New here, hi all
Last month (Jan 2024) we went for an expensive solar setup, it was not the cheapest, in fact it was the most expensive but the person who came to price up was absolutely great unlike all the other companies who came round.
FYI, talk to someone who has had solar installed first to get their opinions and then read up about it all, then get several companies round to quote.
I am quite technical, electronics and mechanical and also a software programmer for approx 30 years, so I had an idea in my head what I wanted.
I wanted the best system that I could on the roofspace I had with enough battery storage to last a day. My electric usage is approx 22kWh a day (lots of IT stuff at home
) so when the Ukraine war started and the prices shot up is when I decided to make the move to Solar etc.
I also wanted a EV charge point installed as it would be cheaper doing it all at the same time instead of 2 separate jobs and one day we might need it or if a friend/family come round they could also charge their cars if needed, a bit of future proofing. My 10 year old 4x4 Yeti was getting a bit old and my left leg is not great these days so was thinking of getting an Automatic or something with a DSG gearbox.
So I go no idea who local Solar companies are around here, I looked on Google etc but could only find 1 local company and they were 20 miles away. I came across the Renewable Energy Association site and they do the leg work for you and got 5 other companies to contact me.
So, I arrange the local firm and the 5 others to turn up and to quote and this is when I noticed something iffy
4 of the companies where not interested in what I wanted and insisted I go with their recommendation and all quoted around £6000 to £7000. 1 of them even argued with me that I knew nothing and they knew what I needed, needless to say all of them disagreed that I needed batteries and I only needed a small 4kW roof system. 3 other then also said I did not need a charge point for an EV as it would not work on my electric system!
The last 2 companies where both on par, their recommendations were exactly what I had wanted so I knew I could trust them better and 1 quoted £15,745 and the other was £16,200.
I went with the £16,200 quote as the person who came was absoutley great and down to earth, he was the boss and not just a sales person. I explained to him about the 4 iffy companies and he said quite a few dodgy solar companies just buy cheap solar net and just flog that regardless of if it fits the requirements as it's just to get your cash.
Anyway, a few months later is installation time (end of Jan 2024) and went with 14 high spec Eurena Panels each at 483w making a solar array of 6.7Kw, this is hooked into a Luxpower Hybrid Inverter (A real heavy beast), a combiner box for 2 batteries, these being Hanchu ESS 9.4Kw each making a storage of 18.8Kw. There is room for another Hanchu battery when they said I can order in 6 months time if I needed the extra capacity and order at cost instead of retail. Also there is NO VAT on anything!!!!!!
The EV point they put in was the 2.1 Zappi which is a 7Kw.
My roof is absolutely covered in the 14 panels and it all faces due south, perfect.
I moved away from Scottish Power to Octopus and went onto their FLUX tarrif which gives cheap rate electricity between 2-5am
Been running for approx a month now and it has rained nearly every day so the 18kW batteries are being charged within the 2-5am period and the house runs virtually on batteries all day and most of the night when it needs to dip onto the grid, this is when I might get the extra 9.4kW battery installed in a few months time but come April I don't expect to use hardly any grid power at all as the system could be making 60kW a day fro solar, so plenty to charge the Hanchu's and export back to the grid (especially during the 4-7pm slot they the export rate is very good.
The other day we decided to look at getting an electric car of some kind instead of a petrol/diesel car especially as we had the zappi now and my left leg which has permanent sciatica due to nerve damage in my spine is casing me to constantly stall the car.
Looked around several of the main dealers as things were nice espeically the VAG ID range.
Anyway, the other Friday we decided to pop into Redditch to sit in an MG and see how comfortable it was. It was comfortable and we were suprissed to know the salesperson from several years ago. Anyway we got an brand new MG4 and I pick it up tomorrow (Yes I know the 24 plate come out soon but it does not make a difference to us as we intend to either give it back and get another at the end of the 3 year 0% PCP or pay the last payment of £15,000 and keep it for many years.
Back to solar, the Luxpower has a weather system built in and it decides how much to charge the Home batteries depending on the amount of predicted sunshine the next day, and this is working great as it it's going to be really sun then the batteris don't need grid power between 2-5am as their will be plent of solar during the day.
With the Zappi you can tell it to only use solar power to charge or mix it with grid, so as I currenly don't work much I am at home most of the day, so will just leave the solar to charge the MG4 Trophy during the day.
FYI: If you have the Zappi, it does have an issue with connectiong to WiFi 6 speced routers, so I have just placed a defunct BT homehub into the garage and it just acts as a WiFi Access Point, to connect to my home LAN I use Devolo 1Ghz Powerline which still works great over the main 16mm arouned cable from teh inverter to electic meter, the solar installers took out the old single (16a) cable run to the garage and and connected the garage directly to the inverter 80A connection, so plenty of power now in the garage.
Any questions just ask. Also the Solar Installer was Craig Michaels Renewables in Telford. We trusted him!!
).
