A sunny picture says a 1000 words!
A year on, read about how battery storage complements solar and can almost double your annual savings.
In May 2025 we were lucky to be able to install a small solar and battery system, as a family.
It's more than halved our electricity costs (see the drop in May/June), and that excludes any export payments.
After exploring WYCA SolarTogether buying scheme (should be another running this soon) and a quote from Octopus, we decided to support a local business Heron Electrical, knowing we had local support.
Because we have a dormer room on our south facing pitched roof, we've only been able to install 6 panels (2.7kWp), but we went with 445W panels to get the greatest energy generation from those panels.
With a 9.5kW battery, this helps us to use energy generated during the day, to run the house early mornings and evenings, for free.
In the winter months, we aim to use the battery to benefit from the Octopus Go overnight rates, buying at c9p/kWh rather than c28p/kWh - you do the math!
Solar Generation
So, on the above day in June you can see we recharged the battery from solar first thing that morning (dark blue bars), then just before midday we started exporting to the grid, good green electrons for our neighbours (red bars). All along covering the limited demand from the house throughout (light teal bars)
Consumption
Looking at the same day slightly differently, the above was the house consumption. Yellow bars are the energy generated by the solar panels used by the house (reducing demand on local grid). The blue bars are free solar generated energy stored in the battery, supplying back to the house, when the panels aren't generating as much.
Furthermore, the data you can access on the GivEnergy app, really highlights where and when you and your household use energy. My daughter no longer wants (or needs to have) 20 minute showers!
Payback
We have already halved our energy bills, so thats c£1,200 saving pa. It will be interesting to see what additional benefit we get from the SEG (export guarantee), which could be another £100pa. So, the benefit of an expense like this, is there's a payback, c6.5years (as well as the co-benefits of reducing demand on the national grid and helping the local grid decouple from dirty fossil fuels).
That saving, we will actually put toward improving the insulation in our house and ultimately an ultra efficient heat pump (a reverse fridge!).
Low interest loans are available eg. on a £5k loan repaid over 5 years, you can cover off the loan repayments with the savings you make every month.
Community resources
We are lucky to have many households in the community adopting this money saving technology.
Please get in touch if you want to see some of this tech in situ and talk through any questions you may have.
Check out these additional resources on solarPV & battery.
Many of the biggest banks and mortgage lenders offer up to £2,000 cashback to eligible customers who install heat pumps, and £1,000 for solar and battery.
That means, with the addition of the government's boiler upgrade scheme taking an additional £7,500 off the cost, you could get a heat pump for less than a gas boiler!
Lloyds Barclays Halifax Santander Virgin
Keep an eye on energy saving help for households from WYCA here.
Ethical sourcing
Its also worth ensuring the solar panels you buy are from ethical manufacturers, check out Sheffield Uni's paper from 2021 'In Broad Daylight'.
