Free solar panel discussion

mark333333

In regards to the main point of this forum (is free solar energy a good idea) I think you should think about the pitfalls of taking what looks like something of a freebie.
Firstly the offer of a few hundred pounds of free power will only be of use if you’re able to use the power when it is generated. I suspect that the fact the energy companies are willing to estimate only 50% usage per household and so buy the rest off you at a small rate is an indication that most people will not use half what they generate so the offer immediately looks substantially less attractive.
Secondly new solar technologies are been discovered all the time for example, infrared, concentrating, triple junction cells, cigs, And so on. Some in test stages, some prototypes and others in production. Couple this with more competition, falling production costs and increased efficiencies the future for solar energy is more than bright. In the not too distant future possibly as little as 10 years away solar will be as cheap as fossil fuels and south facing roof space will be much sort after.
Now consider the fact that you have let your roof for what amounts to a few beans and tied that space into a 25 year contact. Personally I feel in the short term a good idea, but in the medium to long term you are not realising the full potential of your property and have in fact devalued the property to any prospective buyer
Also these companies are cherry picking the most suitable properties, the ones that will give them the highest return. If they choose your property you know it is purely on its earning potential. Why not make it pay for you? But don’t sell out for peanuts
thanks, mark

Jon_Tiffany

It is fully expected that cost will go down and efficiencies go up - that is why the Feed In Tariff goes DOWN each year. By 2021 you will only get 18p on the generation tariff, which when you account for inflation is not much compared to the 41.3p you get today.

Jon_Tiffany

If you meter goes backwards you will effectively use 100% of the generated electricity.

Otherwise, I think you could quite easily use around 80% of the generated electricity with a good useage pattern.

mickess

mark333333 wrote: »

In regards to the main point of this forum (is free solar energy a good idea) I think you should think about the pitfalls of taking what looks like something of a freebie.
Firstly the offer of a few hundred pounds of free power will only be of use if you’re able to use the power when it is generated. I suspect that the fact the energy companies are willing to estimate only 50% usage per household and so buy the rest off you at a small rate is an indication that most people will not use half what they generate so the offer immediately looks substantially less attractive.
Secondly new solar technologies are been discovered all the time for example, infrared, concentrating, triple junction cells, cigs, And so on. Some in test stages, some prototypes and others in production. Couple this with more competition, falling production costs and increased efficiencies the future for solar energy is more than bright. In the not too distant future possibly as little as 10 years away solar will be as cheap as fossil fuels and south facing roof space will be much sort after.
Now consider the fact that you have let your roof for what amounts to a few beans and tied that space into a 25 year contact. Personally I feel in the short term a good idea, but in the medium to long term you are not realising the full potential of your property and have in fact devalued the property to any prospective buyer
Also these companies are cherry picking the most suitable properties, the ones that will give them the highest return. If they choose your property you know it is purely on its earning potential. Why not make it pay for you? But don’t sell out for peanuts
thanks, mark

Entirely agree. I think that the carrot of a very few quid off your electric bill now for the renting of your roof space does not make sense to me. It certainly would devalue the property to me if I were buying. That's why I decided to purchase rather than go for the 'freebie'.

I can't imagine any prospective purchaser of mine would object to a lower electricity bill and the prospect of taking over my FIT payments for the balance of the 25 years.

Your second point is a bit different though. If I took much cognicence about newer technology coming in 10 years I would hardly buy anything. I would be continually waiting for the promised improved super duper all singing all dancing product to appear. As undoubtedly improved products are appearing all the time it's just a judgement you make when you buy something. I certainly expect my solar panels to be 'out of date' quite quickly, but I will still be happy with assistance they make to my household budget.

digitaltoast

Jon_Tiffany wrote: »

Your point about the kettle is a little misleading. Lets say that it takes 0.1kWh to boil a kettle. (etc).

But that's not what I was saying, I was talking about the following quote:

Mcfi5dhc wrote: »

I have a 1.44 kwp system. When I had a spinning meter, it was going backwards most of the time in sunny weather despite me boiling kettles or using the washing machine.

As I said before, unless he's either got a tiny little caravan kettle, he's somehow breaking the first law of thermodynamics!

Jon_Tiffany wrote: »

A solar panel will pay for itself financially without FITs, it just takes a very long time. This is the whole reason why the FITs were introduced - to shorten the payback time.

Travelling to work by taxi every day would be a great idea if someone was paying me to do it. But it would be a totally mental idea.
I mean, almost as stupid as paying people more to not go to work than to have a job. Oh, hang on, we already have that. Bad example!

grahamc2003 wrote: »

FITs - engineering madness since they are a high cost subsidy to a very inefficient method of generation and, worse still, a subsidy from the poor to the rich).

Exactly! Which part are people not getting about this all being a massively bad idea?
Monbiot again: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2010/mar/11/solar-power-germany-feed-in-tariff

Against my instincts I have come to oppose solar photovoltaic power (PV) in the UK, and the feed-in tariffs designed to encourage it, because the facts show unequivocally that this is a terrible investment. There are much better ways of spending the rare and precious revenue that the tariffs will extract from our pockets.

Even if we leave aside the argument that it's not green, when the media wake up to this, there's going to be an almighty hoo-haa and I really don't see this "rob the poor to pay the rich" con lasting more than a few years.

I'm gonna bookmark this thread into Calendar and if we and this forum are still around in 5-10 years, I'll happily come back and eat my virtual hat if people really are still making a tidy packet out of transferring money from old people's bank accounts (which is what FiT is).

mickess

Jon_Tiffany wrote: »

It is fully expected that cost will go down and efficiencies go up - that is why the Feed In Tariff goes DOWN each year. By 2021 you will only get 18p on the generation tariff, which when you account for inflation is not much compared to the 41.3p you get today.

Jon the Feed in Tariff is set at the time you have the system installed. Thus a system installed today will get 41.3p inflation proofed for the next 25 years but a system installed up to 31/3/21 2021 will get 18p only for 4 years. But the 18p is todays price and will be increased each year by inflation until 2021. The incentive is therefore to get a system installed before 2012 when the tariff starts reducing.
For full information on the tariffs and inflation proofing and regression over the period see Fitariffs.co.uk this will explain all.

Perry525

Jon_Tiffany wrote: »

Are there really 5 power stations coming offline in the next 3 years? Do you have any more info, I thought it was more like ten years before they come to end of life. Quite a concern really, as my understanding is that if you need power stations quickly then gas powered is the way to go - but we are having to import more gas every year, and those Russians do like like to turn off the supply....

===============================
We have an interesting situation, in the 1980's a vast supply of gas was found called the Cheshire Basin, it stretches from roughly Newcastle to Devon and under the North Sea to Poland. At that time we had no way of getting it out. Over the last few years the Americans found a way.....and that accounts for the world wide glut of gas at the moment and the drop in wholesale prices. We have four firms drilling for gas in Poland, the French and Belgians are drilling and one company is drilling near Blackpool.
We have a situation where BG are bringing super tankers of natural gas to the UK, because they cannot find anyone else world wide to buy at a higher price.
So far, there has been very little said about our vast natural gas reserves, all the comment is about the North Sea high level gas running out. Why?

David_Partington

grahamc2003 wrote: »

Just to clarify, I've now retired and everything I say is on my own behalf.


On another point raised, Thatcher can't be blamed for the almost certain shortfall of capacity to come. Privatised or not, the government dictate virtually every move the energy supply industry can make (a good example are the FITs - engineering madness since they are a high cost subsidy to a very inefficient method of generation and, worse still, a subsidy from the poor to the rich). The (free market, denationalised) suppliers simply have no choice but to implement the system however engineeringly insane it is. When the government decide Nuclear needs building (which they are certain to at some stage, because there is no alternative), then they will simply, one way or the other, force generators to build them, just as they have stopped them being built for the last 40 years, and just as they have forced wind turbines to spring up all over the

Yes but privatisation is a wastful way of running public services such as power generation. If they were re-nationalised it would be easier to see where our money is going, and we were robbed at the time of privatisation by Thatcher.

Gizmosmum_2

mickess wrote: »

I used a local company from Newmarket. (I live in Cambridge). I have a 3.8kwp system installed and am very happy with the price of around £13500 I paid for the installation. I found that the local companies gave better prices and more honest information than the big boys. But of course you don't have the supposed back up that a large company would offer. I figured that even if the inverter failed it was still worth while. Anyway if it did it's more or less a plug in item which I reckon any competent DIYer could replace.

Fab price - our local guys are quoting that for 2kw systems. They've been in the game for a long time and are experienced but I don't think they realise how far out on price they are. I wonder if your guys would travel???

Spies

How much would you generate on a typical, overcast, rainy day?