The Great 'Get Paid To Generate Energy' Hunt

albyota

From the RHI Consultation Document...(if it goes ahead)


"The useful energy requirement for hot water does not depend on the property size and
is assumed constant across all dwelling types at 3,742 kWh/year, corresponding to an

occupancy rate of 2.9. Again this is the assumption put forward by BRE for CERT."

going on those figures, even if your solar panels/tubes yield 50%..........that is £168/year

one might conclude that solar thermal panels would provide 60% of the hot water requirement (2,200 kWh),......

In this case the RHI entitlement would be:

2,200 kWh x 18p = about £400 per year for 20 years"

To heat 200 Litres of hot water costs around 60p. 365 x 60p=£219

We are half way through this year and have had 15-20 days of useful solar (20 x 60p=£12)

so at very best a payment/saving of £400+£168=£568

from my experience over three years it is closer to £60/year saving

but only a system fitted by an MCS acredited installer would qualify for RHI

So nothing for me then......

Sylvan

Cardew wrote: »

given most small(£4,000) systems deliver sufficient hot water in the summer months for most domestic households, what is the point of paying many thousands of pounds extra for a solar thermal system that produces more hot water than a domestic household can use; it is just wasted.

Cardew, don't you read? The guy has just told you he's planning to use a woodburner with back boiler for space heating and hot water heating through the winter.

Perhaps you live in an inner city and have never encountered such an esoteric appliance? We used to find that just keeping ours ticking over most of the time it produced "more hot water than a domestic household can use" all winter (and, indeed, throughout autumn and spring - lighting it once every 3 or 4 days).

Why on earth would anyone want a gas boiler? They cost twice as much to run, waste vast amounts of heat through the vent and give you hardly any hot water, in comparison.

We've turned our gas boiler off for the summer, anyway, because it's too expensive.

g-a-g's system sounds like the perfect combination.

Cardew

Sylvan wrote: »

Cardew, don't you read? The guy has just told you he's planning to use a woodburner with back boiler for space heating and hot water heating through the winter.

Perhaps you live in an inner city and have never encountered such an esoteric appliance? We used to find that just keeping ours ticking over most of the time it produced "more hot water than a domestic household can use" all winter (and, indeed, throughout autumn and spring - lighting it once every 3 or 4 days).

Why on earth would anyone want a gas boiler? They cost twice as much to run, waste vast amounts of heat through the vent and give you hardly any hot water, in comparison.

We've turned our gas boiler off for the summer, anyway, because it's too expensive.

g-a-g's system sounds like the perfect combination.

Not only do I read, but I understand what is written!!

Firstly the discussion is for the benefit of anyone considering solar thermal and is centred on the merits of a standard solar thermal system as discussed in WHICH and the Energy Saving Trust(EST) i.e. a £4000 system saving £55 per annum. If a bigger system is desirable then that should be costed together with the savings.

WHICH and the EST have not been discussing the merits of his DIY solar bespoke system integrated with a wood burner.

Indeed Green as Grass has been giving examples of other solar systems, and not his own, in support of his argument.

So taking the point, with which you appear to have an issue, there is little merit if comparing the cost of servicing a combi with the cost of ‘servicing’ a solar thermal system, when the vast majority of people with solar will have a CH boiler and will have the costs of servicing both.

However, if you wish, let us turn to his system.

Cardew, don't you read? The guy has just told you he's planning to use a woodburner with back boiler for space heating and hot water heating through the winter.

Why on earth would anyone want a gas boiler? They cost twice as much to run, waste vast amounts of heat through the vent and give you hardly any hot water, in comparison.

On the subject of not reading, perhaps you failed to notice that his nearly completed system does integrate his gas combi-boiler?

He will need this boiler on the days particularly in Spring/Autumn when the solar will not satisfy his hot water demand and he won’t necessarily want to light his log burner.

You also haven’t appeared to grasp the fact that the vast majority of solar hot water is produced during the summer when no heating is required. I have given the figures that show in the winter the output is very small – in the four months Nov to Feb incl the average output is 10% to 15% of the annual output (which G as G accepts) and won’t supply enough hot water for a household let alone contribute anything to his heating.

In fact G as G stated:

I realise that actual hot water heating costs are currently a small proportion of our household bills

So certainly in June, July, August, when the majority of his solar hot water output is produced, for his above average sized system there will be more hot water than he will use and it is wasted. As stated above people with a system half his size have sufficient hot water in summer.

So he has a system that will contribute nothing toward space heating and produce more hot water than is needed in Summer.

Even in the unlikely event he could use all the forecast output of his system it is still only 2,200kWh.

P.S.

Regarding your facetious comments about wood burners, I read somewhere that about 2% of properties in UK have a wood burner and many have posted on here that wood is not a cheap alternative.

I indeed have the facility to provide space heating and hot water with wood in my rural part of UK and can vouch that gas heating is considerably cheaper for myself. Mind you heating water with solar would be many times more expensive.;)

Cardew

This story in the Daily Telegraph is interesting.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/property/greenproperty/7760365/Green-property-solar-thermal-systems.html

Shortly after the 12-month guarantee period expired, a thermocouple developed a fault, pumping cold water into the shower, then last July, Smart Energy went into administration and at about the same time some of the water pipes in the roof started to leak. A firm recommended by the administrator sent out an engineer who serviced the system and fixed the leak, for which they charged £250.
“The savings from the panels amount to 8kW per day for seven months a year, which makes £84 per year. After three years that means we have saved £252 off our heating bills,” Tony says. “If you subtract the service charge that means we have saved £2 on our £7,125 investment. Not great, is it?”

This article(taken from the WHICH report) does state that the installation was of a poor standard. However the thermocouple failing after over a year cannot be put down to the installation - just a faulty component.

Even without the large repair bill, £84 pa savings for a large system again demonstrates the pathetic savings when measured against the lost interest on a sizeable investment.

zeupater

Hi

Just a benchmark for UK solar pv prices v more mature markets in Europe (that's if anyone is interested in what future UK installations are likely to cost )......

http://www.solarserver.de/wissen/preisindex-e.html

Makes very interesting reading doesn't it ...... :cool:

Z

zantos

When I "buy" electricity from my supplier I have to pay 5% VAT on their charges. Has anybody any ideas on the option of registering for VAT (would probably involve becoming a company) and what effect this would/could have on the returns from a system and also any benefits relating to purchasing additional items for "the company"?
For interest, so far this quarter I have received a bill for £193.08 from my supplier and estimate that they "owe" me £283.82 for electricity generated and £10.29 for electricity exported to them (50% of that produced). This is with a 2500KWh system of 12 panels pointing slightly East of South. This gives me an "income" of £100 for a reasonably bright quarter.

Dave_Fowler

zantos wrote: »

When I "buy" electricity from my supplier I have to pay 5% VAT on their charges. Has anybody any ideas on the option of registering for VAT (would probably involve becoming a company) and what effect this would/could have on the returns from a system and also any benefits relating to purchasing additional items for "the company"?
For interest, so far this quarter I have received a bill for £193.08 from my supplier and estimate that they "owe" me £283.82 for electricity generated and £10.29 for electricity exported to them (50% of that produced). This is with a 2500KWh system of 12 panels pointing slightly East of South. This gives me an "income" of £100 for a reasonably bright quarter.

You will have also saved around £30 off your electricity bill for the energy you have used. I'd be interested to know what panels you have got installed. Most panels are around 180Wp to 200Wp per panel, making a 12 panel system somewhere between 2.1kWp and 2.4kWp

As far as VAT is concerned, I'm not sure of the exact situation. When I was registered as a self-employed engineer, I was able to claim back the VAT on things purchased for the business but had to charge and pay back the VAT on anything I supplied. There is probably a minimum level of sales at which you can register for VAT. If you were to become registered you would not be able to gain by charging VAT on your sales as you would have to give it all back to the government, VAT on anything you purchase for the business could be claimed back - so there's a possible gain here. BUT your sales of power would almost certainly be counted as income to the company and therefore be taxed. - I don't think you can ever beat the system.

zantos

Hi Dave
Hopefully I have saved over the £30 - my wife now does all her washing and drying "when the sunshines" and checking the electric meter manages to do most of it without the meter changing!
The panels I have are Sanyo BHIP-215NKHE5 with a quoted installed capacity of 2.58Kwp. I have been having problems with theInverter being unable to cope (SunnyBoy) and am getting a replacement Diehl Ako fitted. This quarter I have generated 686.3Kw but for some of that time I have only been running 10 panels to allow the inverter to operate (otherwise when the sun shone brightly it just didn't synch).

Dave_Fowler

zantos wrote: »

Hi Dave
Hopefully I have saved over the £30 - my wife now does all her washing and drying "when the sunshines" and checking the electric meter manages to do most of it without the meter changing!
The panels I have are Sanyo BHIP-215NKHE5 with a quoted installed capacity of 2.58Kwp. I have been having problems with theInverter being unable to cope (SunnyBoy) and am getting a replacement Diehl Ako fitted. This quarter I have generated 686.3Kw but for some of that time I have only been running 10 panels to allow the inverter to operate (otherwise when the sun shone brightly it just didn't synch).

Thank you for the update on the panels. I'll have a look at the spec of these. I guess the 215 part of the number means they are 215kWp and gives the 2.58kWp you quote.

It's an interesting point you raise about matching the inverter to the power output from the panels. It appears the SunnyBoy inverter does not simply limit its output to its designed limit but actually stops if the panels try to produce more. Is the new inverter rated at a higher output level, or is it designed to cope by rejecting the extra power generated?

My calculation on what you saved on the electricity you used was simply based on the cost of electricity being roughly 3 times the amount you were paid for the export units. Obviously if you used more than 50% of the generated power then your savings will be greater - one good point of not having a meter on the export side, the supply companies assume 50% usage.

John_Pierpoint

zantos wrote: »

When I "buy" electricity from my supplier I have to pay 5% VAT on their charges. Has anybody any ideas on the option of registering for VAT (would probably involve becoming a company) and what effect this would/could have on the returns from a system and also any benefits relating to purchasing additional items for "the company"?
For interest, so far this quarter I have received a bill for £193.08 from my supplier and estimate that they "owe" me £283.82 for electricity generated and £10.29 for electricity exported to them (50% of that produced). This is with a 2500KWh system of 12 panels pointing slightly East of South. This gives me an "income" of £100 for a reasonably bright quarter.

Slope of the roof? 30 degrees up from horizontal?

VAT makes sense if you are zero rated like a farmer or an exporter to a non VAT destination. (Channel Islands?)

I will ask this again:

Has anyone got a Photo PV system installed on a property with a high starting current application - such as a compressor - large freezer - or as is my ambition a ground source heat pump?

My neighbours installed a compressor which, I discovered the hard way, had the ability to flip my earth circuit leakage switch, until I got their earth return upgraded (that is the black "neutral" wire in old money).

I am concerned that a high starting current or an inverter motor might "upset" the inverter connected to the PV panels.

As you can see I'm not an electrical scientist, but I do have a "bullsh*t baffles brains" antenna.