Benefits of Solar Panels
There are many benefits to having solar panels installed on your home but realistically the most valuable benefit of solar panels is the money you will save on your electricity bills when purchasing solar panels.
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Solar with a battery can you save up to 70% on your electricity bills
It can also increase the value of your house
It can make your home more desirable
It lowers your carbon footprint
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Here at Energy Saver Lodge, we are going to explain to you in-depth what a solar panel system can do for your property. We will also provide an example of an actual example of a customer's house.
Solar Savings
The way solar panels are calculated for your property is very in-depth and you can delve too deep, but our goal at Energy Saver Lodge is to simplify this information and explain it in a way that the general public who are not solar engineers will understand. Please keep this in mind when reading the information as we sometimes have to explain something that may not be 100% technical true but will be getting explained in a way to make it more understandable.
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So the main thing to understand with solar before we get into the generation and export is to understand your electricity bills.
Understanding Your Electricity Bills
So there are a few misconceptions when it comes to your electricity bills you don't get charged £70 per month so how the providers get to these figures is they see what you use average over 12 months then charge you around that per month this is why when you do meter readings you can sometimes be stuck with a bigger bill or end up in credit.
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Your bills are broken down into 2 chargers, typically these are:
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Standing Charge - So your provider will charge you 48pence per day, think of this as rent for your meter, etc
kWh Charge - Your provider will then charge you around 30pence per kWh of electricity that goes through your meter.
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So in a month if you have 200kWh you will be charged the following:
30 Days X 48 pence = £14.40
200kWh X 30pence = £60.00
So this month you would be charged £74.40 for your bills so if your monthly charge is £70.00 then you would be £4.40 in debt after this month.
Do you Need a South Facing Roof?
The simple answer is no and here is why:
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There is a misconception that you need a south-facing roof to have solar panels installed on your roof this is not true, as long as the roof is not north facing then you can have solar panels installed and they will benefit you, so here is a simple way to look at it with 2 scenarios.
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Scenario 1 - you have a south-facing roof and can install 10 panels on your roof this means that all 10 panels will typically be in the sun all day. Even though your roof is south-facing you only have 1 roof that is suitable for solar panels so you can only have 10 panels installed on your property.
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Scenario 2 - you have an east/west split roof, this means that your roof is not south-facing but you should be able to fit 10 panels on the west and 10 panels on the east meaning that your 2 roofs will have 10 panels each, and each roof will be in sun for half the day meaning you would still typically generate the same as a south facing roof its just the enitial cost of the system will be slighly higher.
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The thing to consider is costs but as the panels are one of the cheapest parts of the system this wouldn't mean it would double the cost for example if a 10-panel system that was south-facing was going to cost £5995 then 20 panels on an east-west split would probably cost £8995. Please keep in mind these prices are just for explanation purposes and may vary from install to install.
SEG Payments
​Any energy you do not use that your panels have generated will then either go into a battery storage system or will be sent on to the national grid where you will also be paid for all electricity you have sent.
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There are different providers of SEG payments but most electricity providers will have an SEG payment scheme in the market currently the best one is with Octopus Energy and they are currently providing multiple tariffs for solar and offer 15pence per kWh.
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So let's take the scenario of roof 2 from above this system is generating 3510kWh per year so if you were to use 1210kWh of this that means you would have 2300kWh of leftover electricity so without a battery this would be exported to the national grid.
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If you are getting 15pence per kWh then you would typically be paid £345 per year from Octopus Energy this is either paid into your bank or added as credit on your bills to use in winter times as your solar will export more in summer and generate less in winter.
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If you want to switch to Octopus you can claim £50 worth of credit by switching provider today.
Solar Panel Generation Explained
Solar panels will generate electricity based upon the amount of electrons hitting them which the sun is releasing all the time. All this dpeends on where you live in the country and also which way your panels are facing.
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The generation of a system is calculated by the size, angle, degrees compared to south faceing, to calculate the generation now you must keep in mind if your solar panels can generate 6000kWh a year, that does not mean you will get to use it all, a good rule of thumb to think about is the following:
Solar only you will use around 33% of the generation.
Solar and battery you will use around 66% of the genration.
Adding a battery to your system will typically double your savings compared to solar only.
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The savings from panels and battery systems are typically cacluated over 25 years as this is the typical performance warranty on the panels that is installed with your system.
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Below you will find 3 systems from the same street with just solar only on to show you the generation and savings side of the system.
Feed in Tariff
In 2012 the government launched a scheme to help push solar on a large scale by paying customers up to 40p pkWh they generated using their solar panel system, this ended in 2019 as the price of electricity had risen so much that the Feed in Tariff was no longer required to help offset the costs of installing solar panels. Not only did the price of electricity help make it more affordable but the cost of systems typically halved during the period making it much more affordable for the consumer.
