since this date have been - and this includes the FIT tariff payments i receive quarterly is £2584, The system didn't save me anything for the first three months as the electrician had connected things up wrong and it took 2 months for me to know for sure something wasn't right - once the installing company were informed though they got straight onto it and rectified it within a couple of days. I created a spreadsheet and each month i input the meter readings and the generation meter so I'm on top of the system at all times.
The bonus now is I have a Tesla, I use the 2Kw granny charger to charge it up, the reason for this is, when the sun comes out the house is being supplied for free, any excess - and there is always (nearly always) an excess even on dull days that will go into the battery storage - which when fully charged will run the house for 24 hours for free. In the summer time the batteries are fully charged by 1100hrs and I'm usually exporting energy back to the grid - and usually about 3Kws - so at this point i plug in the Tesla granny charger and therefore just over 2Kw is consumed pumping free electricity into the car and i have the charge limit set to 90% - so since April 2021 I have used a supercharger twice or paid for energy.
I haven't calculated the savings this has had in comparison to what the petrol costs would have been with my RS.
I don't have a 7Kw home charger because by drawing that amount it would exceed the solar excess and therefore I would be paying for 5Kw every hour it was in use, I am retired so to get the car fully charged over a couple of days is easy - and remains free
With energy costs going bonkers at the moment I'm so pleased i invested when i did.
I had an EPC done as required when i applied for Solar - so the Solar and batteries were not installed at the point the house was scored, which was a high B, the chap that did it said another EPC after having both installed would take me into a low A rating and the only other thing i could do would be to dig up floors (concrete) and insulate them and re-concrete, which obviously imp not going to do as its not cost effective.
The solar and batteries were £16K and i calculate about 9 years to have paid me back - or less if energy continues to rise around or above the norm of 8% per year.
