Free solar power system. Is it a scam?

prowla

SarahLucyD wrote: »

Prowla - for systems that are installed between April 2010 and April 2011 the tariffs will be guaranteed by the government for 25 years. After April 2011 we were advised that the proposed scheme will either continue or be replaced by something similar. After consultation we believe it will continue, with the generation tariff possibly increasing. This isn't a grant scheme by the way - it is not state funded. It is the power utility companies who pay the tariff because they are obliged to purchase a certain amount of their energy from renewable sources. And Cardew I know you have maintained it is risky and not good business sense to base our business on such schemes then I can only say that is entirely our choice, there is no risk to the homeowner. The risk is entirely ours. The contract that the homeowner signs stipulates that they are not responsible for anything relating to the panels and will not have to pay anthing now or in the future. The only thing it stipulates as regards responsibility is that the homeowner can't remove them and sell them!!!

We take care of the insurance.

If the homeowner tires of free electricity we will uninstall it at no cost to the homeowner at a mutually convenient date and time. We can always use the panels on someone else's roof. They aren't damaged in the removal. They retain their value.

The main thing is that the homeowner does not pay anything at any point. The reason this thread started was that people wondered if it is a scam - it is not.

Now I really must go home.

Thanks for the info.
(As you'll be reading this tomorrow - hope you had a good evening!)

SarahLucyD

I have now read all the previous comments and as there are so many issues raised I really haven't the time to pick things out and respond to each one. Thanks anyway. We have tried to answer most questions on our website but of course we can't be exhaustive in that respect because someone will always come up with something that we haven't thought of. It's not that we aren't being transparent - we simply haven't thought of everything. The website will develop as the company does - the site was only launched on October 26th. The whole point of the website is to try and give people a general overview of what we are doing, for them to find out if their roof is suitable and email or contact us through our contact form if they have any specific questions - which I think is fair.

Cardew - I can't understand why you think it is wrong to fit 2000 domestic systems and get our income from the Generation Tariff. Would you think it wrong if a PV company SOLD 2000 domestic systems? The Generation Tariff would still have to be paid out - to the purchasers of the systems. If we did that (sold 2000) we would make a very quick buck in the short term. At least this way we are making solar power available to people who probably couldn't afford it at this moment in time. It is raising awareness of solar power and about time - we are lagging behind Europe because a lot of people in the UK think that PV doesn't work over here but look at Germany - the leading installer of PV now and the German climate is very like ours.

Mcfi5dhc - I think the main problem was my usage of the terminology. I was talking about the Microgeneration tariff as being a FIT - a Feed in Tariff - but in my defence, that's how the utility companies referred to it when I was speaking to them about it in the beginning of this year. It is that tariff, along with the ROCs etc that I knew was being phased out but I obviously confused everyone with my terminology and subsequently apologised profusely and rectified it with another post.

A fiend for life - having insulation isn't anything to do with the new tariff, unlike the grant system that is currently in place you will not be expected to demonstrate that you have taken other measures to save energy like having loft insulation and double glazing etc - although if I am wrong I am sure that someone (Cardew or Mcfi5dhc) will jump on me from a great height;)

I will continue to be as open and frank with people as possible. I don't mind a lively discussion as long as people aren't attacking for the sake of attacking - I am not the enemy merely because I represent a company that is hoping to make some profits.

PS: - A Fiend for Life - forgot to address your point about usage of electricity - the homeowner can use all the electricity that the panels generate - there is no limit and once again I stress there are no hidden costs - I've said this time and again and I say it again, the homeowner is not charged for anything AT ALL. Not a nut or a bolt, no 'penalties'. Nothing, because the panels remain our property, our asset and therefore our responsibility. We are using their roofs - for that we provide them with free electricity. If they sell the house the panels stay on the house for the benefit of the next homeowner.

incus432

Personally I consider 2000 small systems preferable to one huge array of the same size. It's a decentralised, distributed, more local vision of the future where individuals have a direct stake in generation, and more control. I'm sure many in government and the industry hate the idea, losing ability to command and control!

One fair point raised previously though is that there seems no incentive for a householder to reduce their consumption when the solar power is generating - they may as well use as much of it as they can. Outside solar hours it's different.

SarahLucyD

Incus432 - but at least they will be consuming electricity that comes from a renewable source and I doubt they will be putting, say, the dishwasher on for the sake of it - merely putting it on during the day instead of in the evening - when the electricity would be coming off the grid. Further, our 'Welcome' pack will include a monitor that shows how much electricity is being generated by our panels - to encourage them not to over-consume (sorry, can't get technical here because I'm no not the tech person in our company - if you want to know specifics contact our John Wade through our contact form). Further, in the 'Welcome' pack will be a leaflet with tips on saving energy. It should make them more conscious of the electricity they are using. Another thing, in my view, once people feel that they have gone a bit greener there is the chance that they will feel good about it and so start doing more things with 'being green' in mind. And as people see more and more houses with solar panels this will certainly raise awareness - hopefully.

WestonDave

Given that this isn't available in the West Country, I won't waste a lot of time getting excited/upset about this particular scheme. However I think its reasonable to be curious about something which does appear on the face of it to be the proverbial free lunch (or at least free cooking of it!).

If I understand this correctly the company is being paid purely to generate the electricity even though it isn't selling it - is that correct? If so presumably it can only be a fraction of a normal unit price (i.e. something equating to the additional cost of PV generation over say coal fired power station generation). Now given that normal domestic instalation barely breaks even at best, and that is allowing for full savings on units generated or sold, then its hard to see how this works financially even allowing for stripping profit margins off the system and instalation costs. However if a company like this were setting up near me and offering the chance to come in and see all the figures then I would certainly be willing to spend the time on checking it out. I realise its easy to say its not my problem, but I tend to want to work co-operatively with suppliers - there is little point (unless its a big faceless organisation) in screwing them down so hard that they go bust and leave you with aftersales problems. So I would want to be reasonably confident that the figures stack up (maybe its just the accountant in me) so that if the company goes bust, I don't have some hairy type appointed by the adminstrators crawling over my roof taking back the panels!

I think the long term wide scale operation of this type of financial model is going to be pretty hard because in theory everyone could have a panel on their roof, get free electricity subsidised by Government. In reality there must be a limit to the pot Government will pay out of, and also the normal electricity generators will cry foul long before this becomes widespread. 2000 homes getting free electricity is nuisance value to the industry 2 million homes doing it, is going to start doing some damage and the fight back will being.

If Sarah and her company can make this work then fair play, and likewise to anyone who having checked it out, gets the benefit of it, but I can't see it working nationwide. Ah well back to saving up for my own panels then!

SarahLucyD

Westondave - we have discussed ad nauseam how the scheme works so I really am not going to re-iterate it all over again. What I want to say is that 2000 roofs is a gnats breath at the side of some other european countries. Further, it isn't the government who is paying anything out - it is the power companies - from what I understand (I am open to be corrected Cardew etc) they are under an obligation to purchase a certain amount of electricity from renewable energy sources - once again 2000 roofs and the electricity that generates is a gnats breath at the side of their obligations. I think you will find that there are around 400,000 homes in Germany with PV and a similar scheme is operating there (soon to be closed to new installations I believe - again Cardew etc correct me if I'm wrong).

As for hairy types appointed by an administrator taking back the panels - well, that could happen I guess but as the homeowner won't have paid a penny towards them then it isn't a massive problem. They would have to be removed in a manner that wouldn't damage anything (they are actually easy to remove). At the moment we don't have a bank with a debenture or charge over the company and we don't have any creditors but I take your point - it is likely we will have creditors once we start to trade properly in the New Year but if we hit our budgets and operate within our budgets we should be ok.

We aren't planning to operate anywhere other than up north and around our immediate vicinity - there are plenty of roofs up here but I would say that the more PV that is fitted in the UK the cheaper they will become for anyone wanting to buy them down south.

Mcfi5dhc

I think one of the main problems with this is the following:

Company builds big solar farm in UK - do they get 36.5p unit for everything generated? No. They get about 9p at a guess (the 36.5p is for sub 50Kw installations)

Company builds big solar farm in UK spread over 2,000 installations - do they now qualify for the 36.5p? Well apparantly yes.

Rightly or wrongly, the FIT is designed to kick start the renewable energy in this country. It is designed to pay back over a very long time the investment customers have made (which for me was roughly £5500 for a 1.44kwp system after grants).

The 36.5p (which isn't finalised yet) has been calculated knowing that Joe Public won't get panels at bulk cost and they will have to pay for the installation etc. Therefore the FIT for a shade greener is worth far more than the FIT for Joe Public

If npower, eon, BG et al all did this, people would be rightly up in arms.


Questions that I would like answering please from ASG:

1. Would you consider a large solar farm?
2. Would you make a profit if you got the reduced rate (e.g. 9p) for generating (i.e. the same as eon & co for the big wind farms)
3. If 1 or 2 are no's, do you consider your business model to be a bit of a fiddle?
4. Will you be using British made PV panels (I did look on the website, I couldn't see the makers, though I may have missed it)

By the way, I have made up the 9p rate, as I don't know the real figure - its just used as an example.

Thanks

SarahLucyD

Mcfi - I understood that the reduced rate for larger scale generators is actually 28p, perhaps Cardew can clear this up - at that rate yes we would still make a profit. We certainly wouldn't at 9p. No we couldn't consider a large solar farm as we don't own anywhere big enough, we would have to purchase some land and from what I understand it would also require planning permission. And anyway what on earth is wrong with providing people with FREE electricity? Please explain why that is unjust? Further, why would our business model be a 'fiddle' if our answers to your questions 1&2 were no? Once again that is implying a scam and that is simply not fair - just who are you accusing us of fiddling? I said before that we have been open in consultaions with AMiller and the guy you emailed MCornell - we told them exactly what we intended to do because we wanted to check if it was possible before continuing with this business - we only started in earnest when we had been given the 'green light' so to speak. And no they are not British made PV panels. When we started looking into PV we couldn't find an actual british manufacturer - even those that came up on google when further investigated turned out to be merely installers and suppliers of panels so it was misleading that they were listed as manufacturers. We could only find British sellers of PV and then found out that they were importing them, so we went direct to the manufacturers and whilst we are in continued negotiations we haven't decided on one specific manufacturer yet.

I can't help but feel that you are trying your hardest to discredit us in whatever way that you can - fine, keep going. Perhaps you should let me know what industry YOU are in. Perhaps that would shed some light on your mission.

By the way - I have it on good authority (which unfortunately I cannot disclose because I didn't get the information officially) that some big power company IS planning to do exactly the same down south - so lets wait and see if your claim that if npower etc did this people would be up in arms is accurate

furndire

I have just spoken to Sarah on the phone number on their site - to me this seems an extremely good idea - and I have applied, as I hopefully fit all their criteria.
I have always wanted solar panels (the sort that generates electricity back to the grid) but simply can't afford them - even when we built this house.

Anything that is going save me money has to be worth while -and if its saving the planet even better.
Any business has to make a profit - and good luck to them, especially in this day and age.
I am now keeping my fingers crossed, as they have been swamped with applications.

and no, I have nothing whatsoever to do with the company - just pleased I spotted this post - and hopefully this is the occasional free lunch.

incus432

Mcfi5dhc wrote: »

Questions that I would like answering please from ASG:

1. Would you consider a large solar farm?
2. Would you make a profit if you got the reduced rate (e.g. 9p) for generating (i.e. the same as eon & co for the big wind farms)
3. If 1 or 2 are no's, do you consider your business model to be a bit of a fiddle?
4. Will you be using British made PV panels (I did look on the website, I couldn't see the makers, though I may have missed it)

MCfi - What on earth is the relevance of these questions?

Sarah - you are never going to satisfy these guys (and i bet they are guys). I don't think you ought to waste any more of your time here. Those of us with open minds have seen the arguments now and make up our own minds and decide who are the axe grinders. I wish you good luck with your venture

One last question - would you do this for public buildings such as schools?