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I think the FIT is always at the same equivalent amount to make a south-facing array pay back in about 10 years – my systems:
2013, ~4kWp: £5000, FIT 15p
2010, ~4kWp: £15000, FIT 45p (i.e. 15p per £5000)So when it was 21p you would have paid about 50% more than £4300 for your array.
The question of west facing is an interesting one. That will cause it to take longer to pay off via FIT since the overall generation will be lower. However, there is a significant benefit in terms of self-consumption. You will save more off your electricity bill since a west facing panel will generate later into the evening – when your consumption is greatest – particularly in the summer.
That’s my conundrum. In summer it’s in full sun from about 11 until sunset so it will continue to produce well after the south facing ones have dropped off a bit. The roof has a slight southerly hint. We have an L shaped house so we have roof lines in every direction. Wife isn’t too sure about getting the additional panels; as an accountant she needs to be convinced it’s worthwhile.
Reading your post, so you have 8kw in total? Thought 4was the max before losing some of the fit payment. If that’s not the case getting something slightly larger would probably make more sense.
Thanks for replying.
Can’t edit the post for some reason.
Do you have an old meter that spins backwards? I’ve informed my provide but they just said yes it does and not to worry. If we get economy 7 (another thing I’m considering to pay for the 15kw overnight charging) we’ll end up with a new meter and lose that “benefit”
We have a fairly new meter, so no it doesn’t spin backwards AFAIK. It does Economy 7 (so it’s two meters really).
The second array was considered an extension to the first system (total is actually about 7kWp) so I had to ‘apply for permission’ to add it, but it was a formality. It got its own meter, so the original system still gets ~45p per unit. The second system is under the current scheme but because the total is over 4kWp it gets a bit less (13 or 14p per unit, IIRC).
Additional panels being installed on Monday (back of the house currently surrounded by scaffolding). After looking at it I could probably only have fitted one or two more panels that the ones to get me to 4kw so for an extra 500 to maybe 750 watts it wasn’t worth the hassle of getting the permission to do more. If it was getting me up to 6kw I would have gone with that.
Anyway, I should be getting a few more kw per day soon
That’s great news, skiblue! How about some pics (and maybe consider writing a post about it)? I’m a big fan of solar.
Additional panels installed yesterday. Complications on the electrical front (needed an additional consumer unit) but all completed without any issues.
The new inverter is wi-fi so I can login and check the generation amount and what it’s doing right now, which I have been doing a little too often. I’m sure the novelty will wear off.
If I get time I’ll put a little something together. My previous lot have been in place for 3.5 years and I have been monitoring the generation. I have daily figures for year 1 and 2, weekly for year 3 and monthly so far for this year. Might be of use to others in the North West to see what you’re likely to get compared to what is installed.
I was the same – with my first system I recorded it daily for about a year, then weekly. However, once my ZOE arrived I switched allegiance and stopped recording, but have recently gone back to recording weekly.
I have a Wattson Solar Plus monitor, but am looking at going over to an online system, or possibly one based on an Android tablet/display.
Unfortunately, the way mine is installed, I can’t use anything like a Watson. The AC is a single core cable (no +ve and -ve individual wires) and the way the fuse box is makes accessing anything nigh on impossible.
Trying to past a link to the image (or the image) so you can see how convoluted it all ended up but it’s no playing. Suffice to say the fuse box is only an inch from the ceiling and there is no access to any of the cables because they are all safely boxed in. I don’t like to touch electrics – especially after I saw the spaghetti under the fuse box cover.
In theory, I can connect my original to the new one or to a wireless connector and get the stats that way but it’s risking the most expensive part of the system to replace.
The only reason I recorded, originally, was because I searched the internet and couldn’t find any figures relating to solar PV in the North West and thought it might prove useful. Trying to reduce this now because it becomes obsessive and you feel let down when you’ve only generated 100 watts in a day.
New one is proving useful in the long evenings now so I’m quite happy. Just need to find a charging solution that only utilises the solar and not 4+Kw more than I can generate.
That’s unfortunate – my system is pretty well squeezed in too, but there was space to put the clips around the wires just before they went into the consumer unit.
I agree about the charging – there ought to be an option to say we want to charge at just 3kW, or 1kW, or whatever we think we’re getting from the solar.
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