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Thinking of installing a plug in 1000w system
If I install a 1000w system (plug in) is it worth it?
Usual daytime usage is about 0.25kw per hour, rising to 1-1.2kw per hour in the evening. We live in a small 2 bed and is just the pair of us loving there. 3 days a week someone is working from home, raising usage to almost evening levels.
Will I actually be using the free electricity first (keeping all the usual stuff running in the house during the day) or will it draw from the grid first? I don’t know much about how it all works. I can install this all for about £350 so it’s a small outlay – but only worth it if it works the way I think it works.
Thanks
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10 Replies
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Looking at the similar. From what I can tell average usage would be around a 3 year payback.
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Whatever you get will help. Obviously if you have usage going on during the daytime when the sun is out the panels will cover that. They won’t do anything for the evening loads unless you get a battery to charge up as well. You could be looking at saving 50p – £1 a day maybe during the sunny months. Not much during winter. If you can get it for that price then it’s a no brainer to be honest. What is the worst that can happen. Don’t forget panels don’t just stop working after a year. They can go for decades and if you move, with it being a plug in system, just take it with you.
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thank you, that’s helpful info. We spend about £750/year on electric (~3000kWh per year) and if I can get 2kWh a day out of it it’ll save us about 20-25% on our bills.
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Yes that is how it would work. In peak summer you will be pulling 1kW off the panels which will be exported to the grid minus your house load. If you can time heavy loads when the sun is shining they will use that power! It would be nice if Milliband sorted export payments with just an export MPAN. This MCS crap is restrictive. Maybe that is the plan for balcony solar? Well worth it for £350 even just to watch the dials on the app and shout at clouds occasionally
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octopus will allow you to sign up without MCS cert I believe
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Yup after paying them £250 and proving to them the new circuit has been installed by a sparky etc which will cost another £200 or so. Also the export payments wont transfer to another provider. Ideally it just needs for the DNO to setup the export MPAN once the G98/99 is done and then for export to be paid no other questions or costs!
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I self installed 2x400w panels and a 750w inverter. I reckon it paid back in 3-4 years. For spring-autumn it often eliminates the base load of our house (approx 200w), and on really sunny days dumps excess into our immersion tank
UK rule of thumb is kW installed x1000 is the annual kWh production. So my 0.8kW gives ~800kWh a year, which might cost say £200 purchased from the grid.
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Rather than aiming panels south try south east and south west to get longer generation hours at a lower output that should cover background usage for as long as possible throughout the day.
Or with micro inverters and 4 panels try SE, S, SW and W depending on your house usage and if you can fit 4 panels somewhere.
A constant trickle during during daylight hours is probably better than a peak surge across midday.
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Just to correct your units. If you use 2.5kWh in an hour your average power load is 2.5kW.
There’s no sense in talking about kW per hour. It does make sense to say kW hours (1KW being drawn for an hour) – that’s your energy used.
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Yes, it can be worth it, especially at that low cost. A plug-in system feeds power straight into your home first, so your daytime usage will be covered before pulling from the grid, helping reduce bills in real time . Just keep in mind it won’t help much in the evening, but for daytime loads and working from home you should see decent savings, more info here: Commercial Solar installation UK
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