Domestic Solar PV Quotes 2020

thomas 123

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117999361#Comment_117999361

that page is moderated by a crowd hawking and selling 3d layouts - not surprised.

DrPhilG

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117999368#Comment_117999368

I haven't got it written anywhere else and can't be arsed to type it all out again!

garo

You might be able to extract it from your facebook data. but probably not worth the pain. Reminds me of a resolution I made - not followed very well - to always keep a local copy of any post I make which has more than 5 lines of useful text.

Birka

I’m thinking of upgrading my setup and got a quote of €4,200 for a 5 kw hybrid inverter and 5.2 kW battery. I got a price from another supplier for €7k for the same setup using a Sonnen Batterie inverter/battery. The same supplier quoted me €4K for 6 additional panels on top of that. The panel price is clearly far too dear but are Sonnen batteries and inverters usually nearly twice the price of other brands?

I saw a quote from a third supplier of €8k for a 5kW Sonnen battery…,

funnyname

I dip in and out of this thread from time to time. Looking to add an array and battery sometime next year. We have 3 thermal panels that generate loads of hot water on a clear day.

The house was built about 20 years ago and I think panels were installed a year or two after that.

I was wondering given the life cycle of the thermal panels is approx 20 years would be better off removing them to make more room for PV panels when we do or installation?

Bobeagleburger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117999851#Comment_117999851

Misread your post, ignore my first reply

MAULBROOK

What a day.

Jonathan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117999881#Comment_117999881

I was in the same boat as you. Tried all sorts of layouts but I was never going to be able to fit any decent amount of panels on my roof because of the placement of the thermal panel.

I ended up moving the thermal panel and filling the roof with PV. I then got the thermal panel reinstalled on the lower roof.

PV and thermal are working well together for me so far. The thermal panel acts as a pre-heat for lower portion of cylinder below immersion. PV only installed a month or so, but have yet to have to turn on the gas boiler.

viewofthehill

Hi All,

I am in the process of researching using solar panels on a new build and stumbled on this thread. The house has been built and occupied for slightly over a year now so I have an idea of the annual power consumption. The house has an air-to-water heat pump so all the utility bills are electric. On foot of a number of things (outages, working from home, future proofing etc.) I have started looking at solar as an option (when we originally bought the site we had looked into wind but it was far too expensive).

Having read through the last number of pages here I am looking for some advice in relation to solar/quotes etc. I have received a number of quotes from different companies and I was hoping that some one here may be able to tell me if they are too expensive or if better value can be found. As it is a new build I am aware that the grant does not apply. The current power consumption of the house is circa 12,500 KW split roughly 60/40 day/night. Roof on which the panels will be placed is not quite south facing (probably 20 - 30 degrees off south towards east) and is sloped at 35 degrees.

The quotes I have so far are:

Installer 1:

Longi 350 x 12 (4.02 KW), battery (no size given), €12,200

Q Cell 350 x 12, battery (no size given), €13,450

Installer 2:

REC 370 x 12 (4.44kW), Huawei 6kW inverter, Huawei 5Kw battery, Huawei backup box €13,200

REC 370 x 19 (7.03kW), Huawei 6kW inverter, Huawei 5Kw battery, Huawei backup box €16,360

Installer 3:

16 x 320 (5.12kW) panels, Solis hybrid inverter, Pylontech 4.8kW battery €11,120

Are any of these quotes reasonable and if not is there any installer who would be recommended. The house is about 20km south of Limerick city.

One final question that you may be able to help with. Does the battery have to be stored near the fuse box/board or can it be stored in an external shed/garage?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

yankinlk

I think you must know these are all High. Installer 3 is not far off my quote. Im also in Limerick and found the one Limerick installer that did quote was 3k too much. I know two that you could try - one is in Enniskillen and the other is closer - but hes booked up for months apparently.

Do you need a "Backup box" ? Any idea what that adds to the quote? I dont think you will get much use of that unless the grid failure happens on a Sunny day...

bullit_dodger

You can set fire to that piece of paper that has the phone numbers on Installer 1 and 2 anyway. Nowhere close to reality.

Installer 3 isn't too bad - certainly no blatant gouging going on. With your usage I'd be more inclined to go for a bigger battery, but that's me. If you have some electrical skills there's an excellent "Battery options" discusssion you might want to have a look.

Give me a PM and I can give you contact details of a number to try. Not sure they'll beat Installer 3 as that's not a terrible quote, but for sure no harm giving them a call.

MAULBROOK

3 is the only one that's close. Make sure the Inverter is a 6kw Solis inverter and begin the haggle.

graememk

The battery will need to be wherever you put the solar inverter.

The backup box is interesting, I wouldn't immediately dismiss it, as it looks like its an automatic change over in a case of grid failure - onto the battery, not just solar, And during the day panels will be generating some power, so you might just go easy on what is being used.

The price is high though. and how often do you actually get (prolonged) power cuts? is it worth the extra 2k? (at least!)

1stones

Hi

So I want to get in on this PV - I've got 2 basic quotes for a c5kWp system...any advice on cost / spec / alternatives appreciated, thanks

bullit_dodger

Hi 1stones. Both are not good. The 2nd one is a little better than the 1st one, but probably about €1.5K too expensive.

Good rule of thumb.

(€1k per 1Kwp) + (€1k per 2.5Kwhr battery) + €500 Eddi = rough quote of what you should expect to pay.

If your in an about that, let's say within €500 your not being gouged and that's fine, it's not a binary thing. Then it's down to more intangibles like how responsive they are, etc The main thing is that if your "well off" the guidline.... like you are here of ~€1500, then it's time to ring around.

Note: I noticed your fitting to Slate as opposed to tiles - I wouldn't imagine that effects things too much, but it is a little trickier I believe, but I'll leave someone else to comment on that who's actually gotten it done.

1stones

Thanks bullit-dodger

I had thought 8-10k maybe that should be 10-11…pre grant

by your rule of thumb that works at c8k, presume net of grant

i usually take a price as it is…grant or no grant is my business not a suppliers

viewofthehill

Thanks for the feedback.

The backup box was just to keep the lights on, ability to charge phones, keep broadband up for work/communication and to keep the fridges going. We have been in the house for slightly over a year and in that time we have had a number of outages of varying lengths (one of which led to the disposal of an entire freezer full of food).

2 is the only quote that I have dug deeper into, primarily because the quote piqued my interest a little on what was included.

Above is an extract from the quotes which claims annual savings of €1,697 (the 4.4kW would save €1,511) on the Electricity bill. This got me thinking because the system quoted is estimated to generate less than half my power consumption (5,777 kW) yet is estimated to save me nearly €1,700 off a total bill of €2,100 (with 30% Discount). Even allowing for the discount on unit rates and that the maximum savings would be the 5,777 at the day rate I still can't figure out how they achieved an estimated saving of €1,697 so I looked into it further. The software they used to generate the quote was at the end of the quote and I was able to sign up for free. I was able to put in the panels, battery and inverter and set some parameters liek slope and azimuth and ended up with a similar quote without doing any configuration. Looking more closely the values used by the software were €1.90/w for the first 1-10kW (€1.75/w for 10-30kW band) and €1,400/kW for batteries up to 5kW, €900/kW for batteries 5-10kW.

Given that these quotes are high and the estimated savings unrealistic does anyone know of the rough payback for a solar system (8-10yrs or possibly longer)?

bullit_dodger

Correct, that formula/price is after the grant has been taken off. Again, it's only a guideline. If your close to it - that's PERFECTLY fine. If you can beat it, great.

The main thing that it attempts to do is give some ballpark amount for people who aren't electrical engineers, or super familiar with the domain as to what they should expect to pay. It's primarily to stop the hard core gouging that does go on with some suppliers, educating people who might otherwise pay €1000's over the odds for a system.

bullit_dodger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118006347#Comment_118006347

The SEAI one is a bit basic, but it's probably not far off the mark for a non-battery system.

Solar Electricity Calculator (seai.ie)

Battery payback is a minefield of consumption profiles (when in the day you use electricity/how much do you use), energy providers, size of battery your going for. I crouched the numbers pretty hard for myself and I was seeing about a 8-9 year payback. Again, I'll stress that was for me. Other people may see significantly longer payback periods. That said, there's more to things than simply high % self-utilization from your panels - so it's not always about money, but ballpark figure 10 years for a battery payback.

Eddi - unlikely you'll ever see your investment paid off, but the hot water convenience is massive.

pale rider

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118006334#Comment_118006334

the rule of thumb as suggested is excellent, go with that everyone who is interested as your benchmark number AFTER grant, I think that should be a headline sticky as most people will not dig enough to find this nugget.

ignore at your peril newbies…

graememk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118006347#Comment_118006347

Calculating payback is tricky.

I'm trying to track my payback (or at least what i've "saved") month to month, in the monthly solar thread : https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117964917#Comment_117964917

System was installed in January. At the end of June I'd saved about 400 euro, So best case would be that Id save 800 in a year, although May and June are the best months!

That is not even taking into account stuff I'm running on solar that I would run on night rate, ie dishwasher etc (reducing savings)

As for backup power, 2k would go a long way in buying "battery generators" ie blue yetti etc (them big batteries with inbuilt inverters)

bullit_dodger

What did you pay for your overall system graememk?

SouthWesterly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118006250#Comment_118006250

A friend has slate and won't let an installer go near it. Was talking to the SAAS crowd and wouldn't even install on slate

graememk

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118006672#Comment_118006672

Id say around 7k all in, BUT its complicated, Its part self, part local installer, Panels are on a shed over a silo pit (Steel roof). Had our own handler to lift things up etc. Closer to a commercial than domestic, But the yard is connected to the house.

I could double the amount of panels I have, and I'd still not be short of space.

We recently took a new power cable down (16mm2) to run a new crusher, which allowed the installation of solar, that's not included in the cost of the solar.

47akak

I want to install a 6kW solar array with a battery backup and have the option to expand both later. I have a 16kVa import into the house, night rural rate, I'm very high usage between EV and heat pumps. I'll use a Zappi charger and a 10-14kWh "Chinese" LifePo4 battery many users seem to be having good luck with in these threads. I've no option to be paid for exporting to the grid. Panels will be ground mounted but will have to run cables 70 foot or so to where the consumer unit / inverter will be. I'll be looking for an electrician to install gear I source myself, going down the grant route seems insanely expensive comparatively, quotes from companies doing it are a joke and make it completely unviable.

Is there a go-to hybrid inverter which can accommodate all my needs as below? Digging in to the thread and various articles but if anyone has any advice it's much appreciated.

- allow me to charge the battery from the from solar during daytime hours and from the grid at nightime with a timer utilising the night rural rate. The timed grid charge is mainly for winter when solar production is low.

- for a heavy house load deliver power up to 6-7kW in AC output using both energy from the battery and the solar simultaneously.

- be able when there is a grid fault to use solar+battery as backup power for the house. Or battery anyway if regulations require it. Is this possible to do with any inverter? I'm not quite sure how this works. Is there any way of isolating the house from the grid manually and then continue using solar+battery?

MAULBROOK

The Solis inverter is very popular, very good warranty available and reliable, are you single phase or 3 phase.

championc

You have two options - a Hybrid inverter or a PV inverter and an AC Coupled storage inverter Sofar ME3000 / Tesla Powerwall.

An ME3000 can give you up to 3kW IN ADDITION to whatever the PV Inverter can output - but that would be 3kW at night. But the advantage of a standalone storage inverter is being able to control when batteries are being charged and discharged.

With a 6kW hybrid inverter, you have a max total output of 6kW, even at night. But you have less control over the charging, since the inverter will always charge the battery before charging anything externally like an EV or an Eddi.

graememk

- be able when there is a grid fault to use solar+battery as backup power for the house. Or battery anyway if regulations require it. Is this possible to do with any inverter? I'm not quite sure how this works. Is there any way of isolating the house from the grid manually and then continue using solar+battery?

There is an EPS supply from most hybrid inverters. How this is connected into your house is another story.- The problem with these is that they have configured in such a way to not damage equipment or harm anyone.

A generator change over switch can be put in before your main consumer unit, (as your only meant to have 1 "mains" supply into the board) - Issue here is that you have a 16KVA supply, which is 80 Amps and most are only rated for 63. This also has an issue of if thats switched over, the power from the hybrid inverter can be fed into itself and thats not meant to happen.

Also the likes of your heatpumps wont know your on backup power and could over load the inverter shutting it off.

an alternative to this would be taking some essential circuits into a sub board (some lights, Plugs etc), and then having a generator switch put in before that board. In a grid failure, it can then be switched over to the battery/solar backup.

SouthWesterly

Guys, how difficult would it be to get panels on a roof and have the inverter in a shed outside. It's probably 20 meters from the fuse board.

Plan is to to put in a few extra panels on the roof with an installer and do do a DIY on the ground behind the shed and run the cables to the inverter in the shed

47akak

I'm single phase.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118007445#Comment_118007445