How much for SolarPV?

John_Pierpoint

George_Bray wrote: »

The inverter is another component where it seems easy to pay more than it seems inherently worth. I bought an 80w inverter from Asda recently for £5, down from £15 and designed to be plugged into the cigarette lighter outlet in a car. It takes 12VDC up to 80w 250VAC. It might not be as robust as a £1500 inverter but I'm still suspicious.

Your idea of trying to find an MCS installer to certify a DIY job is a good one, as long as it doesn't threaten his professional status. Perhaps I could also look into what's involved to become a MCS installer myself, even short term? I wonder how many expensive courses you need to attend and what else might be involved. Does anyone know? presumably you'd only need a qualified electrician at the stage of connecting the circuit and new meter(s) up to the grid at the point where electricity comes into your home.

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There is a link on this forum somewhere showing a film of the installation of PV on a house in USA - each panel has its own roof top inverter.

Meanwhile here are some costs for getting your firm MCS approval:

http://www.solar-trade.org.uk/media/Obtaining%20MCS;%20the%20benefits,%20cost,%20implications%20and%20optimmum%20route...%20-%20Griff%20Thomas.pdf

George_Bray

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

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There is a link on this forum somewhere showing a film of the installation of PV on a house in USA - each panel has its own roof top inverter.

That sounds a bit OTT - having multiple inverters, unless each inverter costs only about £10! I now realise that special inverters are required to tie-in to the grid feed, so that generated power is of the correct frequency and specification for the national grid. Nevertheless, you can buy these special inverters for the low hundreds of pounds. A figure of £1500 for an inverter still sounds like a racket.

Costs might amount to about £1000 for a company to achieve MCS accreditation. Perhaps a group of us could form some sort of cooperative, to share the cost, and end up with fully approved installations which qualify for the Government's feed in tariffs. In addition, if we were to buy dozens or hundreds of panels and other components for several houses, we'd get all the parts at trade prices, probably nearer my target figure of £300 per panel (absolute max) rather than retail prices starting at about £450.

ninjaryder

George_Bray wrote: »

The inverter is another component where it seems easy to pay more than it seems inherently worth. I bought an 80w inverter from Asda recently for £5, down from £15 and designed to be plugged into the cigarette lighter outlet in a car. It takes 12VDC up to 80w 250VAC. It might not be as robust as a £1500 inverter but I'm still suspicious.

What the Dickens? A local company wants to charge me £300 for a new UPVC front door but i have seen a lego one in Tescos for 30p which makes me rather suspicious!!

michaelwr

Just had another quote £14,500 for £4kw, based on Phono Solar/SunnyBoy.

Still disappointed people are making £6k fitting £8k worth of kit. I'm in the wrong job or maybe come across too keen.

Regards

michaelwr

Also followed up on Tesco reference earlier, called them and they are currently providing Sharp 220s and SunnyBoy 3300 for the 3.96kw system. Also they are offering double points although when I called they were not clear if 30k points were already doubled or not.

George_Bray

ninjaryder wrote: »

What the Dickens? A local company wants to charge me £300 for a new UPVC front door but i have seen a lego one in Tescos for 30p which makes me rather suspicious!!

Ninjaryder - This is a money saving website. Ridicule and daft comparisons are not helpful.

I now know there's a difference between basic inverters and grid tie inverters, which are more expensive. £1500 is still a rip off, though. Pay it if it makes you feel good.

Bardonman

I'm looking at a couple of quotes for £9,000 for installed 2.52kwp systems using schueko panels and Shueko badged Sunnyboy inverter. I think Schueko is one of the better panels, but don't see them mentioned much. Seems a good quote to me, but has anybody else any ideas on that? Oh yes the price also included supply and fitting of a new consumer unit (switched fuseboard) and a 10 year parts and labour warranty backed by IWA.biz

PurpleJay

We had a quote yesterday for 12 panels 2.2kw which came in after much haggling and bull at £15,500! His first price was £17,500. This was from Anglian. The chap was very pleasant and the first hour of his visit was fine, but then once we got down to the prices, it was a bit full on and in the end we had to stonewall him because he was still arguing and wouldn't take no for an answer. They also try to push a finance deal which allegedly gets you an extra thousand off but the interest rate is about 18.5% and you are tied in for a year after which you can just pay it off. We said from the start we were absolutely not interested in this but he kept on, you know how it is!. Anyone had any experience of Anglian doing solar panels. Their price seemed excessive to us - oh and that price was for yesterday only and at managers discretion if he wanted to still offer it over the weekend and then the price goes up by a few grand on Monday when the sale ends - blahdy blah. Once they start with all that, I loose interest very quickly!

Have just emailed Ecofirst who NPower is connected to so that they can come round. I would expect them to be quite a bit cheaper based on the info they have already sent (not an actual quote though).

Anyone got any recent quotes they can share? Anyone actually gone ahead and what was your experience?

We are interested in the investment of buying the panels as well as saving on bills so aren't bothered about the free schemes at the moment.

Thanks.

Doc_N

PurpleJay wrote: »

We had a quote yesterday for 12 panels 2.2kw which came in after much haggling and bull at £15,500! His first price was £17,500. This was from Anglian. The chap was very pleasant and the first hour of his visit was fine, but then once we got down to the prices, it was a bit full on and in the end we had to stonewall him because he was still arguing and wouldn't take no for an answer. They also try to push a finance deal which allegedly gets you an extra thousand off but the interest rate is about 18.5% and you are tied in for a year after which you can just pay it off. We said from the start we were absolutely not interested in this but he kept on, you know how it is!. Anyone had any experience of Anglian doing solar panels. Their price seemed excessive to us - oh and that price was for yesterday only and at managers discretion if he wanted to still offer it over the weekend and then the price goes up by a few grand on Monday when the sale ends - blahdy blah. Once they start with all that, I loose interest very quickly!

Have just emailed Ecofirst who NPower is connected to so that they can come round. I would expect them to be quite a bit cheaper based on the info they have already sent (not an actual quote though).

Anyone got any recent quotes they can share? Anyone actually gone ahead and what was your experience?

We are interested in the investment of buying the panels as well as saving on bills so aren't bothered about the free schemes at the moment.

Thanks.

See post 5 above for Tesco figures. Much lower price, and some good reports around.

Unless yours is a particularly difficult installation, Anglian look to be grossly overcharging.

mbeast

http://www.comparemysolar.co.uk/home/

love playing around with the different setting on this site

if only i could afford to cover the whole back garden :P