solar pv feed in tariffs help

malch

Cardew wrote: »

From what I understand from kittie's post, she lives in the South West and her roof has the ideal orientation.

To have an annual income of £700 that means a generated total of around 1,635kWh which for a 2.3kWp system is extremely low - approx 711kWh per kWp.

That is what you would expect if located in Northern Scotland; in the SW I would have expected well above 2,000kWh and an income of around £1,000

To be honest i was looking at about £1000 this annum plus whatever savings on using produced energy

[Deleted User]

malch wrote: »

Kittie
I am a bit surprised about your estimate. I have 2.2Kwp system 15 degrees to the west of south no shade, and in my first quarter ( from 16th march - 16 June )I have accumulated a FITs payment of £406 I was seriously hoping to do more than £300 in the next 9 months even taking into account the winter months

It is actually going to be a bit more. From 12 th july 2010 to 11march I received £408 for 798 units generated, I have now generated 1899 with 18 days to go for a full year, so the total to date will be approx £820 so the final amount may well be £850 on 12 july 2011

maybe we don`t have the perfect orientation as the Pvs are not set on the roof but on angled frames on the house roof, as the roof also accomodates rainwater harvesting to a tank on the north side. At least the solar panels are A1 as we get a very good supply of free hot water but they are set on a verandah roof with a tilt to the south.

86coz

As celerity said - I have a view on the above;)

The difference was that throughout that investment period you still had the capital sum of £7.5k 'in the bank'. In fact to make 20% over 5 years is not bad!

The difference with a PV system is that whatever you 'invest' sits on the roof, and in your loft, and you don't have access to that capital.

I most certainly am not saying that it is a poor investment and in the long term it will probably be an excellent investment.

Supposing that an investment scheme was introduced where you gave a firm £10k with absolutely no access to that £10k ever. Then each year they gave you back some of that money - say £800 to £1,000 and after 10 -12 years you would have got back all the £10k (and the interest it would have gained) you gave them in the first place and then started to make a profit.

I wonder how many takers there would be for such a scheme?

when you put it like that not many i rekon
the not having access bit for me is a worry...as am tighter than a fish`s hoop, so i have decided to save all the fits in a cash isa untill i have the capital back.

it`s a mine feild this is my head is smashed with all the sales patter,one guy estimated that i would have a return of £59k now being a realist if that happens i will gladly so my backside in fenwicks window!:rotfl:

now had 4 quotes with 1 more in the pipeline (a recommend from a mate who has used them) i have now decided to go for a 3.5kw sysyem as its not that much more and have the roof space.
using the solar study i reckon on around £1000 ish a year payback plus the free elecy as a bonus.

one sales bloke said that its better to go for a better inverter as that is the main part in converting the ac to dc he knocked the sunny boy saying it switched on at 200w and the power one switched on at 120w but what does this mean in real life ie: in minutes how quicker a swich on is as he did not know:o

finding a company that knows there a!!! from there elbow is hard to find as from what i have heard this week from employed sales men is they can sell but when it come down to the real facts and how it is in the real world with the equipment i find they know not much more than me,maybe i have just been unlucky in my selection

anyway the fit payments info in the solar case study i found very helpfull and intresting as a real life guide...thanks celerity excellent link

GordonGowk

I'm in Scotland and have a 4kW PV system - it's made 1372 kWh in 2.5 months so far, so I'm very happy. My maths shows a payback time of 7-10 years - I suspect the 7 years taking into account index linking and anticipated soaring electricity prices as I use most of my output.

My installer is based in Newcastle - having researched about 10 companies, these came out top and I cannot find any fault or complaint about them. The service is the best I've ever encountered and price was keen too - that's why I have a good payback time expected. The installer provides detailed information on expected output, FIT payments, etc.

I haven't yet got a payment, as it's early days and EDF have a backlog, but I should have a very happy Christmas this year which would be more of a benefit than receiving dribs and drabs!

zeupater

86coz wrote: »

.... one sales bloke said that its better to go for a better inverter as that is the main part in converting the ac to dc he knocked the sunny boy saying it switched on at 200w and the power one switched on at 120w but what does this mean in real life ie: in minutes how quicker a swich on is as he did not know:o ....

Hi

I've seen this sales approach for the Aurora inverters before ...

Tech data

SMA : http://www.sma.de/en/products/solar-inverters/sunny-boy/sunny-boy-3000tl-4000tl-5000tl.html ..... (see tech data)
Power-one : http://www.power-one.com/sites/power- one.com/files/pvi-3.0-3.6-4.2-outd_ds.pdf .... (see characteristics)

To me it looks like the salesman really needs to learn to read ..... the only inverters in the links above which have a 200V (note V, not W) startup as delivered are the Auroras ......

HTH
Z

Cardew

GordonGowk wrote: »

I'm in Scotland and have a 4kW PV system - it's made 1372 kWh in 2.5 months so far, so I'm very happy. My maths shows a payback time of 7-10 years - I suspect the 7 years taking into account index linking and anticipated soaring electricity prices as I use most of my output.

!

Would you care to let us know the assumptions you made for a 7 to 10 year payback please.

How do you know you use all your output?

malch

[QUOTE=

one sales bloke said that its better to go for a better inverter as that is the main part in converting the ac to dc he knocked the sunny boy saying it switched on at 200w and the power one switched on at 120w but what does this mean in real life ie: in minutes how quicker a swich on is as he did not know:o

[/QUOTE]

i suspect this quote was from PV Solar UK they said to me that thePower One inverter kicks in at 125 volts but it DOSEN'T it kicks in at 200 same as the others i noticed after they had installed so had to get them back to adjust it. cost me £65 in lost FITs as i had to wait for 6 weeks for paper work to enable me to register system for FITs. can't say i'm not suprise they are still telling this yarn.

GordonGowk

Cardew wrote: »

Would you care to let us know the assumptions you made for a 7 to 10 year payback please.

How do you know you use all your output?

Thankyou for the challenge, Cardew, and please excuse the wine speaking - it is after all Saturday night/Sunday morning.

I use MOST of my output because I have a semi commercial building - there is the last remaining village shop within my house and all on one meter. I usually use 21000kWh pa despite taking many energy efficiency measures. I average about 45kWh per day during the winter, but in the summer I average 55-65kWh per day. This is mostly due to the 12 refridgerated units that I need for the house & shop. In the summer, they work harder, the sun heats up the shop despite a canopy, and customers want a lot of ice creams & juice, so open the fridge & freezer doors a lot. One summer the shop reached 45C which spoiled a lot of stock, I couldn't work in the heat and the freezer packed in, so now I run air-con occasionally in the summer. We have also started to do hot food. I detest the energy usage but don't know how to avoid it whilst remaining open. The shop is now very well used.
The more the sun shines, the harder my equipment has to work, but the greater the output of the panels. I occasionally manage to stop the meter on sunny days, but only during hours when the shop is closed which is only sunny weekend afternoons.

My system cost 12,995. 4k of this is on an interest free EST loan, so I couldn't otherwise have invested that.

I know it's early days, but in April and May I made 500kWh a month. I calculate a unit (1kWh) to be worth 50p to me as I use most of it (approx 10p per unit), get FIT payment of 43.?p per unit and sell 50% at 3p per unit (i.e. 1.5p per unit generated), therefore 50p per unit is probably an underestimate. At 50p per unit this ammounts to £250 pcm.
500Kwh per month for 6 months is worth about £1500. (6 months of reasonably sunny weather with longer day lengths) In the other 6 months there will be much less output due to winter/shorter days/weaker sun. If I estimate this as 500kWh in total for the remaining 6 months, which I do not think is unreasonable, that brings the benefit to £1750pa - which is roughly in line with the installer's estimates.

£12995 initial outlay/£1750p.a. = 7.43 years

This excludes the fact that the FIT rates are index linked and therefore increase each year- I presume? And electricity prices are sure to increase - and likely this will be a lot.

So maybe I will reach payback within about 7 years - you tell me! Personally i don't trust banks, pension companies, or stock markets, so I hope this may be a better pension plan for me.

I am concerned that if I do nothing then electricity prices could become so high that I cannot afford to operate my livelihood in a few years time. I anticipate that the reduction in my electricity bill and the feed in tariff will roughly cover future electricity price rises and I have therefore effectively bought the equivalent of around the next 25 years worth of electricity for my building and started to future proof my livelihod and helped to ensure the continuation of a local shop in the area.

Feel free to correct my approximations if you think they are wrong, I honestly feel that doing nothing would have been a short sighted mistake.

Cardew

Gordon Gowk

It wasn't a challenge - merely a query.

I can understand in a commercial application it is reasonable to assume that you will use the majority of your output, and again your assumption that you will generate approx 3,500kWh is also reasonable.

Presumably the £4k EST loan is for a small business??

IMO the only 'flaw' in your calculations is to ignore the lost interest from the capital sum. For most people £13k invested @ 5% would produce £650 pa(£520 after tax) compounded year on year; or a lot more if they had to borrow the money.

I think there is a general consensus of opinion that Solar PV will turn out to be a good long term investment - but IMO your 'payback' estimation is atypical.

GordonGowk

Thanks, Cardew.

It's not often that an atypical building is an advantage, but in this set of circumstances it seems to be.

I was entitled to a EST home loan because the meter is domestic and located in the house area. The main deciding factor was that because I pay council tax then the system counts as domestic. The loan is available only to those in home insulation areas who have had the EST renewables advisor round to make his reccommendations and funding is only for the technologies he reccommends in the report. The scheme is about to close.