Solar Panels rough cost

Ex Footy Legs

Ex Footy Legs

Well-known member
Watched the C5 programme last night and it might be time to look at solar panels. The energy savings trust website, states we could have 12 panels on our south west facing house.
Anyone know the rough cost these days for the purchase and install of say, 12 panels ?

Around 2017 our neighbours paid around 7.5k for 12 but they have supposed to reduced in cost….
 
The programme last night suggested £5,500 for a semi detached, south facing, for a family of four. The couple in the spotlight also had batteries fitted and some other bits of paraphernalia, which brought the total bill to £10,000.

I think the programme suggested that batteries were a must for most installations.

#UTB
 
You have to weigh up the payback rate. If you can get them on a free scheme it's a no brainer, we had a quite off octopus for 5 panels and a battery for £9k and that seemed a lot but private installers will be cheaper.

Anything that looks like 15-20 years is poor imo - chances are you'll move, or there will be issues requiring a repair or even replacement of inverter, batteries, panels etc or you'll need your roof replacing during that time.

To make good use of batteries you need either a lot of solar or to be on something like octopus agile where you can charge them at the cheap rates and be topped up by solar
 
Alan_Breck said:
The programme last night suggested £5,500 for a semi detached, south facing, for a family of four. The couple in the spotlight also had batteries fitted and some other bits of paraphernalia, which brought the total bill to £10,000.

I think the programme suggested that batteries were a must for most installations.

#UTB
Click to expand...
Yes, they paid 10k but had lithium batteries in with that price which we won’t need.
I missed the part about 5.5k for a semi detached.
Sounds like around 5-7k then for 12 panels roughly.
Our theoretical saving is £650year so payback in around 9years based on 6k outlay.
 
ThatFragranceGuy said:
You have to weigh up the payback rate. If you can get them on a free scheme it's a no brainer, we had a quite off octopus for 5 panels and a battery for £9k and that seemed a lot but private installers will be cheaper.
Click to expand...

We have just received a similar quote from them. I agree going with a private installer will/should be cheaper. I also think the ratings of the panels, with the amount, was actually too little. I reckon we would need around 10 panels, personally.
 
This is what I generated last year from x16 250w panels, 8 facing due south and 8 due west. It’s about 10% below the 5 year mean. Panels are 10 years old, so there may have been efficiency improvements since then.
You can sell any excess back to the grid via SEG, but the rates are miserly. If you have an EV, some wall chargers will now allow bi-directional flows, so you can use your EV as a storage device, but I’ve not looked closely into this.
Location is North Yorks. IMG_8931.png
 
Nero80 said:
We have just received a similar quote from them. I agree going with a private installer will/should be cheaper. I also think the ratings of the panels, with the amount, was actually too little. I reckon we would need around 10 panels, personally.
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Yeah I was surprised their initial quote was like 4 panels and a 5kwh battery, bumping it to about 10ish battery only added a small amount to the cost and they said £420 a panel but I think private installer would be the way to go

That said you need to fund these with cash as any sort of interest bearing finance would wipe out savings and you need to consider what that cash can earn you vs that expected payback curve along with the above mentioned potential pitfalls. I see a lot of people do the maths on these assuming 29p unit rates which is a bit of a false economy.

It can be good but certainly not a no brainer for everyone

Ultimately you want to be using or storing anything you generate

I think vehicle 2 grid in future may well hold water too as some cars are starting to be able to do this and octopus supports it
 
Not sure
They may have reduced in cost over the last couple of years but not 2017.
They will be more expensive.
Biggy said:
You think 10k is redeemed over say 20 years? is it a better idea to just invest the 10k ?
Click to expand...

It’s not a great investment but you will, apparently, get your money back in 10-15 years.

But, lots of people doing it for other reasons
 
Was quoted £11,500 for our south facing semi for a family of 5 with that battery unit thingy in the loft.

Payback was too long for us to consider it seriously. We're not sure we won't sell in the next few years and they don't seem to add value to the house.

Would only be worth it from a financial point of view if you are confident you are staying put for 10+ years
 
ThatFragranceGuy said:
Yeah I was surprised their initial quote was like 4 panels… and they said £420 a panel
Click to expand...
The panels they quoted us are 435w (x5)
I priced them up privately and can get them for £116.99 each. So if they are the same, they are putting some mark up on them at £420 a panel. Although i suspect thats including extra wiring and mounting labour costs. It would be interesting to have a private quote with the same spec panels and battery.
 
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Nero80 said:
The panels they quoted us are 435w (x5)
I priced them up privately and can get them for £116.99 each. So if they are the same, they are putting some mark up on them at £420 a panel. Although i suspect thats including extra wiring and mounting labour costs. It would be interesting to have a private quote with the same spec panels and battery.
Click to expand...
I was recommended these by someone my gf works with as apparently having good pricing

T- 0191 3407001
info@susenergy.co.uk
www.susenergy.co.uk
www.facebook.com/susenergyne
 
1finny said:
Not sure
They may have reduced in cost over the last couple of years but not 2017.
They will be more expensive.


It’s not a great investment but you will, apparently, get your money back in 10-15 years.

But, lots of people doing it for other reasons
Click to expand...
You will if your inverter doesn't go or your battery doesn't fail or you don't need a new roof and need to pay someone to take it all down and then put it all back up, and you don't move house especially after having some of that happen outside of warranty.
 
1finny said:
Not sure
They may have reduced in cost over the last couple of years but not 2017.
They will be more expensive.


It’s not a great investment but you will, apparently, get your money back in 10-15 years.

But, lots of people doing it for other reasons
Click to expand...
If you believe the nonsense that we will have a clean grid by 2030 then I'm not sure what the other reasons could be.
 
Personally I think forgetting pv you may as well get the battery’s. What frustrating now is the sheer energy cost rip off makes payback quicker factoring cost saving .
But do you want this kit on/in your house ?
Is putting £10-15k into an isa with 7% annual return better option overall ?

It wouldn’t surprise me if home insurance rise on fire risk potential in yrs to come
 
Middlesbrough123 said:
Personally I think forgetting pv you may as well get the battery’s. What frustrating now is the sheer energy cost rip off makes payback quicker factoring cost saving .
But do you want this kit on/in your house ?
Is putting £10-15k into an isa with 7% annual return better option overall ?

It wouldn’t surprise me if home insurance rise on fire risk potential in yrs to come
Click to expand...
It's impossible to know without knowing what energy prices/interest rates are going to do over the next 10 years to be fair.
 
Biggy said:
You think 10k is redeemed over say 20 years? is it a better idea to just invest the 10k ?
Click to expand...
It can be better to just invest. £10k upfront saving you £750 per year would break even after 15 years. £10k invested getting 7% return (above inflation) would have you with £8,750 after 10 years (due to your extra £750 of energy each year taken off your returns). It would take 23 years to be better off with the panels and from then on the panels would be better assuming there was no additional cost and energy prices were static.

Based on @Ex Footy Legs quote of £6k up front, £650 saving per year it would take 10 years to break even, your £6k investment would be worth £2.8k at that point. From year 12 the panels are better than the investment (assuming they are still working and there is no maintenance cost, energy prices are static and there is no financing costs for installation).

According to Martin Lewis' site the typical installation cost is £7k and the typical saving is about £400 (scale up or down for other values). That would take 18 years to pay back at which time your £7k investment will have become £10k and will keep rising. Solar will never beat it. That is also based on our current high energy costs which are expected to fall.

They still seem to me to be too big a risk to expect a good return and you are better off just not spending the money. They are a nice to have and make you feel like you are helping the environment but they aren't a good investment. There is also the risk that subsidies and just cost plain old cost reduction due to competition/production costs could bring the costs down to hundreds instead of thousands and then they will be good value.
 
We had 14 panels installed on both sides of our detached garage roof last May at a cost of £5k
Didn’t bother with a battery as we sell excess back to the grid through octopus at a cost of 15p per kWh and over winter it would have stored hardly anything.
 

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