Kathriona Devereux: A year of solar panels, and my electricity bill has been halved

A year ago, ten pieces of technological wizardry were bolted to the roof of our three-bed semi, with the almost magical ability to catch the light that has travelled 150 million kilometres from the Sun - and turn it into electricity.

Since then, these solar panels have worked their quiet magic, slicing my electricity bill in half. How amazing is that!

Fun fact: those photons take just 8.5 minutes to travel from the Sun to Earth. In just one hour, enough sunlight hits our planet to meet humanity’s energy needs for an entire year. How amazing is that!

While some people dream of diamond necklaces or shiny new cars, I had long yearned for solar panels. Now, I’m head over heels for these sparkly additions to the family home.

They save me money, they shrink my carbon footprint, and - bonus - they’ve made me appreciate that Cork is a lot sunnier than we give it credit for.

Back in the 19th century, electricity was still mysterious and magical to most people. Victorians were fascinated by it, and it captured public imagination in all sorts of theatrical, and sometimes even bizarre ways!

Popular ‘electric shows’ were held where scientists or showmen would demonstrate electrical phenomena. Audiences might see sparks, feel shocks, or watch devices like early batteries or electrostatic generators at work. These shows combined real science with theatrical flair.

‘Electric Soirées’, or shocking parties, were gatherings where guests were lightly shocked for fun.

People would sometimes join hands to complete a circuit connected to a static electricity generator, feeling a mild shock pass through them. It was seen as thrilling and funny.

We might scoff at their innocence - but let’s be honest, who hasn’t dared a friend to touch an electric fence in the middle of a field?

Electricity has gone from parlour game curiosity to foundation stone of our modern world.

If you had told scientists in the field such as Thomas Edison or J.J Thomson that, one day, ordinary houses would have panels the size of mirrors on their roofs, silently harvesting sunlight to run fridges, washing machines, and laptops, they’d have been astounded.

And here I am, a proud owner of solar panels and a battery, every bit as fascinated as any Victorian thrill-seeker.

Installing solar panels isn’t a decision you make lightly - it’s like buying 8-10 years’ worth of electricity up-front. Instead of letting my savings sit idle for a rainy day, I decided to proactively invest it... for sunny days!

It’s also a concrete way of reducing my carbon footprint and climate anxiety.

I became a sun worshipper. Not the baby oil, lying-on-a-sunlounger kind, but the sort who obsessively checks weather forecasts, watches the solar app like a hawk, and arranges laundry marathons around cloudless afternoons.

In the first heady months of falling in love with my panels, I checked the app constantly, thrilled that from April to October, we produced far more electricity than we used.

During the deep, dark days of winter, production dropped, but our battery allowed us to charge up at night using cheaper rates.

And now, one year in, I can report that, overall, our ten beloved panels have produced slightly more electricity than we consumed. Our panels generated 3.35 MWh, and our house used 3.24 MWh.

That doesn’t mean all our energy requirements were met by the panels. Peak production is in the middle of the day, and we aren’t always at home to use the energy.

We exported 43% of our solar bounty to the grid and received about €250 credit for that energy, which offset our electricity bills throughout the year.

We slashed our CO2 emissions by 2.66 tonnes, which is the equivalent, or so my solar app tells me, of planting 182 trees.

Most importantly, in our first year with solar our annual electricity bill dropped from about €1,300 per year to about €420, thanks to the panels, battery, export payments, government credits, and habit changes.

Yes, the panels cost a chunk up front, but they’re already putting money back in my pocket. And they’re doing it with sunshine.

If you’re thinking about going solar, find a reputable company.

I asked friends, grilled neighbours, stalked the Irish Solar Owners Facebook group, and narrowed it down to two Cork companies with glowing reviews.

Both quotes were similar, but I went with the one that had already impressed a friend, and I wasn’t disappointed.

The installers were professional, friendly, and so sound they even slipped the kids a few bob when they were leaving.

Applying for the SEAI grant and setting up the micro-generation payment was straightforward, guided by the solar company. It was a pain-free process. You’ll get an app to track your system’s performance, and, before you know it, your new hobby will involve a lot of checking graphs and planning your life around sunny days.

The holy grail of solving the climate crisis is to create an abundant, non-polluting form of energy like nuclear fusion to replace carbon emitting and planet heating fossil fuels.

I visited the JET fusion laboratory in Oxford in 2003 and researchers were hopeful that fusion energy was 20 years away. Sadly, that facility closed two years ago, and the European fusion research project, ITER, is bogged down in delays and cost overruns. Fusion is still 20 years away.

While we wait, we’ll continue to harness the Sun’s fusion output, and I like to think that the photons hitting my solar panels today were born through nuclear fusion in the core of the Sun hundreds of thousands of years ago.

Then, once the photons reached the surface of the Sun, in just eight minutes, they zipped across space and struck my roof in Cork, turning into clean electricity.

My panels are literally catching ancient energy. Again, how amazing is that!

So happy birthday, my beautiful, hopeful, hardworking solar panels. Here’s to many more sunny years together!