The cost of living... what can we do?

They say a 250w panel here costs about £400+. There's no VAT on them.

As ours are on our roof the cable is only a few feet long. In through the roof (somewhere) and into the inverter which is fixed to the chimney breast. I think they fitted a metal frame to the roof struts (removed tiles and then replaced and sealed them). It took less than a day to erect scaffolding (and take it down), fit everything, wire them in, fit the inverter and run cable to the electric meter and get the electricity board inspector to approve it. By the time they finished they couldn't test it as we ended up with one of our regular power cuts . They came back the next day for that.

 

@noisette47 we had a typical solar PV (16 panels yielding 4 kWp) system installed last June. In the summer we were generating twice as much as we used in 24 hours but, like most households, we use much more at night. So unless you have batteries the big factor is how much you get paid for exporting the excess back into the grid. We get paid around two-thirds of the price they sell back to us.

In the 6 months since getting our system we have saved about one sixth of our electric consumption, equivalent to £400 per year. Also we are on track to get around £200 paid back to us for the excess exported.

So for around a £6k cost of purchase/install it will take about 10 years to pay back, less if electric prices go up.

On nice winter days like today, with a bit of sunshine, we are generating about the same as we use during daylight hours, we only produce a tiny excess.

You should do better being further south. Yours will be south east facing and hopefully no shading would be ideal. Half of ours face west which means we generate longer into the evening but it lowers the overall annual yield. A big part of our cost was the scaffolding, it needed to be on two sides of the house, with yours it could be much cheaper working at a lower level too.

 

When we installed ours the Feed In Tariff was an amount per kWh paid to us whether the electricity went into the grid or we used it - and that is guaranteed for 20 years. We also get a small additional amount for what they estimate we feed back into the grid - there is no meter to check it . We don't get taxed on the money they pay us.

Now that the electricity charges have gone so high it pays us to use our machines (washing machine, tumble dryer, dishwasher) when we have more sunshine. So we waited until this afternoon to turn on our dishwasher (it was full) when it was nice and sunny.

 

Sounds a good solution for your requirements. Over here a lot of the install costs are to do with certification. I had to have two surveys each took the best part of a day, measuring insulation levels, checking light bulb types, even measuring gaps under doors! Would easily save £2k avoiding all the red tape by DIY but wouldn't be able to connect to the grid, given that I am only going to gain £200 for that it hardly seems worth it.

 

We didn't have any of that when ours was installed . All that was required was an electrical check of the installation and the rest was just a form that was filled in. Nothing to do with insulation or anything similar. The good old days, 9 years ago

 

They use drones here as well and I had a letter from the council when I built the summerhouse telling me I had a new construction larger than was allowed without planning permission. I responded that I had checked in advance with Planning and that their spy drone couldn't see that part of the roof it recorded had no building underneath it (it was an outside porch) and that the internal measurements came within the allowable space. I told them that if they wished to make an appointment to see me at a convenient time for me I would allow them ten minutes to check it. I never got a reply.