Solar panels at home, worth it?

There's only 4000 schools in total in Ireland both primary and secondary, so in theory they could all be fitted quite quickly.

3 years is a very realistic target to have them all fitted.

Pity schools are empty during the summer….when the supply is max

So is the Dept of Education’s mandate to provide an education or to be an energy investor ?

Not quite, no. But appreciate the response anyway.

That's the main field, what I'm asking about is recommendations for that small number of installers in the field that trade transparently, offer fair prices when it seems all around them are inflating the figures, and have done solid work for Boardsies with no unpleasant surprises, extras, or whistling through the teeth.

The official list of installers doesn't give a buyer any insight whatsoever really.

How does that precise offer stack up in the market Gumbo? (for reference).

So I used KB Electrical, as did quite a few Boardsies in and around that time (2 years ago, just before electricity prices went through the roof, so I was probably lucky in that I 'got in' before the rush!), they quoted me for 14 panels, a 5kWh battery and an Eddi Diverter, and the guy said they'd have extra panels in the van and would put them up if there was room (my remit was to have as many panels as would fit).

Now at the time that sounded amazing as up to that point I had quotes and site visits from about 3-4 other installers, and their quotes ranged from "there's no point, your roof isn't suitable" to "we might get 6 panels up there"... The closest quote I got that was anywhere close to what KB Electrical proposed was about 10-12 panels, and they wanted €13,500 after grant (Lennon Solar), Their salesman was quite condescending towards me with his terminology and sales speak... (he was insisting I needed a smart meter to have solar PV, and even wanted my MPRN number so they could call ESBN to have a smart meter installed, and he also included a yearly switching provider cash bonus by moving supplier every year as part of his savings calculations...)... His tune changed sightly when I explained to him that I've been in the power generation industry for the better part of 20 years and corrected him on a few of the things he said that were incorrect. But he'd already lost me when he insisted about getting smart meter for solar PV, and from that point onwards I just wanted him out the door... Still though I had about 4-5 follow up calls from him asking when I was going to sign up with them...

Anyway the KB guy arrived and said 14 panels, but maybe more on the day.. and when the day arrived they managed to fit 17 (340w) panels on my roof, which I was delighted with...

17x 340w panels (5.78kWp), 1x PureDrive 5kWh battery, Solis 6kW hybrid inverter, MyEnergi Eddi Diverter (including 1x Harvi wireless CT clamp & a MyEnergi hub), 11x optimisers, all for €8,800 (and they discounted me the grant up front), and they did excellent work, which was vey neat and tidy.

I've also seen them offer similar sized systems very recently in the fb group for very similar money to what I paid, when the vast majority of installers have increased their prices massively in the last 2 years, and KB were already extremely competitive 2 years ago, so being able to roughly maintain their prices, they are no doubt cleaning up, and fair play to them because they deserve to.. top lads and they did top work.

Hi,

Similar question, would you have contact details for KB electrical?

Thanks,

MiCk B. :-)

this is kinda interesting.. we are not allowed mention suppliers at all in the renewables forum :)

is solar worth it at home? probably a lot of depends in the answer.. i think if you are willing to maximise its potential then yes.. make sure you are exporting/importing/time of use tarrifs etc.. even a set and forget setup is probably worth it.. but you can definitely change the payback timeframes if you manage it closely.. im curious when i get to year 5 or 6 what the panels/batteries will be like from the degradation perspective.

have induction here for cooking... obsessive as well.. replaced the kettle which was 3.2kw with a 2.2 one which takes longer to boil but has less of a chance of exceeding the inverter load of 3.6kw.. the heat pump clothes drier is a big one as well.. sold our old condenser on adverts and bought a secondhand heat pump model and its significantly less power hungry... gone from average 3kwh to dry a load to less than 1.. just some days in the winter no getting away from using it

a dual one appeared in the summer.. definitely better than the oven for sure.. can cook a chicken in it up to about 1.4kg in an hour.. the electric shower is the one really just stuck with.. we only have one shower and not an overly large cylinder so on balance its probably as well hold onto it.

Have an ev but to be honest from September to march don't get enough excess solar to charge car.. even then if you have cheaper nigh tariff than export rate your better off charge on night rates and export excess

I use the gen 2 Tesla ‘dumb’ charger, but I can manually dial the cars charging rate from anything from 5 -32 amps… A Zappi would of course completely automate the process, but I still manage quite well, and for me this is where having a storage battery helps a lot as it can act as a buffer if solar production dips below what I’ve set the car to charge at, or if it goes above…. Bathe battery will take the excess…

Generally what I like to is let the home battery get to about 70-80% (if a lovely sunny day) and if it’s charging at say 2-3kW… I’ll set the car to charge at about 1.8-2.8kW, allowing the remaining trickle to continue going into the house battery or else to the Eddi when the house battery is full… I’ll also then throttle the car so enough excess goes into the Eddi before production drops off. And when excess drops below the minimum rate the car will charge at (1.15kW), I’ll stop the car charging and let any remaining excess go into the Eddi (if it hasn’t reached max temp yet).

The FIT are pretty similar to night rates. No real benefits to charging off solar

Get a second and third opinion on that. I was told I could only fit 7 panels by a few installers but ended up with 16. Even post a picture of your roof from google images here if you feel comfortable doing that for an opinion.

I had an assessor down today, they measured up, and they came with a preprepared presentation with 16 panels initially,(from google maps) but i said i want to max out the panels, so, they can fit 18 panels to the roof, which will need to be landscape orientation mounted, to fit the 18 panels- Jinko 430 watt panels, 10 at back(facing East), 8 front(facing west), we could have gotten more panels up, but are restricted somewhat, by 3 velux windows in our attic conversion.

They suggested a Growatt hybrid invertor, and a 5kw battery, allthough i said i need 10kw of battery storage, which impacts the invertor model choice, I don’t need an Eddi water heater, as i plan on being on a very low night rate, or, use the battery to heat the water.

We have 2 EV’s + heatpump. We have more than enough space in the utility room, for a 10kw battery which will reside where the old gas boiler lived, and the invertor can be fitted nearby.

Tricky in my case was the cable runs, from the attic, down to the invertor, we have an ensuite up there, which would have been the easiest cable run, which makes the cable run more tricky, so they are sending out an electrician, to fully investigate and finalise how the cables will come down from the attic, with minimum disruption.