Domestic Solar PV Quotes 2022 - No PM requests - See Mod note post #1

What kind of an array would people recommend for a 3 bed terrace with one or 2 people, no kids.

working during the day so nobody is in the house from morning till 5-6 in the evening.

The main eaters of electricity are electric shower, clothes dryer, washing machine, kettle and tv and stuff in the evening.

is it feasible to get a system with a battery that would charge during the day and then keep the house going in the evening?

could probably set up timers for washing machine and stuff to turn on in the afternoon or the best time in the day to use power.

A day night meter and a change of usage habits.

Fill the roof with panels for a start hot water divertor. A minimum of 5kw of batteries.

Your looking at about 7 to 8 grand after grant. That's a guess a I don't know your roof area or direction (south east west facing)

Where are you located.

Shifting as much as you can to night rate usage will be a big help and charging the battery on night rate for day time discharge.

some very useful information in this thread so many thanks.

I've just started to get some quotes for installing a few pv solar panels hopefully next year and so far the quotes I’ve been getting don’t seem to be near the rough guide here.

quote 1: 6 panels 2.7 kw with 2.4 battery €7326 after grant. Would be 5253 without the battery.

quote 2: 10 panels 3.6 kw with 2.4 battery 7500 after grant.

south east based

should I be expecting somewhere less than 5k for these sizes?

Thanks

As Maulbrook said.......Jesus wept. 50-80% overpaying. On the bright side, you've come to the right place to save yourself a few quid.....or spend the same money and get a much bigger system

Regular readers on here will know all this, but one thing that does get a little lost in all the quotes is that everyone should mostly start with asking yourself "What's my usage?". If you don't know how much you are using, you can't accurately size the installation to suit your needs. You could then end up buying a system which is too small to meaningfully impact your leccie bills, or worse overpaying on an installation which will take you decades to pay back as you simply don't consume what you generate. You leccie bills over the past 12 months is the place to start.

After doing that, then start to go through each room in the house and look at what's consuming what. Don't forget the lights!! Solar is great, but if you haven't done things like replace your old "Solas" lightbulbs, you know the ones in the old checkerboard yellow/black cardboard box with new energy efficient LED's, you could have an avenue to save as much as 20-30% off your electricity bills without even getting a panel on the roof! Moving to day/night tariff is another good thing to do and I saved €20/€30 quid every 2 months by simply setting the washing machine and dishwasher to start at 11pm and unload them in the morning.

Once you know your usage and fixed all the low hanging fruit your good to go solar. (Of course you can go solar without fixing your energy consumption first, but you'd be "missing a trick")

Thats my reading too. It's for non-domestic who have 6kWp+ so doesnt apply to anyone on this "Domestic Solar PV" thread.

I just wanted to throw up my experience with quotes over the past few weeks, based in Cork. Company 4 is swinging it at the moment. Thanks for all the great help on this thread. The power of community looks like it's saving us all a small fortune.

Company 1 (Enniskillen)

• 5.1kW JA 15 x 340W panels
• 5kW Pure Drive battery
• 5kW Solis hybrid inverter
• EDDI

7.5k after grant

Company 2 (Kildare)

• 5kW panels
• 2.4kW battery
• 5kW inverter

10k after grant 😧

Company 3 (Cork)

• 5kW Jinko 390W panels
• 5kw Sofar GTX battery
• 5kw Sofar battery
• EDDI
• BER

8,224 (after grant)

Company 4 (Cork)

• 5.12kW 16 x 320W
• 4.8 kW battery
• 5kW Solis hybrid inverter
• EDDI

7,250 (after grant)

1 and 4 are both very good prices. With both though, I'd ask them to upgrade to a 6kW inverter for future proofing. Costs very little extra so they might chuck it in at the same quote level.

Just wondering is your install for 1 or 2 (even 3) separate arrays? Was told by one company that having different arrays requires some controllers (~600 / 700 per controller)?

Nahh, it doesn't make any (real) difference except in price. You can have a look here yourself. (It's Australian, but the same applies here)

Best Solar Panels 2021 — Clean Energy Reviews

The absolute best might approach 23% efficiency, while the cheapest closer to 21%. You might go "Ohh i want the best", but if that's 2x the cost per panel over the cheapest, why not simply add an extra panel to your array and you'll have the same production? Only time that you (might) have a justification to go for the top rated panel is if you are very tight on space on your roof and you need to get the absolute max out of it.

The whole 15 years verses 25 years? Chances are in 15-20 years from now, the efficiency could be approaching 28-30%, so you might be want to swap out your panels anyway. Honestly anyone telling you "Ohh but these are superior panels cause of .... " it's nonsense.

No harm - no foul here. I can tell you now that no one is (or was) upset here. The reality is that many many people come here (myself included) and they are keen to get on the solar roadmap. Even people from an engineering background are being chucked in at the deep end trying to figure out what they need and are they getting ripped off. It's difficult.

The points you made above are all on the money, excuse the pun. Now to be clear, I've no issue in an installer making a profit. In fact I -want- him to make a profit and a healthy one at that as I want them to continue to be in business and operating when i come back in 2-3 years and need to expand the array or do something.

No the biggest issue, is the gouging. A healthy profit yes, but fleecing unsuspecting customers of 2-3K, sometimes as much as 5K more than another supplier will charge. That doesn't sit right with me. Don't forget that the "other" supplier is still making a profit, so it's "profit on top of the profit" so to speak. Sure, you'll hear that "We have a better after sales service" or "Our overheads are more as we provide a more comprehensive package". It's nonsense. There's no moving parts here. it's like Ronseal. It just does exactly what it says on the tin. Sure, you do get the occasional fault, but they are generally fairly reliable.

I got 8.28kw with 5kw battery installed for €11200 after grant, had Eddi already so that would add another €500 approx. Was a very good quote and looking at recent quotes from the same company (Enniskillen) prices have gone up so not sure it can be matched at present but certainly doable.