My solar journey - so far

[erol]

We have always used a lot of electricity. often over 1000KWh per month. So we decided to put in Solar. It is not a quick process.

We first contacted Alp of Elitra Solar in September 2023. By October 2023 we had a quote for a 5KW Huawei inverter and 18 vertex S 425 solar panels arranged on west and east facing roofs at a price of 8600 euro.

Next stage involved collecting various paperwork so that a submission could be put in with Kibtek. My submission , via Alp, went in November 2023.

Permission came back from Kibtek June 2024. At this point I paid 50% of the quoted price (4300 euro). Took a month for the inverter to arrive as it was not in stock when my permission came through. Installation of inverted and panels happened in August 2024. September Kibtek came and checked installation and put their meter in to measure how much I was feeding into the grid. November Kibtek finally finish the paperwork and connect me up to the grid for feed in. At this point I paid the second instalment of 4300 euro.

It then takes a couple of months for Kibtek to 'sort the billing out', changing you from the 'old' system to a 'new' one that shows what you fed in each month. So basically from March 2025 bill I am seeing the difference. Comparison below with same month last year.

In March 2024 we used 1336 KWh in that month (I know we use a lot). The bill was for 10736.35TL which at the time was around £306.

In March 2025 we used 1025 KWh - 655 drawn from grid and 370 used live as it was generated by the panels. We also fed in 500KWh to the grid. So we generated in march a total 870 KWh, The bill was 914.74TL or about £19 sterling.

Average KWh produced in March per day was 28KWh. So far for April am averaging a little over 30KWh per day. Best day to date was 40KWh on 15th April. Worst was 07th April at 4KWh but that was because of an all day power cut which meant I could not feed in most of that day.

I will try and update over the coming year my year on year savings.

[wanderer]

Erol interesting your experiences with the installation and the patience needed
Looks as if its paying off

TheROC have had problems not feeding back into the system so ending up with a lot of expensive kit and no payback on capital expenditure

The other South "South of Ireland Eire"have had good experiences if my sons fatherin law is anything to go by
A son of ours lives in the North of Southern Ireland by Malin Head of the shipping forcast fame the most northenly point of Ireland
Its dark wet and windy in winter sumers have more daylight his father inlaw has had non existent bills earning money in summer and under 20 euro a month there is no need for an oil tank for heating and no need for gas deliveries

[Reyntj]

GreAt post

[Mowgli597]

The other South "South of Ireland Eire"have had good experiences if my sons fatherin law is anything to go by
A son of ours lives in the North of Southern Ireland by Malin Head of the shipping forcast fame the most northenly point of Ireland
Its dark wet and windy in winter sumers have more daylight his father inlaw has had non existent bills earning money in summer and under 20 euro a month there is no need for an oil tank for heating and no need for gas deliveries

We live in the north-east of Southern Ireland and had solar installed in 2021. Total generation is 3.5kW on a fully south facing roof.
It took a couple of years to finally get our rebate for feeding in to the grid due to an administrative mix-up but we received a €450 credit when it finally came through (all electricity suppliers are required by the government to give credit for “micro-generation”.)
Of course being swallows we generate most of our income from the system during spring and autumn when we’re here (6 months on average).
With cost-of-living grants, monthly old-age person energy grant, and solar generation we haven’t paid an electricity bill for well over 2 years.
Slightly off topic I know but solar panels are well worth it - certainly in both jurisdictions in which we live. Even more so if you have an electric vehicle I guess (our Irish car is a non-plug in hybrid).

[poppy++1]

We had solar panels fitted by Alp… he explained roughly how long it would take and why… Our in 18 months feed back to grid always have a good carryover to use ac, heat water in winter, ac in summer both bedroom and living room. Our bill 178 TL. only regret we didn’t do it sooner

Alp is very helpful keeps you updated through the waiting period. Workers clean and reliable.

[kiplet]

Look forward to the updates Errol …very interesting ..

[snd1966]

Out of interest, we use about 150 units apart from February, July and August but still manage to scrap under the first units allocated. Our electricity bills are still under what we paid in the uk in 2004. We have a generator. I am still under the impression the outlying expense would take years to see a reward plus how long are the life of the panels? Do you require full kocan?
Erol, very interesting post

[erol]

Out of interest, we use about 150 units apart from February, July and August but still manage to scrap under the first units allocated. Our electricity bills are still under what we paid in the uk in 2004. We have a generator. I am still under the impression the outlying expense would take years to see a reward plus how long are the life of the panels? Do you require full kocan?
Erol, very interesting post

With monthly usage so low it probably is not worth investing in solar. In my case at a saving of around 250 euro per month it will take around 3 years to get back the cost of installation. The panels should be good for 15 years ish but time will tell. Anything over 10 years and I will not be unhappy.

[poppy++1]

snd1966, Erol is right you dont use enough to warrant the panels. If I remember rightly we had to be using so many units a month for so many months, , before you are considered.

In some cases you never get you money back i.e a car, we got ours to benefit us from ever increasing costs, getting the money back will take a while, it’s what we pay now that matters 178 tl a month

[snd1966]

Thank you Erol and Poppy pluses
We obviously are out too much and willing to go into 1 room in the hot and cold months. I expect an old build with very thick walls helps too

[wrogers]

Solar panels are a selling point when it comes to moving on.

[kibsolar1999]

Erol,
now (from april to middle of june) the time starts when your solar panels most probably will feed-in a lot more as you will use. the result will be "credits" which will be carried over for the summer month.
during the summer you most probably will use these credits.
then, in late september to middle of november, you again can collect credits for the winter. but, these credits may do not cover all the winter.

i work(ed) together with Alp for many years and we are permanentely in discussion about technical much more sophisticated systems as relatively simple "grid feed" systems: off grid / self consumption systems with batteries.
the good thing to work with Alp is that you can trust him.

anyway, if you (or other solar system owners) do get a summer or winter "gap" (all credits used), you might take in consideration a solar pool pump. that would give another approx 1500 to 2000 kWh "grid feed credits" a year.
contact: Alp
https://www.lorentz.de/en/partners/euro ... orth-trnc/

[erol]

Erol,
now (from april to ....

Yes I need to see how the whole year pans out. I definitely hope to stock up some credits for winter use. How much we can use our hot tub in winter will be down to how many credits I can clock over summer

Really I am not looking to hit 'net zero' in terms of usage but more to never go over 250 KWh in any given month. It is a shame I can not use credit only on usage over 250 a month but still credit is credit.

I do not have a pool but have been thinking about how I might increase my generating capacity if I needed to. I have just bought one of these, yet to be delivered https://dongfengcyprus.com/ but that is another thread to come, so may need to produce a bit more if I can. We have a separate double garage building partly converted to a second kitchen and I have been thinking of separating that from the grid and having an off grid system with batteries for that section of our usage and possibly to charge EV. Would be nice to be able to charge EV from that but also to have the EV battery power it if needed. Anyway all just ideas at the moment. I need to see where my usage levels out really to be able to properly scale such a thing.

[kibsolar1999]

Erol,
now (from april to ....

Yes I need to see....

well, the problem is that you (we all) are limited with the max to be installed solar power (for good reasons) and same time we all need more and more power, eg for an e-car.
it could be that the most economical way is that you charge your car from the grid and not from an off grid system.
(btw, when you charge at a commercial EV box (eg, at SAH market).. how much is it?)
lets do a small calculation: the dingdong car needs , say, 25kWh per 100 km. you drive,say, 10.000 km a year = 2500kWh per year or 7 kWh per day.
that "equals" the production of say, 1,5kWp "grid feed" solar power.
that has the disadvantage that you often do not have any credits left and must pay the bill. the advantage is that these credits are often used for the "above 250" , which you might like.
another advantage is that you do not need such a "powerful" (how the car will be charged, with 22, 11 or 2,2 kW?) inverter system for the off grid system.
and... in winter you need for an off grid system much more PV power to collect the needed 7 kWh (+battery storage) for every day.
aso, aso.
so, it might be better to invest the money to save energy, eg, by changing older AC units and get a really good one with excellent (s)cop and seer values.
or ask Alp for one of these new PV runned electric water heaters, which often need 3 -4 kWh a day, of course mainly only for "spring-autumn and winter".. so, say for 250 days a year = 750 - 1000 kWh (just as an example)

[erol]

So April was a good month. Both on usage and on generated fronts. Our usage for April was 714 Kwh, lower than average for last year. Did not need to heat or cool in April. Of the 714 Kwh used 409 was drawn from grid and 305 was live from solar.

Generated was 940Kwh (31.33 per day average) vs usage of 714Kwh meaning I now have 226Kwh 'credit' which is welcome and useful to carry me over winter months when generated will be much lower and usage higher.

My April bill was 186,61TL which is the various standing charges only and no usage charge at all.

[erol]

So have put the various numbers in a spread sheet viewable here

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

The figures are not 100% accurate as some of the numbers are derived. For example my 'live usage from solar for the month is derived from what the inverter app says was generated in a month minus what kibtek meter shows as having been fed into the grid. There will be some small errors here from conversion from ac/dc I think and the months as measured by the solar app and kibtek bills do not match exactly to the hour but over all I think the figures are good estimates.

For the petrol saving figures these come from the car charger app and work on the following assumptions

Car range at 100 % charge - 350km (vs the rated range of 430km)
cost of litre of petrol - 0.71 pence sterling
fuel efficiency of my petrol car in km per litre 13.5km/L

cost of electricity I have set to zero as to date all my car charging has been from generated solar that is in excess of my household usage. This may or may not hold true over the whole year but right now I am generating more than I use for house and the car. In winter that will not be the case. Remains to be seen if I will have enough credit from summer months to get through the winter months without needing to buy kwh from kibtek.

[oldham]

Hi just a quick question as I’m really interested in having Solar if you are Off Grid with Batteries do you need permissions from Kibtek to have it installed?

[TAC]

As long as you don't feed in to kibtek then No

[kibsolar1999]

As long as you don't feed in to kibtek then No

from the legal point of view this is not correct. or "semi correct".
eg, a PV solar runned pool pump is an "completely off grid system with no AC kibtek connection". you do not need a permission.
but,
the above mentioned "As long as you don't feed in to kibtek", is "easily said", but also must be followed technically, eg in cases of technical failures, eg, with the use of hybrit inverters. and hybrit inverters are used in so called "off grid" systems very often.
but they are not "fully off grid" as the kibtek mains often is used in "battery low" or "peak" cases.
so, for these systems a permission is necessary, its called "selfconsumption" and there is no net metering accountancy.
only if your system is completely separated from the kibtek network, eg, use a 1(kibtek)-0 (off) -2 (solar system) change over, you may do not need a permission, as your system is not connected to the kibtek AC network.
pls note that kibtek already threatened customers to disconnect e-meters the moment they see "solarpanels without permissions" on roofs.

pls call Alp @ 0548 8783368 for further information.