Solar PV and battery storage in Ilminster

The Brief

A four-bedroom family home in Ilminster wanted to bring their energy bills under control before their next price-cap review and to put the south-facing rear roof to work. The household runs a home office two days a week and has an EV on the way later in the year, so the brief from the start was a system that would self-consume well, charge a battery off-peak, and leave headroom for the car when it arrives. The owner had been quoted by two larger national installers and wanted a Somerset team that would sit at the kitchen table and walk through the maths.

What We Did

The work in summary:

• Free site survey and design: Roof inspection, shading study, half-hourly usage pulled from the supplier, and a bespoke 5.4 kW design tuned to the south-facing rear pitch with no array on the lower-yield front.
• Scaffolding and roof prep: Two-day scaffold up, rail mounts fitted to the rafters under the existing tiles, with watertight flashings throughout. No tile cuts beyond what the layout required.
• Panel install: Tier-1 black-on-black 405 W panels fitted in a single rectangular array. Strings sized to suit the inverter MPPT range and balanced for partial shade tolerance.
• Sigenergy battery and inverter: 10 kWh Sigenergy battery mounted in the utility room with hybrid inverter and consumer-unit headroom left for the future EV charger circuit.
• Octopus Go configuration: Off-peak charging windows set during commissioning, monitoring app demonstrated on the homeowner's phone, and the smart meter import schedule confirmed end-to-end.
• Paperwork: MCS certificate, RECC compliance, DNO notification submitted, and warranty registration completed before handover. Full paperwork pack delivered on the day.

The Result

A clean rooftop install that is generating to design and a battery that is cycling daily on Octopus Go without intervention. First-month reports show the battery covering the bulk of evening household load, with the array covering daytime usage including the home-office days. The customer is on track for the modelled annual saving and has a system sized so the planned EV charger can be added on a single short visit later in the year.

Job Duration: Approximately three days on site from scaffolding to handover, plus paperwork the same week.

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