I've been considering getting solar PV installed but I'm now wondering if the money would be better spent on batteries. I want to reduce carbon and also save money. We use between 30 and 50 kWh per day in winter (depending on the weather and if we charge the car). This will reduce in summer but our water heating is still electric.
Solar PV - our roof isn't ideal for panels. We're in the South East and might manage to fit 3.5kW facing ESE. There is some shading so we will have the extra cost of optimised panels.
Batteries - if we just had a battery we could charge at low rates and use the electricity during the day. A simple setup would use a tariff such as Octopus Go to charge at a fixed time overnight. A more sophisticated setup would link to Octopus Agile to decide the best time to charge.
I should add that we currently have a time shifting heating system as part of a trial. This charges heat batteries during low demand periods. The system has some problems so it's possible that we'll reconfigure it at the end of the trial and remove the heat batteries.
Should we fit both solar PV and a battery or forget the solar and buy a bigger battery? Or something else?
Your ideas and suggestions please 
