Solar pv price for installation

Gizmosmum_2

growltiger wrote: »

Hi am new to this and idea of PV SOLAR PANELS.
Am accumalting a lot of info but unable to sort wheat from chaff - help please.
Live in N. Yorkshire in L shaped bungalow facing slightly west of south. have a long roof able to take 3.9 kwp (east and / or west). Quotes to date are however very differnt and all differnt panels and inverters - hence my inablity to move forward. 1. 16 X BOSCH 240, sonny boy inverter (no size given) on westerly facing roof space, effect. £13,000. 2. 20 x 200 Caymax, eversolar inverter 4000, for easterly facing roof, quoted reduced output 2532 from 3332 if south facing. effect £11,700. 3. 17 x 235 Canadian, G83 inverter (no size given) - same east facing described as orientation -90 and tilt of 30degrees, effect £11,000.
Have I influenced 'salespeople' by saying 'oh I don't want it on the front of the house - hence 2 quotes for east roof but by time 3rd quote not so fussy! However amy have to go for black rimmed panels. Have been observing sun and shadows and westerly roof are has possibly shadow from next doors bungalow, which I;m assuming won't change in size, whereas easterly roof has enormous tree already some 10 metres from house and growing.
How can I make an informed judgement.

Still waiting on visit and quote from M & S (altho think possibly £14000 with 20 percent off.) would I be wrong to assume M & S will maintain standards (with ref. to other products in shops.) Panels are Noble and inverter Sonnyboy.
Please can anyone help before I give up the will to live! I want to know the 'best' panels and inverter to go for (from those quoted fro or others)- or is that too simplistic.
I'd like a face for confused please.

Noble, Canadian Solar, Caymax all cheap panels, Bosch slightly more expensive but not as good as Schott for performance.

If you want black panels REC or Bisol should come in at about the same price as Bosch.

If you're not bothered about frame colour Suntech are about the best of the Chinese panels available.

Ask for a Fronius inverter with a 20 year warranty - as long as you install before end of October it'll only cost around £200 more and will give you peace of mind. G83 inverter isn't a type it's the MCS criteria it has to pass for them to be able to register you for Fit, ask the installer for the exact make and model.

Most important of all ask for shade analysis from that tree 10m away it will impact on your generation. Most decent installers will suggest East and West installation with an inverter with dual trackers to maximise your generation (and possibly avoid some of the shade from the tree)


I always suggest you go local for installers rather than national. In answer to the M&S question about quality - their panels are cheap as chips, bet their prices aren't :-) If you go local it's in the installers interest to do a decent job and provide decent advice because you'll be knocking on their door if they don't. Each installer should be offering at least 2 options and ask for a PVSOL Summary to compare them - it's more accurate than SAP ratings but the installer isn't allowed to tell you that.

Hope that helps.

keith_r59

Gizmosmum wrote: »

I always suggest you go local for installers rather than national. In answer to the M&S question about quality - their panels are cheap as chips, bet their prices aren't :-) If you go local it's in the installers interest to do a decent job and provide decent advice because you'll be knocking on their door if they don't. Each installer should be offering at least 2 options and ask for a PVSOL Summary to compare them - it's more accurate than SAP ratings but the installer isn't allowed to tell you that.

The only risk with local installers is that they may go out of business once the solar pv boom is over so there won't be a door to knock on if anything goes wrong within the installation guarantee.

The likes of Tescos, M&S and E.on will be around long after these small firms have disappeared.

bjohnson

Yes, but will your contract be with M & S, Tesco or whoever or with the company that they sub-contract to?

zeupater

Gizmosmum wrote: »

.... Bosch slightly more expensive but not as good as Schott for performance.

Hi

Again, this seems to be misleading .... On a mid England S/W facing 35 degree pitch roof setup SunnyDesign suggests .....

Bosch Mono ..... 3244kWh/year
Schott Mono .... 3157kWh/year

.... showing the Bosch panels to be 2.7% more efficient, however, as posted before, this level of predicted difference can easily be absorbed by the manufacturers performance tolerance, so no-one would guarantee that either of the above panels would outperform the other .....

HTH
Z

smcvicar

Is anyone familiar with this company:

First Solar Energy Solutions

Quote that was given was for 8 panels (don't have the details to hand) and was £12,500. They said they had an insurance policy in place in case they went under in the 10 years from the installation, but assuming they were still trading etc, all costs would be covered for 25 years..

Other comments were:

Cost would be recovered within 5 years (First year roughly £2,000 back)
Every 5-7 years the parts that needed replaced (convertor) would be replaced no cost to customer.
Product lasts for around 25 years.

Anyone have any thoughts or advice?

Many Thanks
SM

growltiger

Gizmosmum wrote: »

Noble, Canadian Solar, Caymax all cheap panels, Bosch slightly more expensive but not as good as Schott for performance.

If you want black panels REC or Bisol should come in at about the same price as Bosch.

If you're not bothered about frame colour Suntech are about the best of the Chinese panels available.

Ask for a Fronius inverter with a 20 year warranty - as long as you install before end of October it'll only cost around £200 more and will give you peace of mind. G83 inverter isn't a type it's the MCS criteria it has to pass for them to be able to register you for Fit, ask the installer for the exact make and model.

Most important of all ask for shade analysis from that tree 10m away it will impact on your generation. Most decent installers will suggest East and West installation with an inverter with dual trackers to maximise your generation (and possibly avoid some of the shade from the tree)


I always suggest you go local for installers rather than national. In answer to the M&S question about quality - their panels are cheap as chips, bet their prices aren't :-) If you go local it's in the installers interest to do a decent job and provide decent advice because you'll be knocking on their door if they don't. Each installer should be offering at least 2 options and ask for a PVSOL Summary to compare them - it's more accurate than SAP ratings but the installer isn't allowed to tell you that.

Hope that helps.

:rotfl:many thanks - something to grip onto at last. Taken note of comments of Noble Canadian and Caymax panels and M and S route. Today a neighbour with SP's in place is recommending Sanyo - but on a table I have they are descrbed as hybrid (incidentally the same table is comparing different value panels ie 240 and 190 - would this make sense or any comparison viable?) One installer initially showed me a Schott panel, in the back of his car and then quoted using Bosch panels!?
Another favoured panel in village is Suntech - noted your comments again.
When you said an 'east and west' installation with an inverter with dual trackers' did you mean that - panels on both sides of the roof? no one has suggested that - does that seem like too much work for an installer, presumably having to put up 2 lots of scaffolding.

growltiger

keith_r59 wrote: »

The only risk with local installers is that they may go out of business once the solar pv boom is over so there won't be a door to knock on if anything goes wrong within the installation guarantee.

The likes of Tescos, M&S and E.on will be around long after these small firms have disappeared.

:rotfl:Many thanks for help. Think this is a difficult one - can see both arguments - if I go with my 'gut' feeling -I live in a small ykshire village where originally the builder and solicitor also lived, and the plumber, electrician etc were just a whisker away! Have always tried to use local tradesmen. Perhaps I should take greater note of the time that they have been in business already - might that be a good measure?

keith_r59

bjohnson wrote: »

Yes, but will your contract be with M & S, Tesco or whoever or with the company that they sub-contract to?

In the case of Tescos, your contract is with them but the guarantee is with a combination of REIGA (a guarantee agency), the installer, and the manufacturers of the system installed.

http://www.tescohomeefficiency.com/renewable-installation-terms-conditions/
http://www.reiga.org.uk/index.php/consumers/what-is-reiga/

For other national suppliers I would advise checking their published terms and conditions.

Gizmosmum_2

zeupater wrote: »

Hi

Again, this seems to be misleading .... On a mid England S/W facing 35 degree pitch roof setup SunnyDesign suggests .....

Bosch Mono ..... 3244kWh/year
Schott Mono .... 3157kWh/year

.... showing the Bosch panels to be 2.7% more efficient, however, as posted before, this level of predicted difference can easily be absorbed by the manufacturers performance tolerance, so no-one would guarantee that either of the above panels would outperform the other .....

HTH
Z

Doh - got them the wrong way round :rotfl:don't forget that there's other inverter software too though and any decent installer worth their weight will be providing PVSOL information in addition to the SAP ratings.

Gizmosmum_2

growltiger wrote: »

:rotfl:many thanks - something to grip onto at last. Taken note of comments of Noble Canadian and Caymax panels and M and S route. Today a neighbour with SP's in place is recommending Sanyo - but on a table I have they are descrbed as hybrid (incidentally the same table is comparing different value panels ie 240 and 190 - would this make sense or any comparison viable?) One installer initially showed me a Schott panel, in the back of his car and then quoted using Bosch panels!?
Another favoured panel in village is Suntech - noted your comments again.
When you said an 'east and west' installation with an inverter with dual trackers' did you mean that - panels on both sides of the roof? no one has suggested that - does that seem like too much work for an installer, presumably having to put up 2 lots of scaffolding.

Sanyo are excellent panels but expensive, usually used when you can't get 4kwp of other panels on the roof or when you have nothing else to spend your money on and are happy to wait over the longer period to get greater returns.

East West is just a bit more expensive with the cost of extra scaffolding but is perceived to be a better option than either East or West. If you haven't even been offered this as an option, keep looking for an installer.. IN my experience this is the difference between going local and using a national.