1/ Question (and thread) for Solar PV owners (or those thinking about buying Solar). If you were looking to buy PV now, would you? I'm not sure I would you know. @energystatsuk

No FIT rewards now and @octopus_energy Agile in play changes everything imho.
2/ I think i'd look at spending the money solely on batteries? Right now I could get 9.6kWh of batteries and the inverter for half the price that my 17 panel Solar install cost (just two years ago). Hell, I could get almost 20 kWh of batteries for what my Solar cost!!
3/ My Solar payback figures 'were' around 8 years. But that was based on 13p per unit, rising with inflation. Agile has ripped up those predictions..... and that 8 years was WITH FIT in play, so me getting generation payments. You don't get those now.
4/ I just don't see Solar as a financially viable option today? Do you?
5/ Using https://octochargecalc.energy-stats.uk/  I can see that over the past year to fill 9.6kWh of batteries everyday on Agile (at 3.6kWh charge rate) it could have cost on average just 4.5p per unit and still less than 5p to fill 19.2kWh each day.

Pro's of Batteries:
6/ a) much lower install costs (and overall cost)
b) ability to take batteries with you if you move house
c) not relying on the sunshine (and those bad winter 0.5kWh production days)
d) buying 100% renewable energy from Octopus
8/ I probably need to do some cost analysis of Solar vs Battery vs no battery / no solar / just Agile.

Maybe it depends how much juice you use to get through 4pm to 7pm?

Maybe sweetspot is enough battery to fill on the cheap daily slots and is big enough to cover 4pm to 7pm?
9/ So putting this out there for thoughts. What would you do now?

-Solar?
-Large Battery?
-Enough battery to cover 4pm to 7pm?
-Solar & Battery?
-Don't bother with either, just play the pure and simple Agile game?
Don't get me wrong, I absolutely LOVE my solar PV setup. It's a geeks data paradise, but I wouldn't buy it today. The financial landscape has shifted massively against PV in past few years. If the government ever brought back a decent FIT incentive then things may change again.
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