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Hello there

We have been thinking of having a solar battery fitted so we can store the excess electricity generated during the day to use at night we realise that at this time of year the panels wont generate much so we wont be storing any. We still have economy 7 electricity & we were told that because the night rate is very cheap we could have the system set to charge the solar battery during the night so we could use the electricity we have put into the battery at night to save us using the more expensive day time electricity, this sounds a great idea but I am not a techy in these matters & we are always very sceptical of the bumph you read & told about things as some people will tell you any load of <removed> to get you to buy. we have 12 panel 4kw system fitted. We have been meaning to get off the economy 7 system for ages but never got round to doing it but maybe it could benefit us by having it ? Any advice greatly received.

 

I am far from expert at this but as far as my knowledge goes it would cost thousands for a suitable inverter and batteries.

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Just wanted to bump up my post as it was a year ago when I posted about solar batteries/economy 7 & since then the price of the solar batteries has come down quite a lot. the main point of my post was " is it cost effective to charge the solar batteries at night on the economy 7 tariff or are you going to be worse off by using more electricity at night"   

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Had a guy round yesterday about getting solar panels on our roof. The government incentive has finished now so can't use that. He has basically said for solar panels it would cost 15 quid a week for 5 years until paid off. He worked it out on a 150 quid gas/electric bill(we only pay around 72 a month but thought we were underpaying) and an energy storing battery free. Just wondering if anyone knows if it's likely to be worth it, I don't want to be paying for no reason

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Only a few months ago, we were looking at something like 15 years to break-even (Cost of solar power system Vs reduced energy bills).

 

But we know energy prices are going to rise - reducing the break even time.

 

So the 15 years, starts to look more like 10ish.

 

(Maybe less if things go a bit mad-max)

 

But still, even 'only' 10 years, to break even on something that'll cost thousands  upfront (which we don't have), is a bit too much for us.

 

Well think about it again the next time we've got a few thousand quid just lying around...

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