Do you have or would you invest in Solar Panels on your property.

When we were considering them about 10 years ago my chief concern was the fact we live at the top of a hill and at some times in the year we get very strong westerly winds. We have never had any problem with them other than pigeons who moved in after 7 years. A roll of stainless steel mesh and an hour of a roofers time solved that problem for about £50 so not a major problem.
They paid for themselves in about 7years, I choose to do my laundry and gardening with electrical appliances when the sun shines so have low electric bills and the FIT payments come in handy.
We are thinking of installing batteries but may hold off to see what subsidies are offered. Currently we charge our car at free chargers but that won’t last forever so batteries will make more economic sense at that point.
I do like knowing we are doing our bit to keep Scotland clean and green.

In this area some new homes have Solar some don’t, a newbuild has to reach an energy rating of B or above, energy source is taken into account in the calculation, increasing insulation levels is more beneficial than solar panels.
With the prospect of higher energy prices in the future Solar is going to be more important.

Both my DS and DGS have installed solar panels.

In my sons case on his extensive roof as well as his very large garden shed in his garden. 24’ long (houses his gym stuff) The roof he had done by installers but his shed he has done himself. He runs his all electric car as well as household appliances, computers etc throughout the summer, and stores excess in a battery. I assume he gets less in the winter.

Grandson has built computers in his fathers shed and uses the solar panels on the roof to run them. He leases out space to people on the computers.

Being ancient, we haven’t had them installed as I assume that we will never see the return, but this is getting more and more unlikely, so may give it a thought sometime.

DD is getting her act together over having them installed😄

We’ve got them but they are not much chop because we have too many trees. We are not allowed to cut trees down but we wouldn’t anyway because I really like them. Daft, aren’t we ?

A 10 year payback is not attractive to those of us in our 70s given the likelihood of dying in an ambulance waiting to discharge into A&E! We live in a conservation area so that means a tussle with a dilatory district council over planning consent. Government should remove the planning restriction for conservation areas and listed properties.

We were talking about this yesterday.
They are a lot cheaper now and you can have batteries to store the electricity for own use so would not feed it into the national grid.
Our house is ideal as the back faces south and the pitch of the roof is perfect
Apparently they are getting cheaper all the time so we may consider it as although we may not live long it may increase the house price,

We bought them when my husband retired 7 years ago and they have more than paid for themselves. We are still earning from them even with all this foul weather. We use our washing machine, dish washer and tumble dryer when the panels are generating electricity so save on the bills and any left over goes towards heating the hot water. They are great.

Thank you all for your replies, we're now trying to make a final decision.

Well with the current weather, we have a cheap night time tariff of 7.5p per kw between 12.30 and 4.30am which manages to charge up both batteries, charge my sons EV vehicle and do the washing, drying and dishwasher all set on delay start. We then use the energy stored in the batteries for watching T.V and vacuuming plus lights etc. We are charged 40p or thereabouts at all other times but having the batteries means that hasn't happened yet. We rarely if ever have the heating on and are finding alternative ways of cooking. So according to the smart meter we are paying about £2-£3 a day for gas and the same for electricity and apart from getting used to having the solar panels have done nothing to cut down on usage. Hope that helps.

i would if I could, the back of our house is south facing, but it is Listed, so we would need full planning permission and would not get it.

We had solar panels fitted in July (winter here) this year. Our first electricity bill came about 8 weeks after they had been connected and it was $150 less than the previous one for the same time last year. We have a 10.2Kw system and there are 26 panels on the roof.
Even during our winter there were very few days when we were not generating enough power to fulfill our needs during the day.

It is estimated that it will take 4 years to get our outlay back but we believe it will also add value to the property when it is sold.

We do not have a battery as at this time they are not economical but will probably add one at some stage.

Should have added..... it is estimated that we will save approximately $1800 a year.

I wish we could, but we’ve been told that the pitch of our roof is too shallow. 🙁

Witzend

I wish we could, but we’ve been told that the pitch of our roof is too shallow. 🙁

Witzend there are flat roof places here that have panels on. A frame has been built and the panels attached to that.

I had mine free about 10 months ago. Happy so far. Getting FIT from Octopus who I believe pay the best rate. You don’t need to have your main supply from them.
But can’t get any response from EDF so no idea about my bills.

We had 16 solar panels fitted in 2014 on a south facing roof. New build. They weren't cheap - it cost us about £7,000, but they have more than paid for themselves in the savings on electricity bills and payments given 4 times a year. My main complaint is that the electricity companies don't buy surplus units from you at the same rate as they charge you for them. We will be looking into battery storage - though this can be very expensive - but it would have been great to have been able to store all that excess power generated during those hot, sunny months we had this year.

Have a detached house with roof having several angles. Would need panels on different areas of roof so even more costly. Kind of feel like electric cars having road tax applied the feedback allowance for energy will be withdrawn. Already applied since 2018/19 in Scotland. DS who lives in Scotland bought new house with all the bells and bows for energy saving and he missed the deadline by a few months.

We had ours fitted years ago when they were free; we don't own them and don't get paid for the electricity we feed into the grid, but we do use the electricity when they are generating. I can't really help you with the economic aspects, but I would say that we live on high ground with strong winds and have never had any problems.

Our bungalow is at the top of a valley, which is a wind tunnel, and we put panels up 8 years ago. We've never had any issues, and receive somewhere around £1500-2000 per year in Devon

only if I were staying in this house for > 12 years, which is an estimated payback time. I had solar panels for 9 years, previous house was fully eco. In my opinion, solar thermal is far more efficient. Just 2 panels will keep a tank hot for most of the year but you need a solar cylinder, which occupies quite a bit of space

Previous FIT tariff was very good and we were quids in, in spite of higher house cost. It took me a while. after moving, to stop restricting my electricity use to sunny days

I had 14 panels and one battery installed in April. This is the second property I’ve had that I’ve had them installed. It cost me £8000. The battery is expensive bit. Every time the sun shines I do my washing, use the tumble dryer and dishwasher and it doesn’t cost a penny! My last quarterly bill had £7 in actual usage. My next will be higher as it’s not been as sunny but definitely a lot lower than if I didn’t have them. At the prices we’re paying for electricity at the moment I think they’ll pay for themselves in just a few years rather than the ‘ten’ that’s usually quoted.

We have the ideal roofline to put them on but at 72 and 70, I'm not sure the DH and I would be around long enough to benefit financially.

We have 16 panels and 3 batteries. The panels are excellent but the batteries x3 were £6,000.00 down the drain.
They didn't work from day one. The installer has refused to assist and the bank won't refund the the money as I have been unable in 2 years to find any one to give me a survey [ have wasted even more money on this - as no one ever turned up]

We have had them over ten years and although expensive at the time, they were worth the investment. We get a cheque every quarter and use a lot of the solar provided to charge our car etc. We are just having a battery fitted to conserve the energy and be able to use it later in the evening.
Quite comforting to think that we can store our own electric and still have power if the supply goes off as we are in a rural area and don’t have gas.