6.5kW solar panel, battery and EV charger installation in Cheltenham

The story of this install

Why Peter started looking

Rising gas and electricity prices were the push, with the environment close behind. “The cost of gas and electric is going up, and it's something that we wanted to try and protect against, and solar seemed like the best option,” Peter told us.

He did his homework: national companies, online quotes, the lot. Several of those quotes were drawn up without anyone visiting. In Peter's words, they'd “just sort of taken a Google Maps view and plonked some squares on it that looked okay.”

Dropping into the Cheltenham shop

Because his research turned up our shop in town, Peter simply walked in for a chat. “A bit of a nicer experience,” as he put it. A surveyor then came out, looked at where everything could go and checked the cable route into the house, which already suited an inverter in the garage.

The design used as many panels as the two roof faces would take: 14 AIKO panels across the south-east and south-west faces, a GoodWe 8kW hybrid inverter and three GoodWe batteries for 24kWh of storage. Peter's household uses more in summer than in winter, so a big battery made sense. A Hypervolt charger went in for the car, plus an emergency double socket that keeps working in a power cut. “It wasn't just a cookie cutter exercise,” he said.

Ten minutes without power

Peter worked from home all through install day. The roofers and electricians arrived at about eight, and he barely noticed them until midday, when they turned the power off for around ten minutes to connect everything. The scaffold went up and came down on the dates he'd been given. “The comms from the project management team were amazing,” he said. “We didn't have to do anything apart from be in on the day.”

The system was certified under MCS and registered with the network operator, with the paperwork handled for him.

Service over list price

Asked what he'd tell anyone else, Peter didn't talk about kit. “It's probably not completely about what the list price is. The service you get is probably equally as important.” For him, being able to walk into a shop and speak to someone if anything ever goes wrong was a big part of the decision.

On sunny days the house and the car now run on his own solar, with the battery carrying it into the evening.

Yearly generation is the MCS estimate made for this home before installation, using the standard MCS method. Real output varies from year to year with the weather.

Full kit list

Panels

14 × AIKO 465W (6.5kWp)

Inverter

GoodWe 8kW hybrid inverter

Battery

GoodWe batteries, 24kWh usable

EV charger

Hypervolt home charger

Extras

Emergency double socket that works in a power cut

Paperwork

MCS certificates (solar and battery), DNO approval and handover pack