Solar for dummies

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Sarah Ryan

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Considering investing in solar, plan was to get triple glazed windows but with all that is going on reconsidering this instead.

What have you learnt on your journey that you can tell me about, and what would you do differently?

Our plan is for a battery system to make the most of stored energy and to heat water for the house. We do not have electric cars and there is no plan for them in the future. Or at least not until this project is paid off and future windows / lottery win, husband would make the switch but I would rather stick with a €5k petrol banger with no screens.

Looking into into a system with Lithium Ion Phosphate, from my reading less fire risk, I have a real fear of fire so a giant lithium ion batter at the side of the house gives me the fear.
https://www.activ8energies.com/solar-panels/solar-pv

According to Electric Ireland this is my electricity usage for 2025 - 3280 kWh and the cost of that was €1,118 . My gas was 10,621kWh and the cost was €1,209.04. My heating bills are not overly excessive. 3 adults in house, no tumble dryer and we use a 24 unit rate plan.

I see a lot of discussions when something starts to payback, not really sure I want to even get into that way of thinking.
I am using this as a tool to attempt to run my house and be a little less reliant on a resource. It will be like a gas boiler, liable to break and need replacements, the same goes for any machine, not sure if this is a good or bad way to approach this project!

Anyway would welcome all feedback / help / advice sites on where to check out things etc , I have a TON of stuff to look at and read to start understanding the basics.

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Do some research and pick the system(s) you want feature wise. Some are better if storing battery / inverter outdoors, some require an extra unit to power the house from the battery.

Then figure out how many panels you can get on your room and what size battery.

Then get 4/5 quotes on the same product and same size system so you can compare apples to apples.
 
There are many variables here so breaking it down into some key decision points off the top of my head (non-exhaustive):

1. Your historical electrical usage is on the lower side. Are there any opportunities to reduce this further (e.g. using gas to heat water, better or more efficient use of high energy appliances etc

2. There is a mantra to max out on the number of panels so what (roof) space do you have and which orientation(s)? There is an excellent site which gives you what you might expect to generate given your location, pv sizing, orientation. PVGIS.

3. A correctly sized battery will allow you to not only store energy for self use when the sun goes down but also to load up on cheap night time energy during the darker months and use this during the day. A 15kWhr battery might be ideal for you and they are reducing in price all the time. LiFePo4 battery chemistry is far superior to the older Lithium ion chemistry from a fire pov. A battery system also allows you to buy in energy at reduced rate and immediately sell it back at a higher rate thus helping with the finances.

4. At current FIT rates, I would very much doubt that heating water from your solar power generated is the best use rather than exporting it to the grid and heating your water with gas.

5. A well spec'ed system will allow you to run the house 'off grid' when there is a power outage

PS, Activ8energy would not be on the top of my list ;) Get plenty of quotes
 
@Micks'r
1. Yes I use the gas to heat the water, the immersion was broken we moved into the house so I just never bothered to get it fixed. I use energy efficient light bulbs everywhere, I do WFH mostly, 3 screens, wifi on the go all day.
The washing machine is a rated I think, the dishwasher and the American fridge freezer came with the house, can't justify replacing them until they go boom they are in good condition, be about €3k to replace them

2. We are south west and a bit of a funny design on the roof so we're not going to be able to get as many as if it was a standard roof design, but looking at what some of my neighbours have we possibly could have nine panels.

3, 4 and 5, lots of learning needed on these subjects but we are literally just starting our fact finding mission now.

And good to know about that company as well thank you!
 
The SEAI energy show is on soon.
You would gets lots of information there.

www.seai.ie

SEAI Energy Show

Ireland's leading business to business sustainable energy event. The essential event if you work in the energy sector or your business is interested in sustainable energy.
www.seai.ie www.seai.ie
 
Hello Sarah,

In truth, you could go down a rabbit hole, with regards to gathering info. on Solar Energy, and never come back out - and I'm speaking from a degree of experience here, from when I was considering getting panels installed (which I later did, btw).

That Facebook group referenced by Clubman, above, is a super resource. Do join it and don't be afraid to ask the most basic of questions. You'll get lots of help.

I would also second the comment about avoiding a certain supplier, who have the number 8 in their name. In fact, I would also recommend that you avoid any firm that offers you a discount, in return for them putting a big advert on your wall for 4-8 weeks (they are nearly always more expensive, even after discount).

Ask for recommendations for installers, from the members here, and on that Facebook group, and look for installers who are well established, and work regularly in your area. Gather 4-5 names and get them all to come out, do a site inspection, discuss the details with you and give you a written quote.

Oh, make sure that any installer you consider is on the SEAI's list of approved instillers, so you'll be eligible for a grant etc.

Do not pay a large upfront deposit, btw. Some companies try to get 50-60% deposits up front, but don't pay anything even close to that. I think I paid a little under 20% deposit, and paid it by credit card (for the additional purchase protection) . Some would say that I still paid too much, in advance of the day of installation.

You are right to stay away from the whole "return on investment" debate, or discussion on *payback periods". There are too many variables, and too many spoofers. Everyones circumstances will be differnt.

What's important to remember is that investment in solar power will help reduce your energy bills, and will make a positive contribution towards reducing pollution etc.

It sounds like our households may have similar energy costs, or at least we did, before I moved to solar. I would estimate that we've reduced our annual electricity bill by about 60%.

We got a total of 11 panels on our house, btw, some SE facing, others SW, oh, and a couple facing NE (don't ask ;-) ) .

There's typically one of us, though sometimes two, working from home, each day. We're both at home, most evenings/nights, so we're still using more power between 6pm -12am,then at any other part of the day/night.

We opted to put one battery in, a 5kw battery. It's in the attic, next to the inverter. Subject to weather conditions, it charges during the day and we use the power that evening - night.

We automatically sell any extra power back into the grid, once the battery is fully charged (this happens mostly during the extended summer period, though since I moved to a hybrid car, and installed a charger, selling power back to the grid has become a lesser concern).

We didn't bother with heating the water from the solar panels, as we felt the additional cost just wasn't worth it. We heart out water from the gas heating, and /or the emersion. There's only two of us, so a bigger family will need more hot water and may come up with a differnt conclusion.
 
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Worth bearing in mind that when you need the most heat (winter) there will be very little power generation, opposite in summer.

Batteries generally don't make financial sense if getting paid to export (though this moght change in the future)

I found some resources online that helped us getting a competitive quote when we got solar a dew yearsback,

Go for it though, anything that reduces the dependence on imported fossil fuels is good particularly if it also supports regimes such as putins russia
 
@MrEarl thank you very much for that information. I guess we were thinking if we get a system we may as well go the whole hog re the hot water supply.

The main bathroom has an electric power shower and my ensuite runs off the immersion, so I was thinking that the change to solar would be enough just for my daily shower and the basic hot water that you need in the house because obviously the dishwasher does most of the hard work, so I guess if it replaced all of that then that would be sensible?!

I also of course need to factor in a new boiler for all of this, the one we have is hitting 12 years this year. Our household number will remain static unless our tenant moves out but they will be replaced, any future rent from the rent a room scheme will be used to pay off this future loan.
 
Hi Sarah,

Did I understand correctly that there's only three of you in the house ?

If so, how much hot water do you really need, per day ?

We had our system installed almost two hand a half years ago. At the time, it was going to cost an additional €600 to have a diverter supplied and fitted, to heat the water. It made no economic sense, for our two person household. I imagine that prices have since gone up, so if I'm right about your there person household, then you'll most likely come to the same conclusion as I did.

We've a hot water tank which is insulated (if yours is not, then get a lagging jacket fitted to it), and we give the hot water a boost twice a day (it's on a timer, as part of the gas heating controls). We've never run out of hot water, and the water is always very hot, in fact I probably need to reduce the temperature, at some stage.

We also have the emersion, and while I know where the on button is, I don't use it. Hopefully, will never need it, though our gas service guy told me that it's good to have, if the gas boiler ever gives in.

You can always add water heating to your solar set up, at a later date, it doesn't need to be included in Day 1, so that's another thing to leo in mind, if you also need to think about a new boiler for the house etc.
 
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@Persia

Hi, I ultimately selected Evolve ECO. There were one of a few that I had short listed, they'd been recommended by a few people on that Facebook group, and I liked them to deal with. They gave me plenty of time for questions, during their visit to the house, I could see that there weren't just a recently set up business, while obviously their quote was also very good.

I'm Dublin based btw, as are Evolve ECO, though I think they cover all of Leinster
 
@MrEarl yes there are three adults here full-time and then every second weekend we have one/ two teenagers (but they are now starting to find us very uncool so we don't factor them into our energy calculations!)

I have the temperature of the hot water set to 38 degrees and it comes on for half an hour in the morning time and also half an hour in the evening. Generally this will satisfy the hot water requirements unless my husband takes it upon himself to wash pots at the sink, he is banned from said practice for obvious reasons!!!!!

There will be sometimes when you need to put on the boost for perhaps 15 to 30 minutes in the evening time depending on what activities are going on in the house if somebody is out in the garden doing bits and pieces there's going to be more hand washing etc

That temperature is quite low but it does appear to work for us so that's where I don't know how I can make any further savings in this house because I think we run a pretty lean ship already.

Hot water cylinder is incased in that hard green cover so I'm not sure whether or not an extra lagging jacket is something that we should entertain, also not sure if that is the original one since the house was built so is this something that we should possibly entertain as an upgrade? Or if it's not leaking just leave well alone.

I'm of the logic of if I'm going down this road, I'm gonna have bells and whistles, all or nothing.
 
Hi @Sarah Ryan

If the hot water tank is surrounded in a green cover, it may well be that you don't need a lagging jacket (as there's essentially an insulated layer sealed on to your water tank, already).

Wrapping the pipes from the water tank in the attic, and to and from the hot water tank (probably in the hot press) can help a little, and didn't cost much, but it's not going to make a significant difference imho.

Based on what you've said, I don't think I would bother with the additional cost, to hear water from your solar system, but I'll be intetested in seeing what you ultimately decide.
 
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@Persia

As mentored above, it's a couple of years since I had to do the legwork, but AK Solar were another firm on my shortlist, if it's of any help to you.

I also looked at Zeta, but I think I heard that they've done been sold and having just put their name into Trustpilot, their rating isn't that great, so not sure what to think about them.

No more than here, please also put a post up asking for recommendations for installers, on the FB group. There's a hugh number of people on that group, and you'll always get plenty of help.
 
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Cameo said:
Batteries generally don't make financial sense if getting paid to export (though this moght change in the future)
Click to expand...

Not sure I agree with this. A large enough battery could see you importing from Pinergy at 6c and exporting at 25c. Even accounting for some winter import at a higher 40c day rate, the battery could be the difference between saving a few hundred off your bills versus net zero bills!
 
conor_mc said:
A large enough battery could see you importing from Pinergy at 6c and exporting at 25c
Click to expand...
Agree i was not thinking of this when i posted, current smart tarrifs and FIT approach don't seem to make sense, I'm out of date with current battery costs too.
 
conor_mc said:
A large enough battery could see you importing from Pinergy at 6c and exporting at 25c.
Click to expand...

That’s the outlier plan, great if it works I suppose but it’s not as simple.

If you are making good money off the battery I think you get into the tax situation which could be 40% of 25c.

There are also energy losses to be considered.
 
Sarah Ryan said:
Considering investing in solar
Click to expand...
Thanks Sarah for starting this as it's something that if you'd asked me a couple of years ago it was a definite no no
but with an unpredictable future and rising energy costs and the many threads that I've "somewhat" read on here
I'm now beginning to come round to the idea that it might be a good thing to do

We've similar bills, Gas @ €1426 and Elec @ €1230 for 2025 for two retired people thinking about getting an EV in a few years
Not sure about the actual usage for 2025 but a couple of years ago it was 14.5k for gas and 4K for electricity

Not worried about payback as such but it still has to pay its way and make sense to me and real world savings on my electricity usage
Unlike a claim in another thread that installing triple glazed widows will save me a €1k off my heating bills????

So yeah, interested in seeing how you get on!!
 
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