Solar Panel Guide Discussion

Cardew

silvasands wrote: »

Just like initially, to make a comment in reply to the person who was annoyed about middle classes buying solar panels and being subsidised or whatever.

Surely nobody has any criticism for people who choose to have PV systems fitted - that includes buying, those who rent their roofs, or indeed the venture capitalists who have cashed in on the lucrative subsidies.

The reservations are centred on the government that allows the situation with Solar PV to exist:

Firstly because it is the most inefficient method of generating electricity is is possible to imagine.

Secondly that the very high subsidies, which largely go to home owners and venture capitalists, are paid for directly by all electricity customers.

The majority of those customers cannot have solar PV because they live in flats, rent a property or have unsuitable roofs. So it is very much a case of the poorest in our society directly paying for a subsidy to be enjoyed by the better off members of society.

As somebody stated it is 'Robin Hood in reverse' - robbing the poor to pay the rich;)

RenovationMan

I'm a critic of this initiative, but as Cardew states, I certainly don't blame individuals who are sticking their snouts in the trough or jumping on the teat in order to get this tax money from poorer people. Fair play to them. The needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many, and all that.

keith_r59

RenovationMan wrote: »

I'm a critic of this initiative, but as Cardew states, I certainly don't blame individuals who are sticking their snouts in the trough or jumping on the teat in order to get this tax money from poorer people. Fair play to them. The needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many, and all that.

Oink! Oink!

grahamc2003

Could I also reiterate that I also haven't seen anyone criticising people buying or renting panels - we're lucky in the UK to have a little bit of freedom to do as we please sometimes. I also don't criticise people coming into our country and claiming for their big family abroad, or some people having families of 8 or 9 because we pay them generously to do so.

What is wrong, imo, in all those cases is the system which allows (or encourages) those things - you can't blame people for exploiting any legal system.

What we have in the case of solar is a system where an individual can benefit, but society as a whole loses out - and this just a fact (imv) which follows from subsidising inefficient systems. As to losing out to innovation that is nonsense imv - innovation means designing system which do things better than existing methods, and solar power in the UK is not that (very much the opposite). Following on from that the 'green jobs' aspect has been proven in other countries to be counterproductive, with 2.5 jobs (iirc) in Spain being destroyed through higher costs for each 'green' job created (again, an artifact of inefficient systems).

Remember that the costs of these green 'initiatives' are currently running at 37% of the cost of producing our electricity, and go straight onto everyone's bills via a 13% loading according to BGas. That loading is almost certainly guaranteed to rise quickly in the future whatever steps we take today. Even those who gain £70 from free panels may lose out overall, with their electricity bill in some cases being loaded by more than £70 to pay for these types of thing (and more so in the future).

celerity

grahamc2003 wrote: »

I hadn't forgotten about panel degredation, just decided for simplicity to ignore it for the time being, plus I didn't know an annual degredation figure. I'll stick it in later to see it's effect.

I use 0.8% because panels are guaranteed to be 80% efficient after 25 years and I assume a linear degradation (which is probably not strictly correct).

But for

int rate 3%pa
inflation 3%pa
Investment/solar cost £13k
1st year fit+elec saving £1500
2 inverters at yr 10 and 20

means the isa grows to £27.2k
solar returns are £53.1k
and 13k initial cost generated from fits in year 8

Sounds like you haven't made the break-even point at where the earnings meets the compounded interest plus initial outlay though? If you haven't, eight years is very misleading (despite plenty of people on this forum seemingly being happy to ignore the effect of investing their initial sum of money!)
I'd expect your revised payback period to be around 12 years?

Also, splitting hairs, but my £1,500 estimate is not including savings, so you should change year one earnings to £1,570. My reasoning for this is that my system is 3.91kWp and is estimated to generate 3,356kWh in the first year, but is already 36% ahead of prediction for May, and 42% ahead for June. So, if things continue we will hopefully meet the target comfortably. From similar posts on here I think my system is performing fairly typically.

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celerity

grahamc2003 wrote: »

- and this just a fact (imv) which follows from subsidising inefficient systems. As to losing out to innovation that is nonsense imv - innovation means designing system which do things better than existing methods, and solar power in the UK is not that (very much the opposite).

Almost everyone that uses this argument conveniently neglects to mention that *all* new energy technology in this country has had to be subsidised, and in fact many established traditional systems continue to be subsidised.

If subsidies were not offered to emerging tech, the simple truth is that they would *never* be adopted. This applies to wind, solar, nuclear etc.

As to efficiency - all that matters is cost per kWh - and nobody on here, including myself, can say what this will be in ten years time. Personally I predict it will be lower than it is now for both solar and wind, whereas coal, oil and nuclear will be higher than they are now. Only time will tell if they reach parity or not.

So please, disagree with investing in solar all you like (I'm not even saying you are wrong) but please be fair when talking about subsidies.

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Dave_Fowler

It is now exactly a year since my 3kWp system was installed. The generation meter reads 2666kWh. After the good April and May I was expecting more, but June has shown a lower output that either April or May.

celerity

Cardew wrote: »

Firstly because it is the most inefficient method of generating electricity is is possible to imagine.

Do you mean technically inefficient or cost in-efficient? You will no doubt say both, but the first is irrelevant, all that matters is cost. Yes the cost is high now, but it should come down, partly thanks to the subsidies which everyone is complaining about.

Secondly that the very high subsidies, which largely go to home owners and venture capitalists, are paid for directly by all electricity customers.

"very high" is somewhat subjective - traditional power systems have had decades of subsidies and continue to enjoy them, yet their cost is predicted to rise steadily. Renewables have only recently had subsidies applied, and their cost is predicted to fall.

The majority of those customers cannot have solar PV because they live in flats, rent a property or have unsuitable roofs. So it is very much a case of the poorest in our society directly paying for a subsidy to be enjoyed by the better off members of society.

As someone else said on here (k4blades?) it's not true that people in rented accomodation won't benefit, as some landlords are likely to invest in solar PV.

And I still don't understand why people are getting so irate that a subsidy system has been designed to pay homeowners. Most subsidies go to big corporations which makes fat cats fatter whilst encouraging the depletion of fossil fuels.

As somebody stated it is 'Robin Hood in reverse' - robbing the poor to pay the rich;)

This sounds nice and catchy, but has anyone on here provided a source to show how much this is actually costing an old granny living on the breadline? People are bandying around the figure of 15% as being the direct effect of the FiT on an average fuel bill, but I'd like to see the source of that.
Also, *everyone* that uses electricity will pay a bit extra, not just the poorest people. They might pay proportionally more of their earnings, but this applies to taxation in general, for example VAT.

I sincerely think people should get some perspective. I can empathise with people criticising the FiT as it is by no means perfect - but I can't get my head around why some people are seemingly so incredibly agitated (a general point, not directed at Cardew).

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celerity

Dave_Fowler wrote: »

It is now exactly a year since my 3kWp system was installed. The generation meter reads 2666kWh. After the good April and May I was expecting more, but June has shown a lower output that either April or May.

If it helps, I use JSunnyReports to check my output against prediction, and it has both April and May as being more productive than June, which suggests your experience is typical.
In order of lowest to highest for the warmer months, it has:
April, June, August, July, May - but... the first three months are almost the same.

My monthly stats compared to predicted levels are here if you are interested.

What did your installer tell you your Year One predicted output was? Mine is 3,356kWh and I have a 3.91kWp system. So far I'm hopeful we will hit the target, but we've only had it for two months.

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darkpool

lets be honest, a power source that gives it's highest output at the time of year when electrical demand is lowest is flawed. in some countrys like spain electrical demand is greatest in the summer when people switch on air conditioning. in places like that solar makes sense.