How much should solar cost?

Most people have seen solar on homes or in the fields but when it comes to home solar there are two routes people will take. One is micro solar – small solar systems that are typically grid tied. and there is the G98 systems which is a solar power system that provides up to 3.68kw of power to your home.

There are two routes, DIY or having solar installed by a professional, but lets look at the solar kits offered by RenewSolar and see how the costs are vastly different.
Here is a link to the kit – 3.6Kw Solar Hybrid Kit (3.6+4.1+15k) — RenewSolar

Sunsynk is a very popular euro inverter the upper class of inverters and at an affordable price. More a commercial style inverter with its robust thick steel case the company Deye has this leg that covers Europe north/east

Batteries for solar can be over priced at around 200% from most installers, and while a battery is worth its weight in … you will find they help the most and are one of the most expensive parts of a home solar system .. but in general you will find our entire solar kit is the price of the usual battery prices.

Seplos 15kw battery is one of the bigger batteries on the market, Frogstar and well know UK battery company sell their version for £2600- £2900 which is slightly more than ours as they are a for profit company.

When it comes to solar panels, cheap isnt always good and over prices is also not good, quality solar panels that work well in the UK are. most panels work and the support network is essential and why we use one of the largest companies in the world for solar panels and the price is also good.

Here is a funny thing, all black panels heat up this lowers the power, silver frames with white boards tend to stay cooler, but its fashion. but with solar panels costs down, it makes sense to maximize your solar panels. 4.1wk would be around £750 plus the mounting system.

So you probably hit the link and saw that the solar kit is around £4000.00

So why is solar costly to install?
Profiting.
Installers will install MSC hardware which is generally double the cost.
The business will add profits to every item around 25%

Then there are the costs, labor, hire, or purchase of equipment to install your solar.
Solar takes around 2 days to install, maybe 2.5days. but your going to be paying for staff, around £750-£1250 per day! Then there are the other costs, this is government related and can add another £3000.
and that is why installation of solar is so high.

Can you DIY install?
Yes and no, some parts of the system require a professional, but you can get them to do a minimum, wire from the main incomer to the an isolator. this should cost you less than £250.
You need to be able to get on the roof to install the panels and the mounting system, scaffold hire vary in price, but you could pay just £60 a day or buy a tower used for around £300.
You will need quite a few tools and know how to use them, this would cost around £400
Then you need to learn BS 7671 – you will find a guide on this website. ( there are 3)
IET Code of Practice for Grid Connected Solar Photovoltaic Systems — RenewSolar
You will need to learn skills like testing, wiring, roofing, and electrical.

Due to nerves or fear a lot of people opt for the smaller systems micro solar is popular.
You searched for micro solar — RenewSolar

So as the title says, how much should solar cost? about £5500 – £7700
for this you would have a 15kwh battery, 4.1 kw of solar and a 3.6kw inverter installed and working.

ROI, a lot of people focus on ROI, how long it will take to pay back the cost of solar?
lets take the middle ground, £6,000
We will then use the battery size (15kw) if we say a kWh is £0.26, then the battery would hold you £4.05
This would take 1482 days to pay back, that’s about 4 years..

We need to look a little differently than that figure, as this is just storage of power you can use over night.

In summer, you will make around 32kWh of solar a day. 15kw goes to the battery leaving us with about 17kw to use over the day. the edge of summer will be around 16.5kwh of solar which is about a full charge of the battery and some left over. Note that most of the time you wont be fully discharging the battery over night, so you will only be charging half or so of the battery, depending on your use.
You should look at your power use more so to work out what your saving will be, but you could have a ball part figure by taking your annual bill, divide it by 365 and then multiply this by 275. This result will be the saving you should make per year from your solar. for me that’s around £1,582 per year.

At RenewSolar we aim to have a ROI of around 4 years or less on solar installations.