Solar Panel Guide Discussion

[ToonArmy]

Dont Buy Solar Panels, unless you are going to stay in the same house for at lease 10-15 years, otherwise its not gonna save you. Also within 3-5 years technology with increase the power of panels so they will be half the size and a quarter of the price!

[digitaltoast]

Am I going slightly mad, or getting my forum threads confused, but was there not a post here earlier where someone said their panels had increased their valuation by £20,000? I came to ask some questions and now the post is gone.

[Angora]

Hi thanks for your reply John. I did read that if it was an AONB it was OK to have the panels so long as they house cannot be seen from the road, which it can't be. Well not really.. The ag tie is OK as it has 15 acres and I am planning to keep some livestock and not work full time elsewhere. Good point though.

[Fruit and Nut Case]

Originally Posted by ToonArmy

Dont Buy Solar Panels, unless you are going to stay in the same house for at lease 10-15 years, otherwise its not gonna save you. Also within 3-5 years technology with increase the power of panels so they will be half the size and a quarter of the price!

...but the FIT rate will have shrunk as well.

[John_Pierpoint]

Originally Posted by ToonArmy

Dont Buy Solar Panels, unless you are going to stay in the same house for at lease 10-15 years, otherwise its not gonna save you. Also within 3-5 years technology with increase the power of panels so they will be half the size and a quarter of the price!

Don't feed the troll unless he can come back and explain to which bit of this science fiction he can supply a link of record.

I think the "low hanging fruit" for improving the performance of panels has already been achieved:

* Moving the silver paper connectors to the back side of the panel

* The use of square cells to maximise the active area facing the sun.

* Putting something reflective on the underside to return light escaping underneath back through the cells.

* Multi layer technology, as pioneered (?) by Du Pont, to extract power from more of the frequencies of sunlight.

* One electronic inverter gizmo per panel, as pioneered (?) by Solar Edge, to negate the problems caused by moving shadows killing the performance of strings of panels.

Coming soon the magic battery that solves all the problems of lap tops, construction site tools, electric cars and storing PV electricity from the summer to be used during the winter.

[buglawton]

A nearby street of bungalows has started to get infected by solar panels and boy do they look butt-ugly when street-facing on bungalow roofs. Couldn't they have put these into arrays in the middle of some of our barely used 'green belt' farmland near here (Berks) I wonder?

The irony of this is not lost on me: Green belt policy (the is the the one that makes Home Counties living space near unaffordable and which long term will deplete the UK's economy) has the main justification that it keeps our neighbourhoods beautiful. And then these carbuncles are plonked right in the middle of our housing!

On the topic of house price valuation if you have panels: I assume that any young solar panel scheme on a house means the new owner of the house has to take over a complicated financial agreement?
I would run several miles from that, and the missus several miles from the ugly looks of most installations.

[EricMears]

Originally Posted by buglawton

On the topic of house price valuation if you have panels: I assume that any young solar panel scheme on a house means the new owner of the house has to take over a complicated financial agreement?

If the panels are owned rather than the roof having been leased, then the new owner would be completely free to remove them after taking ownership. Doubtful however if a new owner would be willing to discard an income stream that would probably be well in excess of a thousand pounds per year though.

[buglawton]

The majority of panels are installed on some sort of loan scheme with the 'income stream' hopefully paying the loan off, AFAIK.

Even if owned outright, the new owner has to sign up to a agreement with the leccy company - and get the same advantageous terms - as the previous owner had.

[Martyn1981]

Originally Posted by buglawton

The majority of panels are installed on some sort of loan scheme with the 'income stream' hopefully paying the loan off, AFAIK.

That's a totally new one on me! Have you got any data/references to support this?

Originally Posted by buglawton

Even if owned outright, the new owner has to sign up to a agreement with the leccy company - and get the same advantageous terms - as the previous owner had.

The FIT contract is linked to the install and the property, that is why it can't be transferred to another property, even if the householder was willing to move the panels. Instead the contract stays at the premises with the new owners for the remainder of the original term (25 or 20 years (pre or post Aug 2012)). Think of it as similar to taking on the responsibility of the energy contract(s) of a property you have just bought.

Mart.

[EricMears]

Originally Posted by buglawton

The majority of panels are installed on some sort of loan scheme with the 'income stream' hopefully paying the loan off, AFAIK.

Even if owned outright, the new owner has to sign up to a agreement with the leccy company - and get the same advantageous terms - as the previous owner had.

The current owners of the houses must have agreed to such a scheme and must surely realise that they are running the risk of prospective purchasers not wanting to take over such a contract.

If the terms are advantageous enough, more people would be attracted to buy so price will rise; if not and number interested is diminished, price will fall.

Only time will tell what the actual result has been.