Free solar panel discussion

Jon_Tiffany

Henbest wrote: »

I was not aware with the feed in tariff the meter went backwards.
So those who are not happy about the amount of electricty they are genarating, in affect consuming more than they produce from the solar panels?
Surely it must make financhial sence for all of these reading and contributing to this Forum who are complaining about returns from investments and cash in the bank less inflation and tax paid (as Martin keeps talking about on the Jerimy Vine show) and while they lose money left in bank and building society accounts, then complain about greedy Utility suppliers like British gas and again told by Martin to switch suppliers.
Sorry rabbiting on
Back to my reasoning
If both money in the bank is rubbish and everybody excepts that gas and electricty prices will rise (ontop of the Utility charges for the FIT) lets at water and sewage as well, then the first thing a home owner should be doing is to dispose of every appliance that is not AA rated, fit a device that turns off stand by appliances and exchange every light bulb with the very expensive LED lamps now coming to market that use less than 3 watts compared to say a 50 watt Halogen.
Doing that would cost ??? £2,000, but then you have an electricty cost being a closure match to the solar array and may even cost less now the homes consuption has been cut.

Not quite - only some meters will go backwards. And for some it will only be the disk that spins backwards, not the counters/dials. I have yet to actualy hear of anyone whose meter goes backwards (but then they may not want to adverise the fact).

If you have a new smart meter fitted it will measure the exact import and export. Its just that at the moment its cheaper for the electricity co to assume that 50% is exported than to send someone round to change your meter. Plus there is the planned roll out of smart meters on the cards anyway.

Henbest

grahamc2003 wrote: »

Sorry to be the bearer of possibly bad news, but I don't think you qualify for the FIT, since you already have a system installed (could someone else confirm that is correct please?)

In any case, to get the FIT, you have to have someone working for an approved company to install the system - whether they would or are allowed to install the system as you wish (which makes perfect sense btw) I don't know.

Graham, sorry you have missed my point.
On moving to a new house with plenty of south facing roof (Will their be a premium paid for homes with a south facing roof?) I will look to purchase and have installed through a MCS approved company a 4,000 watt system all installed through a grid tied inverter and receiving the tariff.
To have a gurantee of electricty during possible power cuts, as has been often spolen about from 2013, I plan to install a large battery bank haveing been use to an off grid system for years, so I can keep my solar central heating and gas boiler going in the winter by keeping my batteries charged up during the day using an Inverter charger pluged into the ring main to use as much of the genarated PV power.
By using all LED lamps, I could easly run all my lighting from the battery bank with plenty spare to back up my heating system so as not to freeze becouse my 50 watt pump cannot work.
Heat pumps are not an option as they require total mains electricty

quoia

digitaltoast wrote: »

The Guardian article is getting quite interesting comments already:

Since the tariff started on 1 April, 12.12 megawatt peak (MWp) of solar panels have been installed at 4,822 homes, up from 3.8MWp in 2007, 4.42 MWp in 2008 and 5 MWp in 2009.

12,000 KWp / 4,822 homes = roughly 2.5KWp per household

Tariff is 43.1p, compared to normal electricity at 8.39p, so at peak every panel is costing the taxpayer / bill paying public through subsidy or increased bills:

(43.1-8.39) x 2.5 = 87p per HOUR.

Or in total: £0.87 x 4822 = £4,195 per HOUR.

Let's hope we don't have too many sunny days.

Sadly digitaltoast, whichever way you are looking at it as far as I can see, you are shooting yourself in the foot with this quote one way or the other.

The maths "are correct" per se but from your previous posting regards the 2 year study of a 6.47kwp system - you only get on average 2.15kWh of generation per kW of panel PER DAY.

So whilst the £4,195 per HOUR figure is not exactly wrong, assuming that it is noon and there is not a single cloud casting shadow on a single panel anywhere across the 4,822 homes, the TRUE calculation (based on your figures) is only £4,195 * 2.15 = £9019 PER DAY

which equates to just £375.80 per hour of each day

Perry525

quoia wrote: »

Sadly digitaltoast, whichever way you are looking at it as far as I can see, you are shooting yourself in the foot with this quote one way or the other.

The maths "are correct" per se but from your previous posting regards the 2 year study of a 6.47kwp system - you only get on average 2.15kWh of generation per kW of panel PER DAY.

So whilst the £4,195 per HOUR figure is not exactly wrong, assuming that it is noon and there is not a single cloud casting shadow on a single panel anywhere across the 4,822 homes, the TRUE calculation (based on your figures) is only £4,195 * 2.15 = £9019 PER DAY

which equates to just £375.80 per hour of each day

=================================
The problem with all this is, the majority of these systems will not have their panels set at the optimum angle, due to wrong alignment of their roofs to the midday sun and the wrong angle relevent to the horizontal for their location. Add to this the pollution over most of our towns and the figures drop.
I understand that the figures quoted are peak, in optimum conditions, not actual watts delivered after conversion.

digitaltoast

quoia wrote: »

Sadly digitaltoast, whichever way you are looking at it as far as I can see, you are shooting yourself in the foot with this quote one way or the other.

The maths "are correct" per se but from your previous posting regards the 2 year study of a 6.47kwp system - you only get on average 2.15kWh of generation per kW of panel PER DAY.

So whilst the £4,195 per HOUR figure is not exactly wrong, assuming that it is noon and there is not a single cloud casting shadow on a single panel anywhere across the 4,822 homes, the TRUE calculation (based on your figures) is only £4,195 * 2.15 = £9019 PER DAY

which equates to just £375.80 per hour of each day

I didn't write those figures, only copied and pasted, but I take your point - so what you're saying is actually they're not going to generate as much as they say?

Either, they generate what they say and we pay £4,195 per hour, or they generate only a tenth of what is being quoted.

The scheme's been going for 3 months. Let's take your lenient figures and assume that interest is only going to double now it's "free" to have the panels (with one company quoting 100,000 signups already).
The tariff is guaranteed until 2012(?). So there's 21 months left at, let's say, 3214 homes a month. That's 67,508, which is 14 times as much as now. £5261.20 an hour and rising, guaranteed for 25 years.

Ouch.

quoia

beedydad wrote: »

Noticed some of the claims of the companies of numbers that will be installed.

If you calculate they are going to be unable to fulfil their cliams of total numbers of installs in a timely fashion.

The largest claim is by Homesun, an earlier posting states they will complate 100,000 in 3 years.

My maths says this equates to 138 installs a DAY!!!!!

My maths are 33,333 per annum

Using 48 weeks = 694 per week

5 day week = 138

An install to be fully commissioned seems to take 2 days - maybe different people.

How are they getting around to all these properties and how have they all of the MCS qualified personnel probably in the UK to do these?

They seem to need 138 x 2 qualified persons = 276

Ask them how many do they employ now?

How many MCS qualified persons have they on their books.

now compare with the MCS site to establish how many MCS qualified installers are there in the area?

It does not add up.

Now do the same with other 2 companies.

Regards

Taking the other 2 companies first:

ASG started installing several months ago and have ONLY offered 6000 free systems in total - it was 3000 at the outset of the scheme but they recently added another 3000 Free systems. They have not mentioned a timescale to my knowledge for achieving 6000 installations.

ISIS I believe have 18,000 up for grabs - again no date for when this will be completed.

Please correct me if you have information to the contrary.

Regards HOMESUN - from their press release

"HomeSun, the free power company, is looking for 100,000 homes to install solar panels for free over the next 3 years, 2000 of which will be in the next 12 months."

So the vast majority will take place in years 2 & 3, by which time I presume they will have gained significant experience and trained a lot more "mere mortals" into "qualified persons"

98,000 over 2 years - call it 100 weeks = 980 a week - that's 196 a day (5 day week)

Call it 2 days to do a system properly and you need 2 persons.

800 installers required in 12 months time.

Can't see why a company installing £1bn worth of PV solar systems wouldn't employ 1000 installation engineers.

Jon_Tiffany

digitaltoast wrote: »

I didn't write those figures, only copied and pasted, but I take your point - so what you're saying is actually they're not going to generate as much as they say?

Either, they generate what they say and we pay £4,195 per hour, or they generate only a tenth of what is being quoted.

The scheme's been going for 3 months. Let's take your lenient figures and assume that interest is only going to double now it's "free" to have the panels (with one company quoting 100,000 signups already).
The tariff is guaranteed until 2012(?). So there's 21 months left at, let's say, 3214 homes a month. That's 67,508, which is 14 times as much as now. £5261.20 an hour and rising, guaranteed for 25 years.

Ouch.

This quote is taken from the article that you keep referring to:

"The government predicts the cost will be around £8 on every energy bill by 2020"

£8 - and thats in 2020! Not exactly going to push people into poverty is it?

quoia

digitaltoast wrote: »

I didn't write those figures, only copied and pasted, but I take your point - so what you're saying is actually they're not going to generate as much as they say?

Either, they generate what they say and we pay £4,195 per hour, or they generate only a tenth of what is being quoted.

The scheme's been going for 3 months. Let's take your lenient figures and assume that interest is only going to double now it's "free" to have the panels (with one company quoting 100,000 signups already).
The tariff is guaranteed until 2012(?). So there's 21 months left at, let's say, 3214 homes a month. That's 67,508, which is 14 times as much as now. £5261.20 an hour and rising, guaranteed for 25 years.

Ouch.

THESE ARE YOUR FIGURES - not mine.

digitaltoast wrote: »

...........
The trial I quoted and linked to ran for 2 years. 2 years is 730 days...

........................

2 years = 365*2 = 730
installed size: 6.47kW
10202kWh / 730 = 13.9kWh per day
13.9/6.47 = 2.15
2.15*3 (kW system from Isis) = 6.45
....................

You've calculated 2.15 is the average kWh generated per 1kWp of panel per day.

As for the rising rate of take up of the free (or otherwise) PV systems

on your (67,508 systems = £5261.20 an hour) then 128,313 homes would cost £10,000

That's more than all of the ASG + ISIS + HOMESUN systems proposed

£10,000 an hour is a little short of £2.2bn over the 25 year period

this is £88 million a year.

If this entire cost was borne by domestic accounts and nowhere else .....

... just spread over say 20 million households (I'm sure there are more) it would only cost each £4.40 per annum or £1.10 a quarter.

Of course if this was charged to the consumer by a per unit calculation then my old dad (94 years old yesterday) in his 1 bedroom flat might only pay 20p per quarter, and the 5 bedroomed large detached house on the corner might pay £2.

Sounds quite fair to me

Hope my maths hold up and I've not dropped a decimal point.

Cardew

Jon_Tiffany wrote: »

I disagree.

The 'poorer' can benefit from the scheme with the free PV offers.

There is also a loan scheme planned which will open the doors for those who do have a spare £14k to invest.

The 'poorer' however will have to live in a house with a South facing
roof that is not shaded, and not a flat.

Whichever way you look at the scheme, it entails all of us paying a few for a hugely inefficient way of generating electricity.

To make matters worse we are now paying so firms can make a profit from a scheme designed for individual householders.

It would make far more sense, and be far more economical, to have hundreds/thousands of panels mounted on the roof of factories/warehouses/supermarkets rather than a few panels mounted on hundreds/thousands of houses!

Jon_Tiffany

quoia wrote: »

THESE ARE YOUR FIGURES - not mine.



You've calculated 2.15 is the average kWh generated per 1kWp of panel per day.

As for the rising rate of take up of the free (or otherwise) PV systems

on your (67,508 systems = £5261.20 an hour) then 128,313 homes would cost £10,000

That's more than all of the ASG + ISIS + HOMESUN systems proposed

£10,000 an hour is a little short of £2.2bn over the 25 year period

this is £88 million a year.

If this entire cost was borne by domestic accounts and nowhere else .....

... just spread over say 20 million households (I'm sure there are more) it would only cost each £4.40 per annum or £1.10 a quarter.

Of course if this was charged to the consumer by a per unit calculation then my old dad (94 years old yesterday) in his 1 bedroom flat might only pay 20p per quarter, and the 5 bedroomed large detached house on the corner might pay £2.

Sounds quite fair to me

Hope my maths hold up and I've not dropped a decimal point.

quoia, your sums look good to me - the end result is close enough to my result and that predicted by the government that I think we can safely say that its going to add around £5 a year to everyones bills.

DigitalToast - maybe you should take a break from the maths and put a stop to all the misleading posts?

I agree that it seems fair. We will all benefit from the cleaner air, reduced CO2 and of course some people will also benefit from the new jobs it creates.

The Sharp PV factory in Wales in increasing production as a result, great to hear that we still make things in the Uk and that Uk jobs are being supported.