We see ourselves living in this house for a long time and with the number of people in the house, the size and the fact that the whole house, including heating and cooking, is electric our bills were very high.
So, right back at the end of last winter we decided to investigate getting panels put on our roof. I actually decided to go with IKEA as they were offering a good deal and a free quote. And, as it turns out it is not even IKEA who do the panels, the sub-contract the whole process out to a local company, in our case Helion.
We had someone come out to the house, tell us more about the costs, find out what we wanted and expected from the system and took photos of the house and surrounds to make models. We were then left with a lot of information to digest, and even more when they came back with an estimation as to how much energy we could produce.
There is a lot of information to take in as well as the price can get a bit confusing, IKEA only allows certain panels to be installed to qualify for the price they offer and certain batteries, but these may not be the best fit for your case and so originally we had quote for panels separate from batteries and then you have all the different subsidies as well, some which are paid by the installer and others that you need to claim back in your tax return. It can be a bit overwhelming. But, given enough time to sit down and go over it and the helpful staff from Helion we were able to get it all sorted and decide what system we wanted.
Next step, financing. Of course, each persons situation will be different. We decided to extend the mortgage and amortise the panels with the house. This means that we will sooner see savings on our bills but will take longer to pay off our panels, even longer than their lifespan. Speak with your bankers and they will help you understand your options for this.
After all of the above, which took far too long but that is no ones fault we booked in to get the installations done. They arranged for scaffolding to be put on the house, for the electric company to come out and change over the meters and for all the work to be done by the appropriate contractors. What we found is that as winter approaches they are busy finishing all their projects and so each little delay we had (broken roof tiles needing fixing, overhead cables needing insulating) created longer delays because their schedule was full and we had to have our new working days fit into their already packed schedule.
But, we now have our panels installed, the battery too and we are already seeing production at levels which have surprised us given that the weather has been very grey, rainy and cloudy recently. we have on average been producing 1/7th of our electricity needs in these short and rainy days of Autumn.
We are very happy with our choice to move to solar and look forward to even more production and savings in the summer.
Thanks again to Helion for the installation and I can recommend using them directly or going via the IKEA program like I did.