In early 2017 I was wrestling with the question: Are Solar Panels A Good Investment in the UK?
There were two arms to my dilemma, one environmental and the other financial.
Environmental
With over 40000 premature deaths in the UK attributable to particulate pollution and 12 schools in my local main town of Plymouth breaching the European air quality limits what could I be doing to reduce my own personal impact on the environment.
Financial Being retired and on a pension whilst having a desire to stop polluting it had to make financial sense as I do not have money to waste.
Following detailed research I took the following action.
- April 2017 I sold my polluting diesel Jaguar and bought an electric Vehicle a 30 kWh Nissan Leaf.
- August 2017 Installed 20 Solar Panels on my roof
- October 2017 changed energy supplier to a green and cheaper energy company called BULB
- February 2018 Installed a Zappi Electric Car Charger
- May 2018 Installed a 14 kWh Tesla Powerwall Home Battery
So what are the cost / benefits of my actions?
Environmental
Since October 2018 the electric I have purchased has been from a green energy company called BULB whose electric comes from 100% renewable sources and 10% of the gas is also from renewable sources and is accredited so from Ofgen
I have now covered nearly 11000 miles in my Nissan Leaf which is totally emission free.
Financial
This is the big one.
It was not my sole consideration as going green was high on my agenda but it had to make financial sense in the long run.
Let me run through the figures.
Cost of Solar Panels through Totnes Energy just over £7000
Cost of Tesla Powerwall from Totnes Energy £6000
That is a large capital outlay not including the car. I am excluding it deliberately as it replaced my existing main vehicle. It was however substantially cheaper than keeping the Jaguar XF. You can read more about my experience with the Nissan Leaf Here.
Are Solar Panels Worth It?
Energy costs prior to installation in 2017
I stupidly had never changed energy suppliers for over 40 years. Below is what I was paying for energy in 2017.
British Gas £526.98
EDF Electricity £836.81
Total £1363.79
A like for like comparison will be almost impossible as my energy usage radically changed during the period of this review namely October 2017 to October 2018.
These dates are significant as October 2017 is when I changed to the green energy supplier BULB.
If I do a like for like usage comparison it would have cost me:
Gas £414.70
Electric £677.54
Saving £271 just by switching supplier.
However my energy profile changed dramatically. With solar power heating the water the gas usage dropped dramatically and the electric rose with powering the car so it is impossible to compare like for like.
The figures make for interesting reading for October 2017 to October 2018.
Gas £118.02
Electric £513.47
Total £631.45
I also received from the Government Feed In Tariff for 6252 kWh of electricity I generated from the roof of £419.64 so take that off the above and a true cost is £211.85 for the year.
Compare that to what I was paying at £1363.79 and you can see I made a saving of £1151.94.
On these figures alone the solar panels and powerwall would pay for themselves in 11.28 years.
There are other factors to consider.
The powerwall was installed at the end of May 2018. Take a look at the BULB usage graph below.
In the figures quoted above I have only had 5 months benefit of the Powerwall. Over the whole 12 months the savings will be considerably more than quoted above.
In June you can see Electricity was £10 and Gas was £14. Once the Powerwall has been in use for 12 months the savings will be much greater than listed above.
Electric Car Savings
I have not yet talked about the savings from owning the electric car and powering it from solar energy for free.
For the twelve months I drove a total of 6600 miles. The car used 1653 kWh of electricity to travel that distance.
So included in the above savings is £236 worth of mostly free solar and some paid for green energy electricity.
If I had bought diesel at £1.365 a litre to cover that distance I would have spent a further £1165 in fuel costs.
If you factor that into the equation the solar panel payback time reduces to around 6 years.
One thing is for certain, fuel and energy prices will only go up in the coming 6 years.
Extra Bonus
One thing I have not taken into the equation as it is not a certain income merely a casual bonus is the BULB Referral Scheme.
You get a £50 bonus added to your account for each new customer you introduce to BULB. The good news is the new customer also gets a £50 bonus added to their new account.
As you can see below I am over £400 in credit. £300 of this is 6 bonus payments I have received for introducing new customers to BULB.
Are Solar Panels A Good Investment In The UK
Conclusion
In terms of the environmental impact it is a no brainer – I have not contributed to any of the 40000 premature deaths over the last 12 months.
In terms of a Financial Benefit in less than 6 years from now I hope to have turned the corner and be making a profit on my investment in the years to come.
Yes the inverter may need replacing within 10 years and the panels will become slightly less efficient over time but I know that this has been a great financial and environmental decision for me.
Are Solar Panels A Good Investment In The UK ? Only you can decide what is right for you.
2 Year Update November 2019
I thought it time to update and review my energy usage over the last two years:
30/10/201 – 02/11/2018
Gas : £336
Electric : £485
Total : £821
30/10/2018 – 30/10/2019
Gas : £357
Electric: £328
Total : £685
Two year total : £1506
Less 2 years feed in tariff of £775
Equals nett cost over 2 years of £731
Less 8 Bulb referrals total £425
Equals nett energy cost over two years of just £306
And this does not even factor in over £2000 in diesel cost savings by running my electric car over the two years!!
PS the Leaf has gone and I have a new 64 kWh Hyundai Kona
Hi Steve.
We have a similar set-up to you and came on stream March 2018. 6.7kW capacity from 24x 285w solar panels (14x SSW facing and 10x ESE facing) with 24x optimisers managed by Solar Edge SE6000H inverter, married to a 48V lead acid battery system managed by Victron Multiplus 48v/5000VA/70A charger/inverter. We get our electric from Bulb (having swapped to them a year ago from CoOp Energy) and are on an Economy 7 tariff.
We also have a Zappi and 2014 Nissan Leaf which we bought 2nd hand and have covered 22,000 miles in just over 2 years.
Would be great to send you a few photo’s if you’re interested.
Cheers,
Chris
Hello Chris,
Congratulations on your solar investment and hope you are enjoying your free travel in your Leaf.
I cannot understand why more people do not do the same. I have just had this months bill in from BULB which was £16 mostly from standing charges and the same day the letter telling me I am due £163 from the feed in tariff at the end of this month. This is one investment that is paying off handsomely as each year passes by and not mentioning the benefit to the environment.
Thanks for stopping by and leaving your comments and do feel free to send the images.
Regards
Steve
I also followed your lead with Solar Panels but unfortunately we are not gaining the amount you have succeeded to achieve.
After much research I found that our gas and electricity use is down to what I call the SFF.
The Sandy F Factor. I’m just surprised we haven’t been raided by the Police if they did a heat output survey, thinking we were into Hydroponics! We certainly run the gas heating at warp factor 9!
Having said that we are making considerable savings on what could be classified as National Debt +2.
But Solar panels are worth the investment. I’ve even followed your advice and now have an electric car. With a Zappi to boot, so at least the car is cheaper for fuel!
Hello Mike,
Glad to hear you have found your investment in solar a wise choice, you could always buy Sandy some chunky jumpers and insist she wears them about the house to get full value from them! If its any consolation I have just had Decembers invoice from BULB and we used much more energy this December than last so it might be old age and feeling the cold this end as well. Lockdown has not helped with being indoors much more but its a small price to pay for trying to stay safe.
Thanks for leaving your comments.
Regards
Steve