Solar Panels - a Personal view from an Arnside Resident

We had our first solar panels in 2011 in Silverdale.  They cost us £11,000 and when we left the house to come and live in Arnside twelve years later, that investment had been amortised - entirely repaid through the Feed-in-Tariff (FIT) quarterly payments.  Plus we had enjoyed much cheaper electricity through all the summer months, when so much of it was self-generated.

Now in Arnside we have an array of fourteen panels, and a storage battery.  We are told by the supplier (Love Solar) that these panels - manufactured in the UK - are much more efficient that the ones we had previously.  The FIT scheme was phased out some time ago, so we no longer have those payments.  Instead, our electricity supplier counts up the amount of surplus electricity we have exported to them - calculated exactly through the smart meter - and the value of it is deducted from our electricity bill once a quarter.

This sounds satisfactory until you realise that the payments to us for generating electricity and sending it to the grid, amount to 8 pence per kilowatt-hour, while any electricity that we need from the grid when there has been very little sunshine, is charged at twenty-six pence per kilowatt-hour.  The electricity company is on to a good thing:  householders are putting in the capital costs and then the company can sell the electricity at quite a profit.  This situation does alter our mindset when it comes to electricity usage, as you will see.

At the old house, what electricity we exported was not measured, only assessed as a percentage of our metered total generation.  We were very careful to only use appliances when we were generating plenty of power (clearly indicated at the meter) - the washing machine, the oven, the dishwasher, for example.  All lights were LEDs and the TV was not large, nor were the fridge or freezer.  With our present system however, our attitude is a lot different:  I have an app on my phone which shows exactly what we are generating, how charged up the battery is, how much we are using, and how much we are exporting.  With a big charge in the battery we know that will keep the fridge and freezer running all night, as well as the evening TV viewing.  So, on a bright day, the moment the battery is fully charged, we will be exporting power for small recompense   but feeling good that we are helping to generate fossil free power.

The big regret is that our domestic hot water is heated by a gas boiler, and because it is a ‘combination’ boiler with no hot water tank, we can’t use our surplus electricity via an immersion heater to provide hot water, as we did at the previous house.  For this reason, we boil a kettleful of water to do the washing up rather than running the hot tap (and it’s two gallons run-off before the hot water arrives) and hubby even use this method for shaving.  On this basis, we don’t have baths, and very short showers.  The dishwasher and washing machine are cold-feed, so of course they use electricity to heat their water rather than gas.  The annoying thing is that in the summer months the standing charge for electricity is higher than the payments for electricity consumed from the national grid:  electricity cost for July £1.52, standing charge £12.40 for gas it’s about equal at £6.00.   Of course, it will be a very different matter during the cold and gloomy winter months!

It’s clear that we really should get rid of the gas boiler and use our surplus electricity to run an air-source heat-pump.  Maybe - one day.  There’s only so much one can do in one’s eighties.

Val Stevens

July 2025