Zero bills,day and night.

A 6 kWp system on a detached house sits around €13,800, which becomes roughly €6,900 net after the 50% deduction. Adding 5 kWh of storage costs around €3,900 gross. The price per kWp falls as the system grows: below 3 kWp you pay more, because the fixed costs of installation and paperwork stay the same.

It is an income tax deduction on 50% of the cost, split into ten equal yearly instalments. On €13,800 you recover €6,900, that is €690 a year for ten years. Watch out for the point that always surfaces later: the deduction is offset against the income tax you actually pay. If your yearly tax is lower than the instalment, the excess is lost — which is why we ask for a rough idea of your taxable income when quoting.

It depends on when you use electricity, not how much. Without storage you self-consume around 32% of what you generate; the rest goes to the grid and earns you about €0.10/kWh, while buying it back in the evening costs you €0.25. With storage, self-consumption rises to around 72%. If nobody is home between 9 and 6, the battery is almost always what separates a seven-year payback from a four-year one.

Only if it is set up for it. A standard solar system disconnects automatically when the grid drops — that is a safety requirement, it protects people working on the lines. To have power during a blackout you need a hybrid inverter with EPS functionality plus storage: we can include it on request, and it has to be decided up front because it changes the inverter.

A system weighs about 12–15 kg/m²: almost any roof in good condition takes it without modification. The structural check is part of the survey. If the covering is near the end of its life, we say so beforehand: redoing the roof after the panels are mounted costs twice as much, because everything has to come off and go back on.

Panels carry a 25-year product warranty and a linear performance warranty: after 25 years they must still deliver at least 85% of nameplate. Real-world degradation is around 0.5% a year. The inverter is the component that ages first: budget for a replacement between year ten and year fifteen, roughly €1,200–1,800. Our 25-year figures already account for that cost.

The system is legally part of the property and increases its value, as well as improving the energy rating on the EPC. Deduction instalments not yet claimed pass to the buyer, unless the deed states otherwise. It is not a sunk cost: it is an asset that stays with the house.

Little, and predictable: an annual check of strings, inverter and connections, and a panel clean when needed — generally every two or three years, less where it rains regularly. Monitoring flags abnormal drops in output on its own, so a fault shows up before you notice it on the bill.