Free solar power system. Is it a scam?

Pennylane

Nooooooo ..... you're kidding me Cardew!:p Actually according to a spokesperson from Trading Standards who was on the radio today, they are officially still trading.

My contract is with Norton Energy which I thought I had explained above. I'm not bothered who gets what from my roof to be honest ...... I'm still getting my free daytime electricity.:)

John_Pierpoint

This week in Monday 19th in the "middle" of the programme, the BBC day time TV series "Rip Off Britain" did an expose on the questionable ethics of "The Energy Saving Group" - a company that charged an up front fee of £500 to refer the property to a potential installer - in this case Norton.

As MSE people will know, the salesman during the "gold rush" typically got the £500.

Only in this case Norton did not want the job after their "surveyor" had evaluated the proposition.

The punter is still awaiting a refund of his £500.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b018trr4/Rip_Off_Britain_Series_3_Episode_16/

muscles01

saffysue wrote: »

Has anybody living in a semi managed to qualify ?

Yes alot of people on my estate have the panels and they are all semi detached properties ;-)

!! We installed 10 months ago and claimed £270.00
Back and reduced our monthly direct debit from £50.00 a month down to £40.00 a month for BOTH gas and electric

So "Go for it" ;-))

zeupater

muscles01 wrote: »

Yes alot of people on my estate have the panels and they are all semi detached properties ;-)

!! We installed 10 months ago and claimed £270.00
Back and reduced our monthly direct debit from £50.00 a month down to £40.00 a month for BOTH gas and electric

So "Go for it" ;-))

Hi

So .... reading the above post it looks like muscles01 was told that the panels will save £270/year in energy, so the direct debits have been reduced by £20/month (£240/year) .... is this the case ??

If there was a calculated saving of £270/year, that would equate to approximately 2700kWh of generated electricity per year, which would be around 100% self usage from a 3.3kWp system (~840kWh/kWp*3.3kWp), which seems to be a typical RaR system size ..... this is extremely unlikely and is probably somewhere around three times what the average household would save on their energy bills from a 3.3kWp system.

Basing the decision on whether to "Go for it", or not, on the referenced post could be considered to be a little premature ... do a little more research first ...

HTH
Z

treasach

Well I asked them to look at our house to see if we could have them fitted and they come back after an hour and said after looking on google maps our house is too shaded to have it fitted

Strange that, there are no trees near our house, no buildings that could cause shade so I'm guessing the engineer found a cloud that constantly sits above our house!! Our house is also facing directly south

welshdragon57

definatley a scam my electricty has gone up not down since they been put in they saying i have to use the electric produced in the daytime how can i use it when i am not there nobody said anything about times when you have to use it so dont be dragged in i was you dont get free electric its a total con

Dave_Fowler

welshdragon57 wrote: »

definatley a scam my electricty has gone up not down since they been put in they saying i have to use the electric produced in the daytime how can i use it when i am not there nobody said anything about times when you have to use it so dont be dragged in i was you dont get free electric its a total con

Don't be too disheartened. The installation of the panels should not cause your power consumption to go up (possibly 1 or 2p a year if they were kept in total darkness and the inverter was asleep)

Most dwellings have a background power consumption - fridges and items on standby - and these should be powered by the panels throughout most days. When it comes to the summer and the days are longer there should be a useful amount of power until 9 or 10pm.

But even with your best efforts, it is unlikely you can save more than £100 in the year if you are not at home and unable to control the use of the power that is generated.

Dave F

larkim

welshdragon57 wrote: »

definatley a scam my electricty has gone up not down since they been put in they saying i have to use the electric produced in the daytime how can i use it when i am not there nobody said anything about times when you have to use it so dont be dragged in i was you dont get free electric its a total con

Not to be rude or anything, but other than in the daytime when the sun is shining, when did you *think* you'd be able to use the power generated by solar panels?

There's no way that your electricity bill will have gone up *due to having solar installed*.

Free solar / RaR is not to everyone's tastes, but your post is frankly wrong.

Matt

John_Pierpoint

There is a certain satisfaction in in drying a load of washing for nothing in a tumble dryer, rather than hanging it out of the line. Even if you can only do it at a weekend lunchtime when the sun is shining

DonSwan

"Thousands of households that agreed to rent their roofs to solar panel companies, in return for free electricity, could find their properties are unsaleable. It has emerged that lenders have begun turning down mortgage applications from homeowners who signed up to the schemes.

""We signed up to this scheme on the basis that we were doing the green thing, but it has turned out to be a nightmare," says John, who works as an air traffic controller. "The implications for us are that we cannot remortgage our house on a lower interest rate. We would still have a mortgage but one on the standard variable rate which will increase with the Bank of England interest rates."We are extremely concerned that we will not be able to sell our house as no buyer will be able to get a mortgage on it. We can't be the only people in this position, can we?"
The problem is, they could be the first to come up against this barrier."


http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2012/mar/23/solar-panels-dim-mortgage-prospects