Solar panels in a price-cap spring
Getting a quote for solar panels and batteries, a battery swap I wasn't expecting, and the panels going up on the roof in late April.
Back in the renovation plans, “Add solar panels and battery storage” sat at the bottom of the list. It has moved up.
Why now
The list met the energy crisis. Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022, and energy prices have been front-page news ever since.
Ofgem raised the default tariff price cap by 54% from 1 April 2022. For a typical dual-fuel household paying by direct debit that is a jump from £1,277 to £1,971 a year (Enerdata). Those are national averages, not my bill, but the direction is clear enough.
Solar had been a “someday” item. With figures like that, someday became this spring.
The quote
I went to Solar Services Scotland, and their quote came through on 4 April 2022. The kit list:
- 12 × Trina mono panels, 4 kW in total
- Van Der Valk mounting system
- Solis hybrid inverter (one box that handles both the panels and a battery)
- Generation meter
- Cabling and sundries
- 2 × Pylontech 3.55 kWh batteries
- Installation, £1,000
- £8,700 total, with 0% VAT
The quote also mentioned an EPC (Energy Performance Certificate) as a possible extra.
Then the batteries changed. The Pylontech units were out of stock, and the installer suggested 3 × Dyness B3 instead, for roughly £10k. Stock problems aren’t the installer’s fault, and offering an alternative is reasonable.
Still, I felt a bit under pressure to accept. Pylontech is the name that comes up again and again when you read about home batteries. Dyness was a brand I had barely heard of. Swapping the more credible name for an unfamiliar one, partway through, with a higher price attached, isn’t the position I’d have chosen. I went with the Dyness, and I’ll be keeping an eye on how they get on.
The install
The panels went up in late April, in a single day. Honestly, nothing notable happened, which is about all you can ask of people working on your roof.
All twelve panels are on the south-west facing roof, at roughly 220°. The inverter lives in the garage. The batteries are on back-order, so for now the system is running panels-only: whatever the roof generates is used in the house or exported to the grid.
What’s next
- Batteries, when they arrive
- See what a summer of generation actually looks like
- Work out whether the Solarman app is enough, or whether I want something more detailed
I wrote this post with help from AI tools (Claude, Codex). I review, edit and check everything before publishing. How I use AI