Solar Panel Guide Discussion
Comments
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I have a bad feeling that all those people who had 5 and 10 year "all work" warranty on their installation, are about to have it become worthless, as lots of solar firms quickly go under, or missing.
I had british gas on the phone yesterday trying to get me in before the fits went down. But I'm not trusting them and I'm not ready to install anyway yet.
The next few months will be very interesting, that's for sure.Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.0 -
Eon called me again last night to check on my paperwork progress, and to arrange a provisional installation date before the December deadline. Let's just hope there are no delays in the conveyancing paperwork.
In terms of warranty clauses etc, I'm reasonably happy that going under the Eon scheme may afford me slightly more protection that perhaps one of the smaller RaR schemes. But if at the end of the day the system goes kaput, and the organisations which installed it (and are committed to maintaining & profiting from it) go the same way, I'd just get a local sparky to disconnect the system and use the PV cells as additional roof tiles!
I would think differently, of course, if I'd shelled out ££££ myself to have the kit installed, as the installation companies have made / taken their profit already - if they are leaving the installation market because orders are drying up, they have no further interest in the market.
Eon should remain interested as they would lose out on the annual FiT profits that my roof will generate for them.
Matt0 -
HiEon called me again last night to check on my paperwork progress, and to arrange a provisional installation date before the December deadline. Let's just hope there are no delays in the conveyancing paperwork.
In terms of warranty clauses etc, I'm reasonably happy that going under the Eon scheme may afford me slightly more protection that perhaps one of the smaller RaR schemes. But if at the end of the day the system goes kaput, and the organisations which installed it (and are committed to maintaining & profiting from it) go the same way, I'd just get a local sparky to disconnect the system and use the PV cells as additional roof tiles!
I would think differently, of course, if I'd shelled out ££££ myself to have the kit installed, as the installation companies have made / taken their profit already - if they are leaving the installation market because orders are drying up, they have no further interest in the market.
Eon should remain interested as they would lose out on the annual FiT profits that my roof will generate for them.
Matt
My take is that the RaR operators always knew that there would be a corrective reduction in FiTs and will have planned for this all along. How could they not have seen it coming ? ... the largest market, Germany cut their tariffs in the middle of last year, France followed a few months later ... it's utterly impossible that they couldn't have foreseen the change, maybe the timing and the scale, but not the change.
So, what happens now ? .... well, for every installation they have there is a guaranteed income for 25 years, a good one at that from their point of view, so it's just the issue of contracting the business to a small administration office and rake in the cash a little earlier than they probably anticipated ..... the alternave, well the value of the books is a tradeable asset, income for very little administrational cost, so lookout for some mergers and a few people becoming quite wealthy from operating the scheme while the loophole which allowed them to existed .....
Get rich quick loophole closed, now what about discussing the viability of operating a RaR scheme on a purely not for profit basis to really help the poor .... local authorities, charities, trusts, housing associations, wealthy individuals and organisations with a philanthropical outlook and many others could be interested .... there's still enough in the aggregated tariff to make it work, I doubt that the green or charitable credentials of the current RaR operators would mean that they would likely be at the front of that queue though .....
HTH
Z"We are what we repeatedly do, excellence then is not an act, but a habit. " ...... Aristotle
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Lotus-eater wrote: »I have a bad feeling that all those people who had 5 and 10 year "all work" warranty on their installation, are about to have it become worthless, as lots of solar firms quickly go under, or missing.
Yes, I did make sure that ours was insurance backed.4kWp, Panels: 16 Hyundai HIS250MG, Inverter: SMA Sunny Boy 4000TLLocation: Bedford, Roof: South East facing, 20 degree pitch20kWh Pylontech US5000 batteries, Lux AC inverter,Skoda Enyaq iV80, TADO Central Heating control0 -
Get rich quick loophole closed, now what about discussing the viability of operating a RaR scheme on a purely not for profit basis to really help the poor .... local authorities, charities, trusts, housing associations, wealthy individuals and organisations with a philanthropical outlook and many others could be interested .... there's still enough in the aggregated tariff to make it work, I doubt that the green or charitable credentials of the current RaR operators would mean that they would likely be at the front of that queue though .....
HTH
Z
I wonder what percentage of those 'poor' live in houses as opposed to flats.
Even those in houses need them to be big enough, unshaded, correct orientation etc.
I suspect it might be a divisive issue between the 'have's and have nots'0 -
Yeah, but there's a difference between ringing up a still living company and saying, some tiles have come loose/a beam is buckling, come and sort them out and ringing an insurance company you have never spoken to before, convincing them the damage was due to the panels you had fitted by a defunct company 3 years before.Yes, I did make sure that ours was insurance backed.Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.0 -
HiI wonder what percentage of those 'poor' live in houses as opposed to flats.
Even those in houses need them to be big enough, unshaded, correct orientation etc.
I suspect it might be a divisive issue between the 'have's and have nots'
It could be, but the point is that if you were to consider the effect of the reduction in FiTs and the proposal for a philanthropic approach the 'have's' will have less and the 'have nots' would have more .... which would reduce the division, at least to a point where it's smaller than it would be under existing RaR schemes ...
There is always an argument of division whenever a new technology is introduced, the car, commercial airlines, televisions, central heating, overseas holidays, nuclear power, mobile telephones .... the list is probably almost endless. The fact is that solarpower is here, it's being subsidised and costs of equipment are falling due to a more competitive market, manufacturing efficiencies, economies of scale and technological advances .... it's even likely that commercial pressures attributable to developing demand for solar power will bring forward developments which are suitable for flats ... do nothing and it will not be available for many years more .....
Regarding roof orientation, this is really only an issue due to the high cost of panels and therefore the relative cost effectivity of installations as the orientation move away from optimal conditions .... my roof isn't optimal, it faces S/W, however the opposite roof (N/E) would still likely produce a comparative 2/3 of it's annual generation if it became cost effective to install panels ... that's the point at hand ... 'cost effective' .... without developing a market, panels wouldn't be cost effective for decades, if ever .... whilst artificially developing a market with subsidy creates the necessary conditions for competition to develop and cost effectivity to open up the number of roofs (and walls !) which would be suitable to accept systems ....
Surely the point isn't missed that there is a pricepoint where subsidy can be removed altogether and, when decoupling generating efficiency per unit of area, another pricepoint where it would be possible to place pv almost anywhere .... how do we get there ?
Just to conclude, yes I do understand the limitations of the current national generating and distribution infrastructure and the arguments regarding schedulable and unschedulable generation .... but there are various solutions which could be applied, but again, that's just down to inventiveness, cost & demand ....
HTH
Z"We are what we repeatedly do, excellence then is not an act, but a habit. " ...... Aristotle0 -
Surely the point isn't missed that there is a pricepoint where subsidy can be removed altogether and, when decoupling generating efficiency per unit of area, another pricepoint where it would be possible to place pv almost anywhere .... how do we get there ?
I certainly agree. The point is certainly being missed that the world in which we are debating these things won't be around for much longer. The developing world is expanding with the Chinese and Indians wanting all the consumer goods that they make and sell to us, themselves. Their energy usage will spiral - is already spiralling - upwards. Fossil fuels will further increase in cost.
We are going to need to move into a world with wall to wall solar, wind, wave and nuclear power and develop storage technologies to suit. We need to roll out appliances that have intelligent load shedding (freezers that drop to lower temperatures when in surplus and shut down at peak periods) and tariffs that do the same, immersion heaters that come on automatically when there is surplus power to store energy.
France had long since (20 years ago?) had an electricity tariff where you get cheaper electricity normally, but on up to X days per year you see an red light come on in the hall as a warning and your tariff increases to many times the normal rate. People shut the house down, cover over the freezer with a duvet and go out on these days - go shopping or out to the restaurant or visit friends and relatives.
All the current arguments about 'wave generation is better', 'wind is more efficient', 'solar generates at times when you don't need it' will go out of the window. We need it all and we need to start getting all that in place now unless we want to be in hoc to some pretty unpleasant regimes just because they own all the oil or gas in this world, and can crank the prices sky high as the demand rockets and supplies start to reduce.4kWp, Panels: 16 Hyundai HIS250MG, Inverter: SMA Sunny Boy 4000TLLocation: Bedford, Roof: South East facing, 20 degree pitch20kWh Pylontech US5000 batteries, Lux AC inverter,Skoda Enyaq iV80, TADO Central Heating control0 -
If you believe the calculations that some solar PV companies are handing out (with 15% pa compounded electricity price increases over 25 years) then the price of electricity will exceed the proposed FIT payment of 21p within 5 years and would exceed the current FIT payment of 43p in 10 years. I don't personally believe those numbers but if they were true then it would totally change the economics of PV installation.
It would make for an interesting situation if the FIT payment ended up lower than the price of the electricity generated.Remember the saying: if it looks too good to be true it almost certainly is.0 -
Many large businesses in the UK have a similar system of notification from the generators and try to move power use away from these peak periods.
France had long since (20 years ago?) had an electricity tariff where you get cheaper electricity normally, but on up to X days per year you see an red light come on in the hall as a warning and your tariff increases to many times the normal rate. People shut the house down, cover over the freezer with a duvet and go out on these days - go shopping or out to the restaurant or visit friends and relatives.Remember the saying: if it looks too good to be true it almost certainly is.0
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