People may think that the UK would not be viable for solar, but I think it is worthwhile, especially if you have a battery to take advantage of off-peak prices.
In the UK, probably using wind turbines are a better option than using solar panels. Or mixing the two.
If you live somewhere that gets a lot more sun then it ought to be standard, but it will depend on what the energy companies charge and whether there are other incentives.
It is possible to power your devices by using only the generated energy entirely from the green energy sources, without having to use the service of energy companies.
Of course this solution probably requires more investment, depending how much energy your household is using.
Trying to achieve an offgrid system when you don't actually need it (i.e. have grid access) is expensive and there are better ways to spend money. But of course it's always great to focus on increasing self-consumption.
For individual it's very hard because those energy sources are very unpredictable, grid have a better tools (and scale) can do that.
But hey, we want to decentralize everything so maybe neighborhoods will be able to do that in future :-)
Exactly. We have much reduced our grid consumption (if you exclude the off-peak car charging). Being totally off-grid would bring different problems.
I think wind only really works on a large scale and is not viable on a house. Solar should be low maintenance and has no noise issues.
We still need the grid as we would not get enough sun at this time of year, especially when it comes to charging up the car. So we have to pay the standing charge, but then we can get paid to export our excess power.
I also would not put wind turbines on a house, but in the garden.
Of course if you have enough space for it.
If your area is windy enough, then it is worth to consider.
Especially if generally there is more wind than sunlight during the average days on your area.
I looked up some small turbines that are designed for boats. One of those that costs £500 will only generate up to 60W. That would not run much, but could keep the light on in a boat. Even in our garden we would not get constant wind due to other buildings.
We can get all our power from solar (apart from car charging) in the summer, so it balances out over the year and will pay for itself. If you live on a hill with constant wind then a turbine may be an option, but you just don't tend to see them on urban homes. In some cases people could have both.