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Those of you with solar panels, what's been your experience? (feddit.uk)

submitted 6 days ago by blackn1ght@feddit.uk to c/askuk@feddit.uk

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I'm thinking of getting solar panels and a battery for our house.

What's your setup like, and is there anything you wish you'd set up differently if you were going to install it again? What supplier are you with?

A company extremely local to us is offering 12x Aiko Energy panels (465 watt), with a Sunsynk 5 kW inverter and a 5.32kWh battery. Octopus Energy are offering a similar set up for a similar price, but they're using 450 watt panels, so with using 12 panels I'd be potentially be losing 180 watts vs what the other company is offering. Is that a significant amount or would it basically not really amount to much additional power?

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[–] marble@sh.itjust.works 7 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I have 10x 340W panels and 2x 2kWh batteries. I'm very happy with them. I've had them just over 3 years now and I've saved about half the cost of the system. I got them through greenscape. The export rates are terrible, but I have an EV so I don't export a lot (though I am often at work in the afternoon when the house battery is charged so I waste some there).

I sometimes think I should have got more battery capacity but it would take quite a long time to recoup the extra cost.

[–] stsquad@lemmy.ml 2 points 5 days ago

My octopus rate gives me 15p per kwH I export. The overnight rate is 7p per kwH so it makes sense to export as much as I can and charge the car on cheap rate.

The gap between sunset and cheap rate is about 4-8 kwH so rather than getting a battery my next step is a bi-directional charger so my car can cover the gap.