Home Batteries / Solar

[steve_sordy]

no gas supply to your house?? Gas to heat the house, heat the water and to cook is by far the most cost effective and reliable system.

When we moved into where we live 40 years ago, there was no gas in the village. But a street main was installed about 25 years ago.
To get a gas supply from that main is now £2760, well it was two years ago. That gets me a pipe next to the nearest wall (garage in our case) and a meter in a surface mounted cabinet. Plus the cost of getting from there to where I actually need the gas. Then there's the cost of the boiler and installation. Also, you need to consider that the government have banned all domestic gas boiler sales from 2035, so we'd be buying in to a doomed heating type.

What was funding the costs of the gas conversion was the difference between the unit cost of gas and the unit cost of electricity. "No contest!" I hear you shout. But I am on a dual-rate electricity tariff, so gas is competing with the night rate tariff, which in my case was so close to the gas tariff that the gap failed to fund the conversion cost sufficiently.

Incidentally, despite having British Gas as my electricity supplier, I could not get them to give me a quote for the price of gas! Yes, I know crazy isn't it? But the first question was "what is your meter number?" Because I didn't have one, I could not get any further. I didn't stop there of course, I sent emails headed "all-electric, but I want gas.," but got no meaningful response. I tried the phone with the theme, "help me be a customer", but could get no sense from anyone. I tried other energy companies, but every single one gave me the same run around, no meter, no gas. Not a single one actually engaged with the issue.

So how did I get any gas prices? My brother has a similar sized house to me, uses gas for heating and hot water but not cooking. He has a total energy consumption close to mine. So I asked him what he was paying. I also asked friends what they were paying. In the end, using the best data I could get, I decided that I could not justify converting to gas. It would have been hugely disruptive to the house and garden (wife hated the thought) and the payback period was 7.5 years +/- 15%. The variability depends upon the accuracy of my price estimates and the variable use of gas depending upon a cold winter or not.

In contrast, the battery installation was quick and easy, took just over four hours and was not disruptive at all. Based upon my then current energy supplier, the payback period was 4.6 years, so I went ahead. Once I had the battery and could see first-hand what it was doing, I changed energy suppliers and I now have a payback period of 3.3 years. After that it's all gravy!
In addition, the battery was £5k cheaper to buy and install than the gas conversion and will save £640 per year more.

PS: As I mentioned earlier, I had already taken a detailed look at solar panels. They had a similar cost to the battery, but a payback similar to the gas conversion. Wife had said "over my dead body!"

 

[Pyr0]

Had solar and batteries for almost 2 years now.
I think it's great. I'm saving over £1000 a year in electric bills and I only have energy bills to pay between approx. October and May. From May, the export covers all the standing charges and gas and electric usage and builds up credit over the summer.
I'm with Octopus and use Go during the winter months and Flux over the summer.

 

[dobbyhasfriends]

What FIT are you getting to enable that?

I've just had solar fitted and my off-peak rate with Octopus is 10p more than my FIT!

its more about the savings than the FIT
I would say when you use the MCS method of calculating energy production, battery uplift and ignore the FIT, the savings on not having to buy energy in at standard rate are what accounts for most of the payback time.

on average, quoting for a 4kw array in your area will yield **roughly** 4000 generated units per year and most households on paper may not use this much but... the yield without a battery is probably around 30% of generation and the yield with a 8-10kw battery will be around 80% of generation.
disclaimer - this is all weather dependent of course.

so, if you yield 80% with a battery, your bills are now roughly 20% of what they were.. this will usually pay pack somewhere around 8-10 years depending on your install cost, energy prices etc etc etc.

the heavier a user of energy you are, the quicker the payback period
the higher the cost of energy is, the quicker the payback period
the lower you install cost, the quicker the payback period.

there are a lot of factors to take into account

in my case, because I have 2 workshops running with machines and kilns etc, I use 14-16k kwh/year/
on paper at current energy prices and if I installed in myself my paback periods are:

10kw system with large (15kw+) battery - 7 years
20kw system with large battery (30kw+) - 3.5 years

none of this takes into account the softwares that turn your battery storage into an 'energy casino' where you can buy and sell electricity for a profit rather than use stored energy for self consumption.
as far as doing that with just a battery - buying and selling from cheap rate to pek - those days are gone for 3.5 year payback that was at the start of the Ukraine war when energy was 48p/kwh

its complicated and I still dont understand even half of what there is to know

 

[Zimmerframe]

Had solar and batteries for almost 2 years now.
I think it's great. I'm saving over £1000 a year in electric bills and I only have energy bills to pay between approx. October and May. From May, the export covers all the standing charges and gas and electric usage and builds up credit over the summer.
I'm with Octopus and use Go during the winter months and Flux over the summer.

I keep looking at doing this, but my Electric is normally €360 a year (they sneak it up, I find ways to be more economical).

I can't make any numbers work if you're economical/tight ..

70% of my bill is standing charge as I have three phase so you get stung as you pay for a supply rate, like 4kwh,8,12 etc.

 

[irie]

We've had 4kW solar panels since 2012, got them just before a large reduction in export payments.