Solar panels

[keithbythe sea]

As said in earlier posts, the answer could be very long!

However, a short summary. Hampshire offered a similar scheme to us earlier this year. The feed in tariff is currently around 5p per kW.hr. So the business case looks something like this:
you pay for the generating kit and installation.
You get "free" electricity when conditions are right. But you have to use it when it's being generated. So, big consumer appliances, dishwasher, washing machine, oven etc. all need to be used at the right time to get maximum benefit.
You pay for maintenance, repair and replacement of kit (panels every 20 years, inverter every 10 years).
Surplus energy is sold to the grid.
You buy energy back at around 20p per kW.hr.
Batteries are very expensive.

So basically the energy company makes 300% profit on your investment and risk.

In summary, there is no economic case to do this. If you want to help save the planet....

PS. If you are serious about going ahead have a proper independent structural survey to make sure that the roof and house can take the extra loading.

Hope that this helps.

[woodbury22uk]

We installed a 2.2kw.hr system in 2010 in the early days of the FIT scheme. Investment and interest was fully paid back in 6.5 years based on savings in our consumption and the FIT income. We are retired but holiday a lot, but when we are home, we maximise our use of generated electricity by using it for high consumption appliances like washing machine, dishwasher, iron, etc. and even a tumle drier once in a while. Since reaching payback we have received another £4500 in FIT payments. Reliability of the panels and inverter have been good and last year we generated our highest annual amount of power, so no serious degradation in the capacity of the system. Average generation has been 2000kw.hr per annum. As a precaution this year I have replaced the 11 year old inverter which was less than £700.

An unexpected bonus of having panels on the roof comes from the insulation they provide, so a cooler loft in summer, and warmer in winter.

One thing worth bearing in mind is that access to roof will usually require the erection of scaffolding which can be £500 in my experience. So if there is a problem with panels or wiring, the cost of maintenance and repair will always have a starting point of the scaffolding cost.

[emjaybee]

Update on scaffolding costs.

Accessing a roof, full length via scaffolding, will be well over £1000.

I have clients who have recently had scaffolding erected.

[Bigmac]

Missed that. We were with Utility Point for a while. They were rubbish.

The RMWeb thread John mentions is worth a read (it's what I came here to post), it was in the last week or two, sure a search will find it. I wonder if we'll get a similar offer, as a fellow West Sussex dweller!

My first year with UPoint was really cheap compared to previous years..but second year hike was big..started year 3 months overpaid. Thought i had lost that but i understand now its safe.  Remains to be seen what new supplier will charge..

[GrahamB]

.........so the elec co pays you 56p per kwh and sells the units for about 16p
oookaaaaay.

Actually the Government pays the company and the company pays me.
The company that pays me doesn't have to be the same company I buy my energy from.
The amount paid goes up each year in line with RPI (Not the rip off CPI).
It makes perfect financial sense to me as a solar panel owner. 

[kelstonlad]

Like Graham, I've had solar panels for over 10 years - the government subsidy runs for another 15 years I think, so it's been a great deal.

Nowadays, the biggest saving is if you can consume the electricity that you generate. At, say, 20p per unit, you could save £2 a day from your bill if you generate and use 10Kw.  And, of course, you know electricity prices aren't going to go down, so that saving will only increase.

I use timers to run things like an immersion heater during peak generation hours. I still sturggle to consume more than about 50% of the amount I generate. If you can get batteries instead, that's likely to make the whole thing a lot more attractive, since you should be able to benefit from all the "free" electricity you produce from your panels.  The batteries aren't ridiculous sizes, and some of them can be mounted outside. There's also circuitry and electrical work that has to be done to safely connect the batteries into your house wiring. If that's done at the same time as the solar panels, it won't be any extra cost.

I'd like to add batteries to my solar panels, but I wouldn't recover the money it would cost to buy them and fit them. You'd need some kind of subsidy for it to make any kind of financial sense.

- Andy

[Bigmac]

.........so the elec co pays you 56p per kwh and sells the units for about 16p
oookaaaaay.

Actually the Government pays the company and the company pays me.
The company that pays me doesn't have to be the same company I buy my energy from.
The amount paid goes up each year in line with RPI (Not the rip off CPI).
It makes perfect financial sense to me as a solar panel owner. 

i bet it does !

[Papyrus]

Thanks for all the replies, people - that's a lot of information to digest! It will obviously pay me to look at the deal very closely, and if we go ahead to be very canny with how we run appliances. I will register an interest and see what they are offering.

Cheers everybody,

Chris

[Jim Easterbrook]

Just make sure you don't install them in the shade.

Solar panels. by Jim Easterbrook, on Flickr

[Stuart Down Under]

I'm impressed by the optimism of our English friends who seem to expect the sun to shine on them from time to time. 

[Bealman]

 

Good one! 

[njee20]

Yes. Hilarious. 

I presume solar panels would be popular in Oz, but no doubt you have the solar panel boa, which eats them.

[woodbury22uk]

I'm impressed by the optimism of our English friends who seem to expect the sun to shine on them from time to time. 

In our part of Worcestershire the sun shines all day, but we have to get our heads above the clouds to see it. I remain surprised in countries where the sun shines in cloudless skies that the natives run their air conditioning all day and complain about the cost of their fossil fuel generated electricity.

[Stuart Down Under]

I remain surprised in countries where the sun shines in cloudless skies that the natives run their air conditioning all day and complain about the cost of their fossil fuel generated electricity.

You are completely correct that we need to abandon coal as a power source, but that will happen as solar supplies increase. In my case, we have 33 panels delivering a peak of 10kW, and even on a spring day like today, that equates to 50kWh. The 14 kWh battery is nicely charged to run the house through the night. 

[woodbury22uk]

@Stuart Down Under   Sounds like you have cracked it. I sized my small system to match what we could realistically consume, and battery storage was not an option then. I have looked at adding a battery to the current system but cannot make a financial case for it. We use 75% of what we generate in the summer, and in the winter just running the base load devices like fridges, freezers, clocks, and various electronics uses everything we generate.