Domestic Rates for Microgeneration Exports

Ayw but their daytime unit is 25.71 and after 5pm it is 36.73 so unless you're generating and storing a significant amount of electricity then this may not be th best deal.

is the FIT being paid by ESB Networks but just administered by the electricity supplier?

Should it be the same rate for everybody

https://www.independent.ie/news/environment/over-21000-customers-to-be-paid-by-esb-for-their-solar-power-energy-41629327.html

Exactly right. I took a gamble when I got my pv panels done and skipped getting a battery in the hope that the FIT would match the commercial rate at least.

Now that that idea is phecked, I'll be forking out €5,000 or so for 2 x 5.1kw batteries shortly.

€5k! 😵‍💫

What payback are you expecting???!!

When I get driving my EV, the whole system will take between 8 and 9 years to pay for itself.

Unless you have a really unusual usage profile it will be very difficult to see reasonable payback on the batteries at that price.

Do you have a massive array?

Do you use alot of daytime electricity already?

Adding an EV will help but that's only saving you night rate, not day rate.

Lets say you cycle the 10kWh battery 150 times a year... thats probably even optimistic, but open to correction.... and lets say your day rate is 20c/kWh. That saves you €300/yr so thats 15+yrs for payback on the batteries... to break even!, no money saved at that point.

I'd be interested in seeing your payback figures.

Yeah my usage wouldn't be typical I suppose.

And I said that 8/9 years is my payback time for my whole system, not just the batteries.

System will have set me back (including batteries) (net) €13,100.

BER of my house is A1.

Air to water heating system so everything powered by electricity. Average about 8,500 kWh annually, and that's without an EV as of yet.

Aiming to save minimum of €1000 a year on the house's portion of the electricity bill.

And just using the general consensus that the cost of powering an EV is about 15% the cost of fueling an ICE vehicle, I'll save minimum €1500 on diesel.

All of this I'm offsetting somewhat with likely further increases in cost of electricity.

So you can see my estimate of 8/9 years is actually conservative 😊

Your system cost you €13k incl. batteries and you hope to save €1k per year (optimistic - have you a breakdown of that?) which gives you a 13 year payback, not 8-9 years or am I missing something?

That's a lot of money to spend on a relatively small battery. I would either just get one battery if you really want one. Or DIY a 10kWh battery for about €1500. Presuming your inverter already is a hybrid inverter. If you don't you will either have to replace your current inverter with a hybrid inverter (expensive) or get a dedicated battery inverter

Installers are typically sales people telling porkies, we've covered it here many times before. They estimate your total production (typically correctly) and then multiply that with the high day rate to get your "annual saving". There is a lot wrong with that.

I wish you luck of course, I'm a big fan of renewables myself, someone commented to me today that there aren't a lot of people in a small semi D house in a cheap suburb of Dublin that have as much PV as me 😁 I also have 2 EVs and a large home made power wall system

I'd echo in behind what unkel mentions above. It's not that the suppliers are outright "lying" to you, but let's say that they are painting the "very favorable" picture of your potential savings. it's worthwhile spending some time with Excel and generating a model that you can get in behind yourself. An hour of time will help you either confirm what you've been told, or perhaps guide you to change your assumptions (more/less panels..... bigger/smaller battery etc)

I think it's also worth mentioning that people sometimes, myself included, get too tied down to is it 9 years payback or 10 years payback, or whatever. The main thing here is a couple of fold.

1. You -will- get a payback, and it will (providing you didn't buy the "gold plated battery") be in about the decade or so, with current prices. It will be shorter of course if things like the Ukraine continue to drive energy prices and inflation continues to be high.
2. You're doing something good for the environment. That has "value" in itself. Sure it's often overlooked as we all have to have the nod to "some" kind of fiscal responsibility, but people really should feel good about the actions they take, adopting solar to help drive the journey to renewable energy.
3. Personally I find a good way to look at it is that I'm paying this once off HUGE whopping leccie bill up front, and that for the next 20-30 years....I'll only pay a fraction of what I would without it.

When you say per unit is that the same as per kWh?

there's a more active discussion of this going on here