So far, as of 5th November 2025 we have generated 12.78MW of solar energy. We’ve exported 9.4MW of electricity back to the grid.
The savings per year is calculating as £2,442 and the break-even (or cost recovered) time is 5-years 7-months. After that it’s all cash-back/free electricity.
If you look at the measured performance of the strings, considering that the rear string (which is north-north-west facing) is bonus generation in all but winter and thus its costs are primarily for additional panels, then you can see how each string is contributing:
We have added 24 solar panels to our house. We have 12 on the front roof, 4 on the garage roof, and 8 on the rear roof. The front panels are facing SSE and the north ones NNW. Since these were installed on the 13th June there has been loads of sunshine. All the panels, split into three strings of 8, are generating well.
When I was researching which solar to buy I had a few tell me that the rear panels were not worth the money. Well, in any installation the solar panels are almost *the* cheapest part of the purchase. Scaffolding costs as much as half the cost of the total panel purchase. The inverter and batteries are the most expensive and there are other items you can add, like a backup/EPS unit to allow you to keep running when the grid has a power cut.
So far the rear panels, which are 33% of the capacity, are producing 24.4% of the solar. The front and garage are producing 38.8% and 36.8% respectively. North facing panels are definitely worthwhile.
Since the install the system has generated 1,430 kWh (saving 26.32p per kWh, £376.38 so far) and exported 1,130 kWh (earning 16.5p per kWh, £186.45 so far).
You do need to get an inverter that can a) use the majority of the electrical power generated by your panels, b) that will allow your typical maximum household demand to be satisfied by the solar, c) than can charge your battery and draw down from it to the typical maximum household demand.
If you are buying a battery then it should be sized to cater for your standard daily consumption. [Find your electricity bill, look for your annual kWh consumed, divide by 365 = minimum battery size.]
In peak summer you will burn zero grid kWs. You will run your house 100% from solar (and battery overnight) and have excess solar to sell back to the grid. In the winter you can run the house from the battery overnight and into the morning and dark evenings and the solar will contribute to an extent. Getting a good tariff is vital.
Paying your DNO for the G99 request to allow a bigger inverter than the 3.6kW a G98 request permits is a must. Any solar provider trying to sell you just a 3.6kW inverter and a 5kWh battery is probably looking for the quickest sell and is not looking at your specific needs.
There are lots of tools to help you decide what any setup for you would look like and what your savings would look like. Here are two I’ve used:
Most advertised Solar providers (those that pop-up in your facebook and instagram) who offer a modelling tool, just use it as a method of collecting your data to call you back and push the sales process.
Doing solar correctly is also about getting onto a good tariff with your supplier that maximises your savings from using solar and maximises earnings from export to the grid.
For many the various Octopus Energy fits the bill, but for me E.ON Next provides me the best rates. Especially when combined with the longest and cheapest off-peak rates for EV charging. Why run my dishwasher (or any other appliance) in peak times, using my 26.32p of saved solar, when I can sell that 1kWh to the grid at 16.5p and wash the dishes at 6.7p overnight. Charging the house battery overnight is also more cost-effective than charging it with solar power.
Solar is worth it. However, you need to look at the available space for the panels, as well as what shading you have that would disrupt your solar absorption. I have some shading on my garage roof from a nearby tree (no, councils will not chop or trim a tree just to give you more solar radiance) so I have some optimisers on these panels (and on this string as a whole) to ensure that I get the best out of that string of panels.
Do the maths. Then look for the right system that covers your needs. Then find the right installer than will give you what you need not just what they have to sell, and that will do a good job of the installation and is a company with a good background and not just a roofer and a sparky out to make a quick deal [remember the G98 warning!].
I traded in my BMW 520d Touring for a BMW i5 eDrive40 Touring MSport Pro.
As the i5 was 9-months old I got £29k off the price compared to buying new. This has to be the best way to buy an EV.
But what caused me to do this was the maths on the cost of running the car. And I realised that while I can drive 700-800 miles on a single tank in my 520d I never do that kind of distance in reality. The biggest single journeys are ~220 miles. And, with a full charge, that is easily done on most EVs (but not all, so check your battery range and your journey requirements).
This is the costs on the old family cars:
This is the costs on an EV and using various charger types:
It becomes clear that owning and EV is only cost effective if you have the opportunity to charge it at home. Also, if you buy a home wall charger (around £850-£1000), you can get off-peak (overnight) low-cost electricity rates to minimise your annual charging costs.
Now, there are other perks…like zero Vehicle Excise Duty and no “expensive car” charges…but as of the 2025-26 UK tax year the government is removing these perks. A standard charge of £195/year for an EV and the £400-per-year-for-five-years “expensive car” charges will apply. Most family EVs (SUVs abound in the EV market) are in-excess of the £40k list price threshold. These VED charges are off-set by the EV savings but you *must* then charge at home to make it work financially.
With no new Petrol/Diesel cars being sold from 2030 onwards a new car will be impractical for everyone who has only on-street parking.
My office for working at home is in the conservatory. Although it has a solid roof now it can still be a little bit colder than the main house when outside it’s 0C.
I’ve created a monitoring system to check the temperature and when working, or overnight, stop the place getting too cold. I control a heater via a wi-fi connected plug and control that though it’s API. I even manage to capture the temperature changes and can see how good or bad things have been.
7-Day Temperature Chart
I have added “switches” to override the heating for various cases. Summer is coming so this should be used less…but it is only February so we’re not in the clear yet.
With a small breadboard I was able to wire both of these into my Raspberry PI alongside the AQI sensor and CO2/VOC sensor. Each sensor has its own code (made into a daemon for 24×7 running) to report the values and write them to the /var/www/html directory so that they can be read across my internal network.
Using the custom.plugin option within my Meteobridge NanoSD I was able to directly read each value across the network to the Raspberry Pi using a simple “wget” statement and then map the additional readings to main readings for use elsewhere eg. “sol2!1rad –> sol0rad” and “uv2!1index –>uv0index”.
The readings from these can be seen in box 6 on my default weather display (here)
I was testing this blog site for performance on https://gtmetrix.com/ and it was getting poor results:
Grade C; Performance 65%; Structure 85%
This is not good. Almost two seconds for the first content to be visible. So I did a bit of googling and found out about NitroPack https://nitropack.io/ which is supposed to sort out performance issues etc.
Signed up for a free account and let it do its thing on my blog. The change was dramatic:
Yup. Every metric that matters is in the green. That’ll do.
After much back’n’forth with FastHosts and the issues with the various levels of PHP support within GRAV I’ve opted to go back to WordPress as my CMS. This will take a while to re-build all the old entries but I was never a prolific blogger anyway.
Update: It actually took only about three hours to build the site and re-create all the blog posts from the GRAV backup. Whilst there is a WP to Grav tool there is no Grav to WP. It all had to be done manually.
I Fagiolini now putting a few things on @tiktok_uk - for the YOUTH. Includes cricket/medieval mode crossover. And #FictaPolice. @Music_at_York @Perciusonline @HuntSchoolMusic @AmpCollMusic
A truly excellent concert by @ifagiolini with the superb voices of @rebeccajlea @Askettanna @MarthaMcLorinan @Matt_Long_ @skidmoregreg and @frederickjlong. #FireAndIce.
Support http://www.choralchihuahua.com its good for your singing! (@readingphoenix and @AmiciVoce take note!)
🎉New Track Release 🎉 Listen to our #brandnew #recording of Amabile Alleluia by Sarah Quartel from today!
Sarah is one of the fabulous #female composers we're celebrating in our #concert next Saturday: https://www.readingphoenixchoir.com/womenofnote #rdguk @RDGWhatsOn
