Sam & Lucy live on the South Coast, with a young family. Both work from home and have high energy costs during the day. They went for a 17 panel system with a 3.2 KW battery as they have high daily consumption, but lower consumption in the evening.
What led you to want to invest in solar panels?
With energy prices being as high as they are, and having two little ones it just made sense to try and see what we could do about the bills.
Our energy is high as it is with everything you need to have going for little kids, so when the prices kept going up and keeping going we thought it was a good idea to see if there is anything we could do to lower them – solar seemed like the option that would’ve had the biggest impact so we started looking into it.
Have you been happy with your solar system?
Oh absolutely! Don’t get me wrong it’s not as if our energy bills have gone completely to zero, they haven’t. But the amount we were paying compared to what we pay now for electricity is night and day. Plus it went in easily in terms of installation and having everything switched on and running. It took a bit of getting used to, just working out how to programme the battery and everything to take advantage of the Smart Export Guarantee, but that’s down to me not being too technical, nothing to do with the panels or battery.
Has your system saved you money?
As I said before, it definitely has. We saved well over a £1000 last year and it made such a big difference to us. The panels actually generated slightly more than we used last year, but obviously sometimes we can’t take advantage of all the power they produce – we didn’t use a weeks worth when we went on holiday for instance.
But we do use the Smart Export Guarantee as well, so we’re pretty well covered in terms of getting all the savings out of the system we can do.
Would you recommend solar panels to others?
Yes, I would. I know we’re lucky in our circumstances to be both working from home and capitalising on the energy they make during the day as well, not everyone’s circumstances are like ours. It is a big investment, but the way I looked at it was it’s the same thing as buying a car over a few years, only with the panels they’ll last twice as long as I’d keep a car at least.
Are you likely to think about any other renewable products?
I’m not sure about other renewable products as I’ve not done any research into them, we’re happy with the solar system we have though, so with everything moving towards renewables and green tech I’d be more likely to give it a fair shake than I probably would have previously.
If you think that Solar Panels might be right for you, and you want to follow Sam and Lucy’s lead, then let us help you start your own solar journey!
