11 Months In: Are Solar Panels Really Worth It?

[@NicolasRaimo]

Total Solar Gen 2326.02 kWh Spreadsheet contained an error on total generation see spreadsheet correct data here docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1k7-1m5TtwIESqSqcypGoMKxheqBxZj8U7zGIqQdUdOo/edit To get a EVNICK150 For £150 off a solar installation or evnick.com/heatable/ EVNICK75 for £75 off battery only systems or evnick.com/heatable/battery Total House Uses 5853.9 kwh Total Grid Import 5446.1 Total Gird Export 1847

[@steve_787]

Cool, did think it looked a bit low 😉

[@ItsAllJustBollox]

I thought it looked low my 2.8kw system on my garage roof has produced 1269kwh since February to date.

[@markstarmer3677]

Personally living in the U.K. I would never contemplate having them. The only way I would consider, would be if I have a massive barn with a south facing roof. Certainly wouldn’t want the ugly inefficient things all over my house.

[@fishingwiththomas]

I run an enphase system in Australia with 33 panels arranged East, West and North. Middle of winter on a sunny day I make around 45kWhs for the day. It's totally worth it on those 40 Celsius summer days when inside it's nice and cool and not costing me anything.

[@NicolasRaimo]

Do you have REA panels as well?

[@fishingwiththomas]

@@NicolasRaimo I have Jinko panels 23 370w panels with ip7 inverters and recently added another 10 440w panels with ip8 inverters.

[@jamesaustralian9829]

I put a commercial system on my house in SA. I produce far more power than I could ever dream of using.

[@MagicianMan]

There hasn't been a FIT tariff since 2019 and in the latter years it is was so low that your probably better off with the replacement which is SEG anyway.

[@NicolasRaimo]

100% Kind of added that link for youtube search to pick it up for google as there's tons of spam firms saying there's a government grant on solar which of course there isn't

[@andy9841]

Interesting. Was it much more expensive adding the other panels afterwards vs getting them all installed at once? ie scaffold andinstallation costs. I'm currently saving up to get panels East and West and battery at the same time, but kind of want it all now lol

[@NicolasRaimo]

Yep it would cost more doing it this way than in one go better once scaffolding is up is do it once and as much as you can get up within the boundary’s of what your roof can take, Heatable do offer some finance rates if that helps so might be worth seeing what that works out when offset with savings

[@andy9841]

@@NicolasRaimo How are you getting on with the Alpha battery? Is it compatible with Octopus Kraken yet? it looks like only the Givenergy one in according to Octopus. Your setup is basically a blueprint for what I want to do 😀

[@NicolasRaimo]

@@andy9841 I have an EV so am on octopus intelligent for import and outgoing for export so I use home assistant for some tricky I did a video about that on here

[@smc812]

Might be worth other people noting that how far you are north/south in the UK makes a significant difference. I have a similar East/West array as Nick near Oxford and have generated about 25% more per panel. My payback is currently about 6.5 years as my install was a little cheaper.

[@NicolasRaimo]

Indeed, however my system has generated more than my friend in Nottingham who's further south but region does play a large part

[@stulishman]

@@NicolasRaimo I have 6 east facing and 14 west facing (installed end of Jan), the 6 east panels didn't work for the first 2 months, i have now had them installed for 10 months and have generated 6.91MWh so far and i am located in Portsmouth, with the Tesla Powerwall it is a no brainer on Octopus Intelligent Go.

[@briangriffiths114]

Can you confirm that you generated 2326 units over the 11 months, as this is 19% more than my 3.5 KWp east-west system located in central Scotland did over the same period? The addition of two panels rather than one makes sense, as you would have incurred broadly the same installation (mostly scaffolding) costs and north facing panels still generate a decent amount of power for a large part of the year that you can export.

[@NicolasRaimo]

figures on screen are correct yes, as mentioned heatable saw around 15% improvement of power when REA bi-facial was mixed with enphase micro inverters the other 5% was likely fact your in scotland and an in derbsyhire

[@JohnR31415]

I did 2.1MWh from a 2.4kWp system last year.

[@NicolasRaimo]

@@JohnR31415 south array I assume… when you say last year I assume you don’t mean over same period of mine

[@UpsideDownFork]

​@@NicolasRaimototal solar gen shown as 899kWh. Figures above don't sum to that in the green column.

[@NicolasRaimo]

@@UpsideDownFork sorry was on road figures on screen shows 899.95kwh generated in 11 months (see below spreadsheet was wrong)

[@sun-sea-solar]

My off-peak is 5p 👍👍

[@9111logic]

My view, I don't know what drives people to get generic systems especially connected to the grid other than the fact that they are cheap but so is their return. I was totally new to solar but last year I built my own system based on serious equipment, none of these mediocre "oven-ready" gadgets. Victron, 2x Multiplus 5KVA in parallel, 2 x MPPT and 20 x PV modules. Real systems don't come cheap, I spent pennies short of £ 30K only in components as I did all the work myself, including building a solar shed to house the equipment and batteries. The first 16kWh Battery cost was just under £ 2500 in parts and the second one, to be assembled, is even cheaper as prices have dropped. All this is included in the total cost as described earlier. Yes, the summer is possibly one of the worst we had in years but I am producing more than twice as much of what I use daily, I have seen as much as 22KW in a day and it probably would have done more had I used more. SO ! IS SOLAR WORTH HAVING? . . . ABSOLUTELY . . . BUT not unless you invest wisely and at the right age, in my case I'll never recover my investment being 71 in a couple of weeks but I wanted to run this experiment, my only consolation is that have not paid a penny, yes, not a single penny to the grid for months and I am seriously considering disconnecting so that I don't have to pay standing charges unnecessarily 🥰

[@maisorychacha5619]

Wow. Serious investment. Victron makes decent equipment and love their app. Its miles ahead of competition. Quick question though, do you mean you are generating 22kwh a day? For 20PVs I was expecting alot more.

[@9111logic]

@@maisorychacha5619from April to September / October yes even more (max last summer 25 per day) as currently I only have 20kWh of batteries and they are constantly full, between 75 and 100% so I cannot account for what I could really produce if I had more storage or use more myself. I have just completed my second large battery 17kWh but it is not installed yet.

[@maisorychacha5619]

@@9111logic Aaah, yes, I understand. PV production does drop when the batteries are almost full and if there isn't a load to match the power being generated. I bet you could easily get 35kwh+ during the summer with the number of PVs you have.

[@PabloTBrave]

Question : do you have to fill a tax form in due to the income you receive from selling electricity back , assuming it's more than the £1000 allowance .

[@NicolasRaimo]

So technically speaking saving £1000 is different from making £1000 under tax allowance rules. I generated 2326 kWh of solar paying me £277.19 however manipulating my battery I charged and discharged it more to get better return. Now I need to check the next part with my accountant as am assuming you could also deduct the cost of import from this which is £576 again as I charged my battery from grid this is a capital cost to make the export payment, you’d need a Massive array bigger than most houses to get anywhere near the £1000 capital allowance I also found this below online as: Your solar array is located on a domestic property you own, or nearby You don’t intend for your panels to produce significantly more solar power (usually interpreted as 20% more) than the amount of electricity you consume at home If your installation doesn’t match these requirements, you may still be exempt. You can class your SEG payments as trading and miscellaneous income, and provided your total income in this category doesn’t exceed £1,000, you won’t have to report it to HMRC.

[@PabloTBrave]

@@NicolasRaimo thanks for explaining it . I had thought of this ages ago and no youtuber ever mentioned possible tax implications , but now you have .

[@NicolasRaimo]

@@PabloTBrave Ill do a full video on it, Ill try get an accountant on

[@Redemption202]

Hey. I watched you video on home assistant and making it so when octopus inteligent the alpha ess would then charge on the chap rate and when charger stopped as the grid is expensive again. Could you do a video on how you did this step by step. or if your able to help me with it. Id happily reimburse for your time as it will be a life saver over the winter.

[@NicolasRaimo]

Go to automation here’s my YAML code for 2 things your need just change serial number to yours and feel free to signup to patron or KZbin membership this code is of course for my Ohme charger 🔌 alias: Alpha Intelligent NORMAL description: "" trigger: - platform: state entity_id: - binary_sensor.ohme_car_charging to: "off" condition: [] action: - service: alphaess.setbatterycharge data: enabled: true cp1start: "00:00" cp1end: "05:30" cp2start: "23:30" cp2end: "00:00" chargestopsoc: 100 serial: Al00000000”””” - service: alphaess.setbatterydischarge data: enabled: true dp1start: "05:30" dp1end: "23:30" dp2start: "00:00" dp2end: "00:00" dischargecutoffsoc: 4 serial: AL000000000000 mode: single Now you need another code for on alias: Alpha Intelligent ON description: "" trigger: - platform: state entity_id: - binary_sensor.ohme_car_charging to: "on" condition: [] action: - service: alphaess.setbatterycharge data: enabled: true cp1start: "05:30" cp1end: "23:59" cp2end: "05:29" chargestopsoc: 100 serial: AL0000000 cp2start: "00:00" - service: alphaess.setbatterydischarge data: enabled: false dp1start: "00:00" dp1end: "00:00" dp2start: "00:00" dp2end: "00:00" dischargecutoffsoc: 4 serial: AL000000 mode: single

[@st200ol]

Like EVs not every home is suitable for solar panels. I do have a south-facing roof but due to its odd shape and small available area its not worth it for the number of panels I could get up there. Perhaps when custom shapes are available and available cheaply, solar tiles for example I'll review it again.

[@NicolasRaimo]

If you can get 1 panel that may be worth it there’s an update about this coming soon so if your subscribed and bells ticked your see it soon enough. I’ve seen some film made materials that could be an option for some small areas, I think tiles bring almost the same issues as regular panels with the complexity that you need to effectively replace your roof with them it’s too early days to say how they will fair long term but I like the tech and following with a keen interest but Tesla been awfully quiet about it as of recent years

[@st200ol]

@@NicolasRaimo I’ll look forward to that then. The issue I see is that it costs 1-2k to put up the scaffolding. I do have 3 200w self installed panels on my flat roof shed but that is just small potatoes. 😀

[@NicolasRaimo]

Have you done a roof measure on heatable site they give instant price and idea of number of panels without you giving contact details evnick.com/heatable assume you have an East or West array as well possible?

[@tonywalker7064]

will be great to compare those single north and south panels next june !

[@NicolasRaimo]

Hit that BELL video recorded already about it but you can sneak live data at evnick.com/solar

[@G-Cam1]

I suspect IF you have moved down a band on your EPC... This is where the (potential) property value increase comes from? This is all a bit tongue in cheek as you actually need to sell up in order to actually make any financial (property based) gain. As more homes install solar (PV) will things normalise and will it simply be that houses without solar PV are priced below the market... So basically the same as Central Heating and Double glazing is these days. I think its great to max out solar (we have around 13kW, Powerwall, ASHP and EVs... So it totally makes sense from reducing your energy bills POV... But im not too convinced that installing it just to possibly add some additional, sometime in the future, property value increase is a reason to do it (imho).

[@NicolasRaimo]

Thats a great comment and a great point short term yes solar is adding value like you said and again like you said homes without it will under preform in Market

[@TheRonskiman]

I simply wouldn't use Heatable, they baffle people with nonsense. Bifacial panels will add pretty much nothing when installed on a roof, they are designed to be installed where there is plenty of room for reflected light, think meters above a surface, like a car port, ground mount array etc. If you have no shading issues, then you don't need micro inverters, you've ended up with a rather expensive system, and not many benefits, yes you can easily add a panel or two like you have, one of the benifits. I'm guessing your 10 panels is around 4.3kWp, my 2015 installed 4kWp system averages around 4300 kWh a year on 2015 panel tech, and it's not all South facing, half faces east.

[@helipeek2736]

2:13 nice D’ream reference.

[@tonyfeasby1437]

Looks like you predicted the future Nick. Heard a rumour the 15p export is getting chopped in half?

[@NicolasRaimo]

YES/NO/KINDA its a complex answer, the business rate is moving from 15p to just over half at 8p this was on a plan called "panel power" The writing was on the wall for this for a few months the drop in wholesale was one but the other was octopus announcing it wasn't accepting ANY more customers onto panel power the same isn't true for the consumer rate which is still open to new customers and still 15p... I suspect its a bit of robbing Peter to pay Paul.. By this I mean they make alot of money from controling your EV charging and this can pay for the export rate for small amounts your export most homes can't have HUGE systems unlike a business that oould easily have 30/40/50/1000 panels

[@sun-sea-solar]

I like the company. Only if they let me purchase my own panels

[@NicolasRaimo]

No one can do that not only don’t you get the vat you won’t get the MCs cert… but these Rea panels top of the game

[@sun-sea-solar]

@NicolasRaimo but yet I can buy the panels from the same wholesale, distributor that they purchased from!! Mcs cert is for a qualified electrician to install them not purchasing them.

[@sun-sea-solar]

@NicolasRaimo 500w BI-FACIAL panels for £67 each 10 year warranty. Half cell technology. N-type panels. How much were your panels.

[@sun-sea-solar]

@NicolasRaimo I also think energy companies need to be transparent that you don't need to own an EV to get on their cheap EV tariffs. Because a lot of people are confused about this.

[@NicolasRaimo]

@ the Rea bi facials are exclusive to Heatable and MCs rules state they must supply all equipment fitted..

[@russaubin]

I think your estate agent is massively overestimating the increase to the value of your home. Are you telling me on a £400k house 10 panels and a battery increase the value by £20k??!! If I was buying the house, I'd ask you to remove them and knock £20k off the asking price. 😂

[@NicolasRaimo]

If someone boards a loft out, extends it, does the garden etc these all add value to a home, Its worth noting there was some independent research on homes values after adding solar and they ranged from 5-20% of course the higher was reserved for people on well paid FIT deals

[@JohnR31415]

Ten panels and a battery aren’t worth 20k, but I would expect a 10k uplift from the install.

[@russaubin]

​@NicolasRaimo if someone converts their loft they've increased living accommodation, this is obviously going to increase value. Solar panels and battery will be an attractive addition but no way 5% Microinverters can go wrong as well as the main inverter. The warranty doesn't last forever so the new homeowner could be left with expensive repairs in years to come.

[@NicolasRaimo]

@@russaubin 25 year warranty on micro inverter and failure rate is lower than panel so your more likely have a solar panel fail than micro.. no inverter as it’s part of micro inverter system also if it did fail the system would still work just minus that faulty inverter

[@russaubin]

​@@NicolasRaimoThe array won't work as efficient if microinverters fail and are not repaired. You're assuming Heatable or the manufacturer will still be trading for the next 25 years. I feel this video is just an advert for Heatable and has misleading information regarding the increase in property value.