Solar Panel Guide Discussion

Hi

Simple ones first (feedback) ......

Typo ..... "Watch to watch out for with free solar panels " .... What ?

Z

Bingobongo wrote: »

What a disgusting idea.
The poor subsidising the middle classes to buy solar panels in order to make money.
!!!!!! I feel sick.
Martin Lewis green eco-warrior. I hope you are proud of yourself.

At last! Someone else "gets" it! Newcomers to this new thread who haven't already read this thread would do well to have a browse through there.

Here are some key points that stand out for me:
On the rent-your-roof-out-for-25-years scheme, the best you can hope for is £70 a year in savings. You could easily save triple that just by using off-peak electricity. Greener, more reliable, doesn't steal from little old ladies to fund a massive con.

The government's own official estimate of the cost of solar PV FiTs:
http://www.decc.gov.uk/assets/decc/Consultations/Renewable%20Electricity%20Financial%20Incentives/1_20100204103559_e_@@_FITsImpactAssessmentaccompanyingGovernmentResponse.pdf

"The estimated resource cost is £570m in 2020, £8.6bn cumulative to 2030.
The estimated cost to consumers, cumulative to 2030, is £6.7bn
OVERALL NET BENEFIT (NPV Best estimate) £ -8.2bn"

Here's the BBC Radio 4's "You and Yours"/Which? investigation into dodgy solar panel sales practises.
Here's a direct link to the clip. Well worth a listen within the next week.
Here's the Energy Saving Trust analysis of the report.

Here's some technical reading from one of the most widely respected Cambridge University physicists:
http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c6/page_38.shtml

Here's a snippet from George Monbiot's blog:

The feed-in tariffs about to be introduced here are extortionate, useless and deeply regressive.

Those who hate environmentalism have spent years looking for the definitive example of a great green rip-off. Finally it arrives and no one notices. The government is about to shift £8.6bn from the poor to the middle classes. It expects a loss on this scheme of £8.2bn, or 95%(1). Yet the media is silent. The opposition urges only that the scam should be expanded.

On April 1st the government introduces its feed-in tariffs. These oblige electricity companies to pay people for the power they produce at home. The money will come from their customers, in the form of higher bills. It would make sense, if we didn’t know that the technologies the scheme will reward are comically inefficient.

Here's my own blog on the subject: http://www.digitaltoast.co.uk/fits-of-madness-solar-pv

And finally, if anyone is still up for Solar PV, would you mind helping me persuade the local council to fund my jobs generation scheme?

I've based it on the Feed In Tarrif scheme. All the multipliers are the same so it should make sense.

Everyone lucky(?) enough to live within a 1 mile radius of a McDonalds restaurant will get a voucher for a free lunch of a Big Mac.
While the retail price of a Big Mac is £2.89, in order to incentivize you to make the journey, when collecting your Big Mac you'll actually be paid (3.58x£2.89) = £10.35.
Whether or not the Big Mac is collected, McDonalds will be required to make them. Most Big Macs will be available at about 3-4pm when demand is lowest, although this is randomly variable. This will generate approximately 250 new jobs as the site will have to greatly expand.
Fantastic news for the economy.

Also, new jobs will be generated throughout the supply chain. Although most new cows will be farmed on newly cleared virgin rainforest in Guatamala and provide nothing extra for the UK economy, 3 new cows have been purchased in Berkshire. Most great jobs news as another farm hand is hired.

As a result of this, we expect to see great improvements in the gastric band and cholesterol pill industry.
In fact, we can see early results already - one of the largest providers of cholesterol pills is funding the building of some new "Super-McDonalds", complete with car park, in return for the £10.35 that the customer would normally get, AND the customer gets to eat the free burger (saving as much as 85p on making it themselves).

All of these marvellous benefits to the economy with the 1 mile radius of these restaurants are made possible simply by a levy of just 25% on all vegetables and healthy eating options on all other people in the town unable to take advantage of the 1 mile radius. We expect this venture to add just £6bn index-linked to the food bills nationwide of those outside the 1 mile radius.

Brilliant, eh? I mean, how can anyone fault such a sensible idea?
So, can I count on your support?

KevinG wrote: »

OK, I'll bite. Has anyone any experience of changing supplier while on the Feed-in Tariff? I know it is not supposed to be a barrier to changing, but given the palava of registering and submitting readings (I now have two separate registrations, one for a Micro CHP boiler and one for Solar PV) and the risk of losing payments while the switch happened, I do wonder how easy it is. I am currently with Scottish Power (more fool me you might say) and their systems for dealing with the Feed-in Tariff are not exactly slick, maybe other suppliers are better.

Hi,

I changed supplier almost immediately after having the panels installed (my capped rate was ending and I could get a better deal elsewhere) I phoned the old and new suppliers to ask what I should do. Both said that at that time (July 2010) there was no automatic mechanism for changing who pays the FITs when you change supplier and that the old supplier would continue to pay FITs without any problem.

This has worked ok for a year now, and I'm just about to change supplier again.

Dave F