Free solar power system. Is it a scam?

saffysue

Thanks I applied yesterday, fingers crossed.

XRayDave

Hi All

Had the PV system from ASG fitted last week. 18 panels on a South-facing roof.

I would really like to have a meter fitted to the system to monitor the energy production of the panels. There IS a meter in the loft - next to the PV Inverter but I can't make sense out of the information it displays. Also, climbing into the loft begins to lose its sparkle after the first couple of times! Meter is a Iskra Emeco ME372 (see this URL): iskranet.co.uk/index.php?cat=Iskra_Emeco_Electricity_Meters:

The PV Inverter is a German model EFFEKTA ES3300 and their website has a user manual which is incomprehensible - even when BabelFish has had a go at it (see this URL): effekta.de/portal/index.php?option=com_content&task=category&sectionid=4&id=23&Itemid=80

Interested in Sarah's post - 171 I think it is - where an offer was made to supply & fit a sutable meter to another poster. It is a pity that this is not made available to all of those who sign up.

The installation went without almost without a hitch - the installers and electrician were very pleasant and very efficient. The system was installed in less than a day and if it hadn't been for a slight hitch involving a shortage of brackets to install the panels, would have been fully installed & running by about 2:30pm

Not fully convinced that the system is producing the advertised 3.3kW though - and that was despite a couple of very sunny and cloudless days last week.

All contact with the company - especially with Sarah, Lisa and Julie have been dealt with promptly.

I'll update this post when I have some more info.

XRD

PS - You'll have to copy the URLs and paste into your web-browser - apparently as a new forum member, I can't post links Just prefix the links with the usual h ttp://ww w etc.

Cardew

XRayDave wrote: »

Not fully convinced that the system is producing the advertised 3.3kW though - and that was despite a couple of very sunny and cloudless days last week.

The kW rating of a panel is the output achieved under laboratory conditions of known parameters and is not indicative of the output it will achieve in any set location.

Thus your 18 panel 3.3kW array(presumably in Yorkshire) may never reach an output of 3.3kW.

If it was in, say, Norway it would have a lower peak output and on the equator considerably in excess of 3.3kW.

The important figure is the kWh it will produce in a year - typically 3,000kWh or so for your array I would think.

SarahLucyD

XRayDave, you can purchase an energy meter from Argos or Tesco, email me (because I don't know who you are) and I will email the links to you. I will get one of our electricians to fit it for you - if the cuff is placed on the right cable it will show you real-time what the panels are generating.

Further, as Cardew states, it is unlikely that your system will ever achieve 3.3. However, we only fit on roofs that will provide a MINIMUM yield of 2800kw hours per annum, so you can expect more than that.

Sarah Dyson - A Shade Greener

SarahLou

D'oh! Sadly we don't live within the area you're working in. Is there any chance of you coming up to the North East of England at any point in the future Sarah? (We're very keen - we got some quotes last year for PV panels to be installed on our south facing roof but it was just far too expensive).

SarahLucyD

I'm so sorry about that. The problem is that the further 'up North' we go, the lower the yield - making it less financially viable for us. It's likely that we'll expand but at the moment it's looking more likely that it will be to spread downwards, incorporating parts of Leicestershire and the Midlands.

Once again - sorry.

Sarah - A Shade Greener

SarahLou

Ahhh drat, thats a shame! I'll have to dig out the paperwork - I can't remember what the figures we were told we'd be achieving with the systems we were getting quoted on last year were. We've got a good sized roof, south facing with nothing shading it whatsoever so they were very reasonable figures. Can't remember what they were off the top of my head though. Oh well, hopefully other companies will follow suit now you're doing this scheme. I'll just keep my fingers crossed for another company starting the scheme off further North

noncom_2

SarahLou, the other thing you should keep an eye out for is the so-called PayAsYouSave loans, which may be rolled out at some point in the future to allow those homeowners who can't afford the massive upfront cost of installation to go ahead without "renting out" their roofspace.

The idea is it will be a long-term loan, effectively mortgaged to the property itself rather than an individual (so you wouldn't have to pay it all back if you sold the house, the new owner would have to take it on), and with the intention being that the income from FITs and power bill savings would more than cover the cost of the loan itself.

So you'd get a loan for installing the system, and once it was up and running, you might get (say) £80 per month effective income from the system and pay back (say) £50 a month for the lifetime of the loan.

Google "pay as you save" for more, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of solid detail about who will provide the loans or exactly how they'd work yet.

Cardew

noncom wrote: »

SarahLou, the other thing you should keep an eye out for is the so-called PayAsYouSave loans, which may be rolled out at some point in the future to allow those homeowners who can't afford the massive upfront cost of installation to go ahead without "renting out" their roofspace.

The idea is it will be a long-term loan, effectively mortgaged to the property itself rather than an individual (so you wouldn't have to pay it all back if you sold the house, the new owner would have to take it on), and with the intention being that the income from FITs and power bill savings would more than cover the cost of the loan itself.

So you'd get a loan for installing the system, and once it was up and running, you might get (say) £80 per month effective income from the system and pay back (say) £50 a month for the lifetime of the loan.

Google "pay as you save" for more, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of solid detail about who will provide the loans or exactly how they'd work yet.

Whilst going Green is flavour of the month with all three political parties, such a scheme seems at odds with the message the Prime Minister was giving today about financial cuts.

noncom_2

Not sure why you say that, Cardew, other than a generally sceptical disposition possibly (;)).

My mortgage company is happy to make a loan to me of many thousands of pounds to buy a house, and charge a rate of interest which they can make a profit on.

My calculations suggest that a Solar PV system, over the long term, should make an income which is greater than the rate of interest my mortgage company charges me.

Thus, by my logic, it should be possible for an organisation (be it commercial or quango) to loan me an amount which both a) costs me less in repayments than the Solar PV or other Green technology will generate given the FITs, and b) makes a profit for them too.

Where is the flaw in this argument?

That aside, it is at least arguable (and I have a suspicion you may disagree with the argument, but I would hope that you would at least entertain the idea that it is a valid point of view) that current economics are failing to take account of the REAL LONG-TERM SUSTAINABLE cost of our lifestyles. You may argue that Green technologies don't add up economically without subsidy, but that is (arguably) because other Power sources are TOO CHEAP when viewed in the light of unreplenishable resources and climate stability.

At some point, (if the view that global climate change must be averted by weaning ourselves off fossil fuels is correct), the REAL cost of sustainable energy will have to be used for the whole market, rather than letting unsustainable and planet-damaging industries continue to flood the planet with energy which is cheap to us, but deadly expensive to future generations.