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Loop’s free in-app Solar and Battery Simulator has the answers
With Loop’s free Solar and Battery Simulator, powered by your energy data, house details, and weather information, you can see firsthand how solar power can impact your monthly bills and reliance on grid energy.
By using up to 13 months of historical energy data from your smart meter, Loop accurately calculates your potential solar self-sufficiency. Experiment with different-sized solar arrays and batteries, all in the free Loop app.
A solar array on your home will reduce the energy you need to buy from the grid – cutting your bills and your carbon footprint in the process, by 1.6 tonnes each year!
But, as any green homeowner knows, solar panels don’t generate energy at night-time. So, you must buy energy from your electricity supplier to fill that gap. Meanwhile, any surplus energy that you generate during the day is exported back to the grid.
Thankfully there’s a simple solution to make better use of the energy you generate yourself: a home battery, which stores the electricity captured during the day, for use at another time.
A home battery installed alongside solar can store as much energy as 1,000 AA batteries. It’s still a battery, but on a home scale.
Loop’s Solar and Battery Simulator will give you a great idea of the impact they can have on your home – separately and combined.
Working out the number of solar panels and battery size needed for your home depends on the amount of roof space available and the amount of electricity you use. Luckily, using Loop’s free in-app Solar and Battery Simulator, can give you the answers.
Simply download the free Loop app, and find out how much of your usage would be covered by a 4kWh solar array and a 3kWh battery. These are the average sizes for domestic systems, which on a home in the south of England, can generate around 4,200 kilowatt hours of electricity a year!
Then, after 90 days, the Solar Playground feature opens and you can explore the effect different sizes of solar array and various battery sizes have on your self-sufficency.
Home batteries come in a range of sizes and prices, and costs vary depending on how much energy they store. For the average home, the addition of a 10 kWh home battery would cost approx £7,500 if installed with solar panels. However, smaller and larger batteries are available.
They’re cheaper to install at the point of the solar installation, but you can add them later too. Assess the difference they make in Loop’s in-app Solar Playground feature.
To get the most out of solar panels, ideally you would live in a house with an unshaded, south-facing roof, which is angled between 30 and 50 degrees from horizontal.
Of course, not everyone is so lucky as to have the perfect position for solar panels on their home. But that’s not to say you can’t still successfully harness the power of the sun! Even on north, east or west-facing roofs you’ll only lose around 15% compared to a south-facing option.
If you have a flat roof, it can be a little more complicated to have solar systems fitted compared to a pitched roof as flat roof systems take up more space per kW than sloping roof systems. But, it is still entirely possible!
Electric cars and solar go hand in hand! If you have an EV, charging it at home is most likely to be your cheapest and most convenient option.
As EVs drain a lot of electricity when charging, you want to be able to have your own source of cheap, renewable electricity. Solar panels are often the best answer to offset these costs. Free mileage, courtesy of the sun!
“A great app which has allowed me to model my solar and battery usage/savings before committing. Simple to use and really helpful.” – Bryan
