Solar & Battery install - Selecting your Supplier

So what now?

Well now I have a starting point of what I think I need, I can start to consider if solar and/or battery would help reduce my electricity cost, and I could talk knowledgeably to suppliers about options. 

Initially I considered doing a battery only install as I thought it would be the best value for money. I would install the batteries, charge off-peak on something like Octopus Go and then use the batteries during peak hours to reduce my electricity bill. I estimated doing this would reduce my electricity bill by about 60%. However after a little investigation I found that a battery only install would attract Vat at the full rate, whilst an install which included a renewable (like solar PV) would attract only 5% Vat. Also as I lived in Scotland, there was government support (ie interest free loans) for renewables and a battery only solution didn't meet the criteria (see Home Energy Scotland loan).

So after some deliberation, I decided to go for a solar and battery solution and began to identify and contact suppliers. I had no idea of suppliers in my area so did some googling to identify companies local to me. I started with a couple of requirements for potential suppliers:

• Must be MCS Certified - this was a requirement of the loan I was going for, but is a good criteria for anyone doing solar installs
• Ideally based local to me as I wanted to ensure that I could readily contact them and get them onsite if needed
• Provide an End to End solution - I could go for separate solar & battery suppliers however I wanted one contact for all bits

I looked each supplier up on Trust Pilot to see what reviews said about them (I took Trust Pilot with a pinch of salt as not all reviews are genuine) and I also used the Energy Savings Trust Renewables Installer finder. Its a bit like Trust Pilot, but solely focused on installers who do renewables and all reviews are done by people who have actually had an MCS install done. To help with supplier selection I used this checklist

I ended up with a short list of suppliers and wrote to each asking for details of what they would do based upon my requirements. I also asked for details of when they could do the install as I didn't want to have to wait a long time to get it done, and lastly what the warranty was on the install and kit. As you might expect responses from the suppliers were mixed - some way too expensive, others way too cheap, and others missing my requirements completely. Also as my budget was under £10k for solar & battery, I ruled out big ticket solutions like Tesla Powerwall as they were way out of my budget.

I ended up choosing a company called Moixa as their solution was, in my view, good value for money. Their offering was 5.2kwp solar and 7.2kw battery for £9,450 fully installed. It also had some good value add ons:

• Smart Battery - I wont go into details as there's a lot on their website, however suffice to say it appeared to have more functionality to manage the battery than most systems
• GridShare - Their smart battery optionally can supply power back to the grid - which they pay you for (£50 per year if they use it or not and extra if they actually use it)
• Extended Warranty - If you sign up to GridShare they extend the warranty of the system for as long as you are a GridShare member

Moixa subcontract installs to local companies and the one they had for me was Novus. Novus had good reviews on the Renewables Installer Finder and, after their onsite visit to survey my house, I had a good feeling about their team.

Next Step: How much will I save

One final note

If this blog has helped and you go on to installing a solar or battery solution, please let me know by leaving a comment and sharing this page as I really like to know I've been able to help. 

If you're considering a move to Octopus to charge your batteries in the darker months, please consider using my referral link below (click on the Octopus) as it will give each of us £50 off our Octopus bill.