Its fair to say I'm a high energy user, by that i mean i live in a modern house with electric heating which is far from cheap to run or efficient. Even at todays prices running my 14.4kw boiler can cost around £3.00 an hour to run. For some perspective my Jan electric bill was just over £300 which does include cooking (also elec) lighting etc. Solar panels were already installed on the house new when i moved in so i do have that benefit albeit very small one over the winter months.
The bulk of my energy is used, i guess like most people between 6:30-8:00am and 4:30-7.00pm.
I only have a 2.5kw solar panels and looking back over my generation im amassed around 6600kw over the time they’ve been installed…the only current benefit i have from this is that i get to use the energy during the day as unfortunately i missed out on feed in tariffs by a few months.
I generated about 15kw yesterday and only about 5kw today and id say that todays generation was probably typical of a normal day down in sunny Wiltshire.
I’m due to get a plug in hybrid in Sept/October and my charger will integrate with the solar system, this will only be at weekends mind as the car will normally not be there during the week. I’m looking at a iboost for the immersion but as yet not done so as I'm now beginning to think about battery storage again as an option but i just cant get the figures to work. I read everywhere that its a great thing to do…saves you money but i need convincing.
Id get around 180 days a year where id successfully get the battery charged, i know this is just a finger in the air estimate but clearly between March and September will be our best days, anything outside of that is a bonus but not guaranteed.
Using the new tariff prices in April, 5kw of power will soon cost me 1.43, I've used 5kw as thats the storage i’m looking at, if we assumed that i can maintain the level of storage via the panels over the 6 months id only be saving roughly £257 a year, at 4-5k installation fee id be looking at getting my money back in 20 years time.
I have the advantage of already having the panels, i could add more and easily get a 4kw system but then the prices would shoot up as id naturally be looking at perhaps an 8kw storage package.
To the guys that have these…..are they really worth it, whats the real life savings, what do you put back in to the battery and given what you know now would you still have them installed.
FFF
Reply With Quote