Free solar panel discussion

Equaliser123

Hetty17 wrote: »

ISo you get the full 25 years of FITs, and the index-linking means that you don't lose out by delaying the registration.

That having been said: the panels' efficiency may be less after 25 years; or the weather then might be worse than now.

Or you may no longer be in the same property. Or FITs may have been pulled by then.

thedj

I have just had my own solar panels installed i.e. I have paid for them myself. They cost just over £10,000 for 9 panels. My roof wasn't big enough for more than 5 panels so I couldn't get that many companies interested as they work usually to installing a minimum of 6 (that's even if you are paying for them yourselves - never mind them being fitted free).
It didn't seem worth the effort only putting 5 panels on as a lot of the cost is the tradesman time scaffolding etc so it's harder to get your money back.

I therefore needed to get a local installer who could design a bespoke system. Luckily for me someone lived close by (got his name off the official installers list supplied by energy companies). If you don't use a registered fitter then you won't get the feed in tariff payments. To cut a long story short I has some fitted to my wall which can be done in certain cases as long as wall is south facing, they don't get any shade on them and they can be angles to 30 degrees. They may be slightly less efficient than roof but they still add to the whole system and if you're happy with the return then it's your choice?

Basically I would say you should fit the maximum number of panels you can as once the men are there and scaffolding up the actual cost of the panels isn't the big factor it's how much you can generate?

Anyway my 'forecast' return based on a computer based programme shows that after 25 years my system will have generated £37,380 in feed in tariff payments and saved electricity charges.:j That's not a bad return? Calculate how much you would get back from £10,000 in an ISA for that period and it looks even better?

I live in Gtr Manchester so not the sunniest place in the country. This week we have had some good sunshine and my system is generating about 11 -12 kwh hours of energy in total on each day. If this figure means noting to you then convert it to appliance power.

A big power drainer is a kettle at about 2.5 kW so you could boil a kettle continuously for most of the day at no cost. (I can tell you are not impressed so far!). My laptop runs at 19.5 volts. At 8.00am on a sunny morning the system generates 454 volts.

This actually is fairly irrelevant overall as whilst its great to have some free electricity during the day it doesn't save that much? The point in these systems is the feed in tariff scheme which means the financial return is the one that I've given whether you've used the electricity or not?

I have a digital display with the system so I can see what the system is doing at any time of the day. After one week (a sunny week) I am averaging £4-5 per day in feed-in-tariff payments. If I downgrade this to account for less sunny week to an average of say £20 return per week then that is £1400 average yearly return. That's not bad compared to bunging £10,000 in an ISA and hoping for the best?

Overall I think I have made a good financial investment plus I am doing a little bit towards the environement. So far (64 hours of solar generation) I have saved 24kg of CO2 emissions. :T

Equaliser123

thedj wrote: »

I have just had my own solar panels installed i.e. I have paid for them myself. They cost just over £10,000 for 9 panels. My roof wasn't big enough for more than 5 panels so I couldn't get that many companies interested as they work usually to installing a minimum of 6 (that's even if you are paying for them yourselves - never mind them being fitted free).
It didn't seem worth the effort only putting 5 panels on as a lot of the cost is the tradesman time scaffolding etc so it's harder to get your money back.

I therefore needed to get a local installer who could design a bespoke system. Luckily for me someone lived close by (got his name off the official installers list supplied by energy companies). If you don't use a registered fitter then you won't get the feed in tariff payments. To cut a long story short I has some fitted to my wall which can be done in certain cases as long as wall is south facing, they don't get any shade on them and they can be angles to 30 degrees. They may be slightly less efficient than roof but they still add to the whole system and if you're happy with the return then it's your choice?

Basically I would say you should fit the maximum number of panels you can as once the men are there and scaffolding up the actual cost of the panels isn't the big factor it's how much you can generate?

Anyway my 'forecast' return based on a computer based programme shows that after 25 years my system will have generated £37,380 in feed in tariff payments and saved electricity charges.:j That's not a bad return? Calculate how much you would get back from £10,000 in an ISA for that period and it looks even better?

I live in Gtr Manchester so not the sunniest place in the country. This week we have had some good sunshine and my system is generating about 11 -12 kwh hours of energy in total on each day. If this figure means noting to you then convert it to appliance power.

A big power drainer is a kettle at about 2.5 kW so you could boil a kettle continuously for most of the day at no cost. (I can tell you are not impressed so far!). My laptop runs at 19.5 volts. At 8.00am on a sunny morning the system generates 454 volts.

This actually is fairly irrelevant overall as whilst its great to have some free electricity during the day it doesn't save that much? The point in these systems is the feed in tariff scheme which means the financial return is the one that I've given whether you've used the electricity or not?

I have a digital display with the system so I can see what the system is doing at any time of the day. After one week (a sunny week) I am averaging £4-5 per day in feed-in-tariff payments. If I downgrade this to account for less sunny week to an average of say £20 return per week then that is £1400 average yearly return. That's not bad compared to bunging £10,000 in an ISA and hoping for the best?

Overall I think I have made a good financial investment plus I am doing a little bit towards the environement. So far (64 hours of solar generation) I have saved 24kg of CO2 emissions. :T

What size is your system? Over £10k for 9 panels sounds very expensive.

Cardew

thedj wrote: »

My laptop runs at 19.5 volts. At 8.00am on a sunny morning the system generates 454 volts.

Bl00dy hell! That is serious voltage!

So presumably you could run 23 laptops even at 8am(454 divided by 19.5);)

Gizmosmum_2

Equaliser123 wrote: »

What size is your system? Over £10k for 9 panels sounds very expensive.

Not really, if it's 2.2kwp, got a remote sensor and had panels fitted on gable as well as roof. The reomtes sensors cost a fortune.

Equaliser123

Gizmosmum wrote: »

Not really, if it's 2.2kwp, got a remote sensor and had panels fitted on gable as well as roof. The reomtes sensors cost a fortune.

Maybe. Just seems a little over-engineered...

Equaliser123

Cardew wrote: »

Bl00dy hell! That is serious voltage!

So presumably you could run 23 laptops even at 8am(454 divided by 19.5);)

Voltage doesn't matter does it? Surely the real reference should be to the power (wattage).

grahamc2003

Cardew wrote: »

Bl00dy hell! That is serious voltage!

So presumably you could run 23 laptops even at 8am(454 divided by 19.5)

To be safe, he should only run 22 laptops to leave enough voltage to boil his kettle (for free) most of the day.

zeupater

grahamc2003 wrote: »

To be safe, he should only run 22 laptops to leave enough voltage to boil his kettle (for free) most of the day.

Following the same line of thought ..... if you had different make/lower voltage laptops then you could have more, then again there's the 12V kettles, at 454V you could run almost 40 of them all day

Sorry theedj, I think that everyone's just pointing out that mentioning the panel voltage isn't the best way of measuring performance. You can get high voltage panels which produce low amps, or lower voltage/higher ampage units, but what's important is the result of multiplying the two, ie the Watts.

Could you post any details of your system ?. I only ask because a £1400 return on a 9 panel £10k system looks to be a little high. Your MCS installer should have provided an estimate of the annual power generation with the quotation which can be used to calculate the likely savings.

HTH
Z

Nang

thedj wrote: »

Anyway my 'forecast' return based on a computer based programme shows that after 25 years my system will have generated £37,380 in feed in tariff payments and saved electricity charges.

Hi thedj

Read your post with some interest. I would be interested to know the details of the computer programme you used to work out this figure, could you share the url please, if available?

I would suggest for a 2kWp Array (guessed from 9 panels) in the North the payments for Fits per year is likley to be around the £700 mark (very roughly based on the data I have collected so far). For electricity savings the sum that seems to have been agreed in this thread is between £100 - £200 per year.

Over 25 years this falls somewhat short of your figure, especially if you add the cost of 1 to 2 invertors likely to be consumed over the 25 year period.