Future electric costs, and what is worthwhile, crystal ball guessing time.

[ericmark]

I made the plunge, and installed solar panels, and battery, but as to in fullness of time, it will pay for its self, is not clear.

The problem is, it all depends on future tariffs, I have seen already the export payment drop from 15p/kWh to 12p/kWh and the more people who fit solar, the lower the payment is likely to go.

We have the same problem with off-peak import, it has been down to 6.500p/kWh but now 8.625p/kWh and although price cap has resulted in 26.11p/kWh, I have to pay 32.277p/kWh for peak.

As to standing charge, I understand how there is a cost to connect premises to the grid, but why is the default 57.19p/day and I am paying 69.699p/day, I would have thought it does not matter what tariff I select, the standing charge should remain the same. Clearly that's not the case.

So we are being asked to take a gamble, and the question has to be, if solar panels and batteries are that good, why are we being asked to install them, rather than the government installing them?

 

[Murdochcat]

Nobody is telling anyone to install solar and batteries. The break even point is about 8 years so people should think long and hard as to whether to do it

 

[flameport]

The whole point of solar and batteries is to use as much of the generated energy as possible, which also means you import/export almost nothing.

 

[ericmark]

Yes, I produce more than I use, but to have batteries large enough to bridge the gaps between solar production is not really going to happen, one needs the grid or generator for lean solar production time.

So the three rates, off-peak, export, and peak makes or breaks if the solar pays in 5 years or 15 years.

However, it is not that alone, there are so many tariffs, and it is a mind field when one gets solar and batteries to work out which tariff will work for one. After a year, then one knows the average production and one can do some maths, but a year can be a lot of money lost, when one is asked to pay £75 to leave a tariff, once selected, as I found out to my cost when I was with British Gas.

 

[StephenStephen]

I made the plunge, and installed solar panels, and battery, but as to in fullness of time, it will pay for its self, is not clear.

The problem is, it all depends on future tariffs, I have seen already the export payment drop from 15p/kWh to 12p/kWh and the more people who fit solar, the lower the payment is likely to go.

We have the same problem with off-peak import, it has been down to 6.500p/kWh but now 8.625p/kWh and although price cap has resulted in 26.11p/kWh, I have to pay 32.277p/kWh for peak.

As to standing charge, I understand how there is a cost to connect premises to the grid, but why is the default 57.19p/day and I am paying 69.699p/day, I would have thought it does not matter what tariff I select, the standing charge should remain the same. Clearly that's not the case.

So we are being asked to take a gamble, and the question has to be, if solar panels and batteries are that good, why are we being asked to install them, rather than the government installing them?

To some extent, successive governments have installed them, eg; through grants and FIT.
Apple trees are good, but the government aren't installing them in my garden...

 

[Munroast]

The whole point of solar and batteries is to use as much of the generated energy as possible, which also means you import/export almost nothing.

not really, the pricing structure encourages filling the batteries up from the grid during the night (when they have too much) and then exporting from the solar panels during the day (when they don't have enough)

 

[ericmark]

the pricing structure encourages filling the batteries up from the grid during the night (when they have too much) and then exporting from the solar panels during the day (when they don't have enough)

This is true to an extent, but we have such a host of tariffs, it is eye watering. In the main I have found the tariff labelled as for EV owners, has been the best, as I don't want to run my own power station control room, I want to set and forget.

What I want, is to always charge my battery to full overnight, so even on a bad day sunlight wise, it will last out most of the day if not all the day, so if off-peak is less than export, I am happy, I can earn more by using a tariff designed for solar, and monitoring my battery state of charge, and if required recharging it before 4 pm, then export the battery power from 4 pm to 7 pm, but I can't automate that, so not really interested. And the storage heater tariff, is not cheap enough overnight, so I would need again to look at the forecast, and ensure I did not charge the batteries too much overnight.

31st March 2026 to 30th April 2026 we had likely the best prices, before 31st March we were getting 15p/kWh for export, and it went down to 12p/kWh, but the electric import also dropped, was 6.5p/kWh for off-peak, but by the 30th April it had gone up to 8.625p/kWh, the peak prices also changed 31.940p/kWh to 29.702p/kWh to 32.277p/kWh but since I use so little peak electric, it did not change my bill very much.

But changes in tariffs, change the payback time by a huge amount, I was a little worried about plug-in solar charging the tariffs again, with the government getting export for free, but the plug-in has been so poorly taken up because of the no battery rule, and no export payment it seems unlikely it will affect the prices.

More concerning is gas prices, and the way electric pricing is tied to gas prices. And how we have the French government selling electric in the UK, so we are also dependent on French government controlling some of our electric energy costs. This was all well and good when we were members of the EU, but now we don't have any control.

 

[plugwash]

The whole point of solar and batteries is to use as much of the generated energy as possible, which also means you import/export almost nothing.

The problem with that idea is these little things called seasons.

If you size your system to adequately support your needs year-round then you will be exporting significantly in summer. OTOH if you size it so you are rarely exporting then you will likely need to import power in winter.

not really, the pricing structure encourages filling the batteries up from the grid during the night (when they have too much) and then exporting from the solar panels during the day (when they don't have enough)

That is the case today, but I would be wary of relying on it continuing in the future as the generation balance changes.

 

[Ronald297]

hi

 

[Ronald297]

I made the plunge, and installed solar panels, and battery, but as to in fullness of time, it will pay for its self, is not clear.

The problem is, it all depends on future tariffs, I have seen already the export payment drop from 15p/kWh to 12p/kWh and the more people who fit solar, the lower the payment is likely to go.

We have the same problem with off-peak import, it has been down to 6.500p/kWh but now 8.625p/kWh and although price cap has resulted in 26.11p/kWh, I have to pay 32.277p/kWh for peak.

As to standing charge, I understand how there is a cost to connect premises to the grid, but why is the default 57.19p/day and I am paying 69.699p/day, I would have thought it does not matter what tariff I select, the standing charge should remain the same. Clearly that's not the case.

So we are being asked to take a gamble, and the question has to be, if solar panels and batteries are that good, why are we being asked to install them, rather than the government installing them?

That’s a very fair point. With export rates, import prices and standing charges all changing, the long-term payback for solar and batteries is far from certain. It does feel like homeowners are being asked to take most of the financial risk for something that also benefits the wider energy system.

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