A lad I know went to Australia about 5 or 6 years ago and was working with Solar Panels.
Came home and started his own company and is flying it. About 30 people working for him and cant keep up with the work.
Every house should have one.
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Not every house can mate but agreed
J is doing well.
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Any chance someone could post up this article?? I donât have a subscription
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Wed Nov 27 2024 - 05:00
Are you curious about solar panels? Government grants are being cut at the end December, so now might be the time to act. But will solar panels really cut your electricity bills, how much do they cost, and whatâs the time frame for payback?
The key question, of course, for anyone considering the investment is how much will solar panels cut your electricity bills? How long is a piece of string? Some households will save more than others, depending on your panels, their aspect and how you live.
You could use an online calculator with your own details to do the sums. With the calculator from AirPV, a platform that partners with the Irish Solar Energy Association, you can enter your Eircode to estimate the likely solar energy in your area, the electricity savings, the payback time and even carbon offsetting.
Take a notional SiobhĂĄn who lives in Dublin 18, for example. Sheâs got south-facing solar panels on her Cabinteely home, producing 5kWp â thatâs kilowatt peak, which means the amount of energy a panel can produce at its peak performance, such as in the afternoon of a clear, sunny day.
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She works from home and has bimonthly electricity bills averaging âŹ240 to âŹ300. The panels will cost her âŹ6,400 after the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) grant, which at the current rate is âŹ2100.
Over a year, SiobhĂĄn will save âŹ1,279 on her electricity bills, according to the AirPV calculator. This comprises âŹ580 a year worth of free solar electricity used at home and âŹ699 sold back to the grid. Thatâs based on day-rate electricity costing her 36 cent a kilowatt hour (kWh) and with the grid buying electricity back from her at 19.5 cent/kWh. Electric Irelandâs decision to cut the microÂgeneration export tariff rate it pays for power sold back to the network from domestic solar panels through the rate from 21 cent/kWh to 19.5 cent from the start of this month â matching the rate available from SSE Airtricity â will cost her âŹ54 in savings each year.
It will take SiobhĂĄn five years to recover the cost of the panels in savings, according to the calculator. Moving to solar will mean carbon dioxide reductions equal to planting 69 trees a year. The calculator also gives the predicted solar power generation of 5,197kWh a year, rising from March to peak in May before dropping to its lowest in December.
If SiobhĂĄn were to go with Energia rather than Electric Ireland or SSE, she would get âŹ860, as it currently offers a higher microgeneration tariff of 24 cent/kWh. That would bring her annual saving to âŹ1,440 and save her more thanr six months on her payback time.
âThe average homeowner is getting about 10 panels. The cost of that, plus a hybrid inverter and your Ber certificate, is between âŹ7,500 and âŹ8,000, before the grant,â says Conor Walsh of SEAI-registered installer, Encon.
Savings on bills
How much can you save on bills? âIt all comes down to your household,â says Walsh. âHow many people are in the house? Do you use more electricity at night or during the day? Do you have electric showers? Do you have a heat pump?â he says.
If you work from home and use electricity throughout the day, if your house is heated by an electric heat pump, or youâre currently on a high daytime tariff, you may save more on your bills.
The average household usage is about 4,500kW to 4,800kW of electricity a year, while someone using a heat pump could use between 7,500kW and 12,000kW, says Walsh. Installing solar will certainly reduce the cost of that, he says.
The hybrid inverter is the bit that will enable you to sell electricity back to the grid. It also means you can add a storage battery later if you want to save power generated during the day for use later in the evening when electricity usage is at its peak.
If you are at home a lot during the day, however, you donât need to get a battery straight away, says Walsh, because you will be using a lot of the energy you are producing. Those working from home can plan to do their laundry, cooking and dishwashing throughout the day.
âIn winter, solar is not as effective, so it averages about a five- or six-year payback.,â says Walsh. âGenerally it will take five to six years to get yourself to a place where you are almost positive on your bills.â
Co Wexford homeowner Barry Glynn pays nothing for electricity between March and October. He has an impressive 20 solar panel, 7kW system on the southeast facing roof of his bungalow, which was installed by Clover Energy Systems. He has also installed a battery that stores 10kW of power.
Before installing the panels in 2019, Glynnâs two-person household had electricity bills of âŹ170-âŹ190 every two months. Now he has free electricity for eight months of the year.
âThe panels are generating a bit in winter but itâs not going to run your world,â says Glynn. âYouâll probably get 25 per cent of your production, maybe less, during the winter months. Itâs at this time of year that the battery really comes into its own.â
A 5kWh battery will cost between âŹ1,600 and âŹ2,000, says Walsh. He recommends 10kW as the minimum size.
âYou are trying to build a solar PV system for 365 days of the year and, to do that, the battery is vital. The battery takes over when the generation is poor.â
In winter, Glynn charges the battery from the grid at a low overnight rate of eight cent per kW from Energia, and uses this low cost electricity to run his house the next day.
âIâm running about 95 per cent night rate electricity, charging my battery overnight using what Energia calls their âEV rateâ, and my 10kW battery gets me through the entire next day,â he says.
âFrom March, coming into the summer months, solar generation is starting to take over again, so I stop buying from the grid at that point and let the solar panels fill the battery as the day goes on,â says Glynn.
âWhen the solar energy is coming into your house, the house has priority: when the house load is fully used up, the energy goes to the battery. Then when the battery is full, it goes to whatâs called a water diverter â that heats your immersion tank, and when thatâs complete, you sell your energy back to the grid,â says Glynn.
Donât base your cost/benefit calculations on selling electricity back to the grid, he advises, treat it as a bonus.
While Energia is currently offering residential customers a rate of 24c per kWh exported to the grid as against the 19.5 cent from Electric Ireland and SSE, rates with all companies will go up and down over time.
âIn summer, itâs âmake hay while the sun shinesâ: you are making credit while the sun shines. Sell it to the grid to keep you in credit during the winter,â Glynn says.
His house is heated using oil and a wood burner. âThe oil boiler takes the summer off because solar creates so much energy, it is heating the hot water tank and the boiler is not required. That means we are saving on oil,â says Glynn.
Grants
The maximum grant for solar panels is âŹ2100, but that is only available until December 31st. After that, it drops by âŹ300.
The Government plans to reduce the grant by up to âŹ300 every year as it expects the cost of solar panel systems to reduce over time. It is intended that the grant will end in 2029.
Most solar panel systems are quoted in kW peak (or kWp). If someone talks about a 3.5kW system, thatâs the peak production the solar panel could generate in perfect lab conditions.
The grant is paid on a pro-rata basis, with âŹ800 paid per kWp up to 2kWp. The total grant is capped at âŹ2,100, covering 4kWp.
A three-bed family home will use about 4,200kWh of electricity a year, according to the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (CRU). How much panel power can you and should you get? A typical three-bed, semidetached house will take about 4.4kWp of solar panels, according to solar panel supplier PureVolt.ie. That will generate about 3,894kWh units of electricity, according to its estimates
Solar panels wonât make your house warmer, but they will reduce your electricity bills. The panels will also increase your Ber rating and this can make your home more valuable and enable you to access cheaper green mortgage rates.
Glynn used a credit union loan to fund his solar panels. The panels increased his Ber rating from a C3 to a B2. This qualified him for a cheaper mortgage and those savings helped pay down the solar panel loan more quickly.
For homes with a Ber of B3 or higher, AIB is offering a two-year fixed rate of 3.15 per cent for a loan to value of less than 50 per cent.
If you are borrowing under the Governmentâs Home Energy Upgrade Loan Scheme for other energy upgrade works, you can use 25 per cent of the money for solar panel installation.
And generating your own power means you are insulating yourself from price shocks.
Solar panels have definitely jumped from niche online forums to the mainstream. Last month, social media influencer and fake tan mogul Vogue Williams posted about installing 20 panels on the roof of her new Howth home. She hopes to see a 60 to 70 per cent reduction in her electricity bills.
About 119,300, or 6 per cent, of occupied dwellings had solar panels according to Census 2022 figures. Meath had the highest proportion of homes with solar panels at just over one in 10 homes, almost twice the national rate. Dublin city had the lowest at 3 per cent of homes.
Solar panel installation has jumped since that Census. Some 94,000 homes had solar panels installed this year, according to Irish Solar Energy Association figures, up from 60,000 last year.
âThe average customer will be paying from âŹ400 to âŹ450 bimonthly on electricity. With a decent enough array of 10 to 12 panels, they are probably going to get that bill down to âŹ220 every two months, almost halving their bill,â says Walsh.
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Thanks pal much appreciated.
I received this quote from a local supplier. Heâs been in business about 15yrs and has a good reputation so I havenât âshopped aroundâ. The quote seems fair. We use about 6,500 kWh of electricity per year. The cost of a 5 kWh battery is an additional âŹ2,690 if I want one. He wasnât really recommending one now he thinks theyâll drop in price next year and I can always get one then.
Would anyone with a battery recommend it for this type of system and annual usage??
6.16 KWp photovoltaic solar system made up of the following,
14 number 4440 watt Jinko biracial module with dual glass solar panels with a 30 year warranty,
All k2 roof fixtures and fixings,
1 number Fox 5 KWp Hybrid inverter (so that your Pv system is battery ready) that comes with a 10-year warranty,
1 number app so you can see what your pv system is generating (subject to having wifi where the inverter is located)
1 number Eddie (to divert excess electricity to heat your hot water cylinder)
2 number fire switch (shut switch)
1 number 32 am RCBo
1 number generation meter,
All necessary AC and DC switchâs and cabling for the full installation,
1 number post BER (required for the SEAI grant)
Doing all necessary paperwork for ESB Networks and the SEAI grant application,
Cost is âŹ7,860 after the SEAI grant payment that we will wait on to go directly into our bank account subject to T&Cs
Now you get paid for export battery less important. However, you could this from China, same kinda price but 3 times larger. I donât have battery myself but probably get something like the below next year.
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I think you need to be a teeny bit careful with batteries though. A fire could be catastrophic. Iâd not be mad keen on a cheap one until it was well road tested elsewhere.
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I donât have a battery but just FYIâŚcurrently the battery is free from VAT when you do the install. If you add it afterwards it isnâtâŚso it would need to drop in price more than the value of the VAT
Thatâs cheap for the battery thoughâŚwhen I installed it was almost 5k I was quoted so dropping alright
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You could put your entire system out of warranty as well by adding something to it not agreed with installer
The battery i linked above is LiFePo4 which is very stable and highly unlikely to go on fire
Is it normal to have rattling with strong winds?
No.
Roof is still on this morning
If those panels rattled then get into the attic asap
Call the gangster who put them on
If you are getting panels this year you need to apply for the grant today. It drops by âŹ300 tomorrow.
Youâve eight months to get them then
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Shur you be at nothing with solar panels this weather