Solar Panel Guide Discussion

John_Pierpoint

All these clever new high drain uses of electricity will mean re-cabling of our housing estates.
The current single phase local grid is not designed for people to plug in cars and turn on heat pumps.
So more increases in electricity bills will be required to pay for this.

RenovationMan

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

All these clever new high drain uses of electricity will mean re-cabling of our housing estates.
The current single phase local grid is not designed for people to plug in cars and turn on heat pumps.
So more increases in electricity bills will be required to pay for this.

and the increase in the cost of installing and maintaining infrastructure that will obviously find its way onto all our bills.

Bingobongo

All this craziness, all this worry, all this hand wringing. And for what?
I mean what is all this pv panel, alternative energy nonsense all for?
I mean it's not as if the temperature of the planet has risen over the past ten years even though carbon dioxide levels have increased a tad.
I mean now the idiots are blaming sulphur dioxide from China's emissions for the lack of temperature rise which really is scraping the bottom of the carbon myth bubble but I guess there are still those, even supposedly intelligent folk who fall for the myth of Man-made climate change.

GordonGowk

BongoBongo - should I presume from your post that your climate related knowlege and your intellect is far superior to the collective intellect and knowlege of all who work or have ever worked in the field?
I never realised when I studied the subject for 4 years that the lecturers actually were so dim and wrong! Mind you I must be daft to think that what we are seeing now is exactly what they foretold in the 1980's. I blame the drugs.

John_Pierpoint

Don't worry about it, the next flood will change his mind.

Greenfingers3

I havent read the whole thread, so this might of been mentioned already, but it might be worth noting that one of the fitters mentioned in the original article 'The greener alternative' dont actually fit PV panels. I contacted them as they are local to me and got this response.

Thank you for contacting A Greener Alternative, unfortunately we do not fit PV panels for electricity, only solar thermal for hot water.

A note in the original article might be good to stop people wasting their time. Thanks

digitaltoast

I've quoted anti-FiT nuclear convert and green campaigner George Monbiot a couple of times in this thread, so if anyone's interested there's a "live" debate happening with GM on The Guardian website right now until mid-day: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/05/nuclear-power-george-monbiot
*I say "live" but it's not quite what I was expecting - it's the normal "comment is free" section, just without the usual rabid anti-Semitism, but with George promising to be there and reply to comments for 2 hours. From the looks of it so far, comments are coming in way too quick to respond to.

Cardew

Bingobongo wrote: »

All this craziness, all this worry, all this hand wringing. And for what?
I mean what is all this pv panel, alternative energy nonsense all for?
I mean it's not as if the temperature of the planet has risen over the past ten years even though carbon dioxide levels have increased a tad.
I mean now the idiots are blaming sulphur dioxide from China's emissions for the lack of temperature rise which really is scraping the bottom of the carbon myth bubble but I guess there are still those, even supposedly intelligent folk who fall for the myth of Man-made climate change.

If you want to discuss the subject of Global Warming Climate change, there are load of threads in this section of MSE.

These are just two - bear in mind there are zealots on both sides of the discussion!

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/3020094

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/17133625#Comment_17133625

Elainemary

Just in case no-one has seen it in the newspapers the EST has cut it's estimate on how much households could save on their leccy bills using solar panels from £120 pa to £60pa. EST had estimated about 50% of the energy produced by solar panels was used in the home ;this has been revised down to 25%.
Seems they have only just realised that solar panels only work during the day when most people are out. What genius didn't see that from the beginning???
It looks like by 2020 every household will be paying around £300 to fund climate change schemes. If each household is paying this then whether you pay for PV or get them free they ( according to these figures ) won't be profitable. Also according to WHICH? many firms selling PV are overestimating the output ( boasting ).
EST says typical households pay £560 pa for leccy and installing Pv could be £12000. If only 25% of generation by PV is used in the home that's a saving of £70pa reducing their bill to £490. They are also paid about 35p per kWh for what they use. The rest goes to the grid at about 41p per kWh So ( they say ) a typical family makes approx £800 pa doing this. All fine and dandy, but once the sun goes down they buy back from their supplier at about 20p per kWh. Still a saving, but nowhere near as much as if they could simply use all their own energy.
OK I know I'm quoting without the experience to know if the EST is right or not, but thought you all might be interested. Please don't jump on me from a great height, I'm doing my best to keep up but you've obviously all got far bigger brains and more intelligence than me and i do get totally lost at times.:)

Cardew

Elainemary wrote: »

Just in case no-one has seen it in the newspapers the EST has cut it's estimate on how much households could save on their leccy bills using solar panels from £120 pa to £60pa. EST had estimated about 50% of the energy produced by solar panels was used in the home ;this has been revised down to 25%.
Seems they have only just realised that solar panels only work during the day when most people are out. What genius didn't see that from the beginning???
It looks like by 2020 every household will be paying around £300 to fund climate change schemes. If each household is paying this then whether you pay for PV or get them free they ( according to these figures ) won't be profitable. Also according to WHICH? many firms selling PV are overestimating the output ( boasting ).
EST says typical households pay £560 pa for leccy and installing Pv could be £12000. If only 25% of generation by PV is used in the home that's a saving of £70pa reducing their bill to £490. They are also paid about 35p per kWh for what they use. The rest goes to the grid at about 41p per kWh So ( they say ) a typical family makes approx £800 pa doing this. All fine and dandy, but once the sun goes down they buy back from their supplier at about 20p per kWh. Still a saving, but nowhere near as much as if they could simply use all their own energy.
OK I know I'm quoting without the experience to know if the EST is right or not, but thought you all might be interested. Please don't jump on me from a great height, I'm doing my best to keep up but you've obviously all got far bigger brains and more intelligence than me and i do get totally lost at times.

You are a little confused in this post.

You are correct that the EST have dowgraded their estimate of typical usage in the home to 25%; and they estimate this will give typical savings of £70 a year. That obviously means some will save more and others less.

Where you are wrong is that all generated electricity - regardless of used or exported - gets a FIT payment of 43.1P per kWh.

They also currently get an additional 3.1p per kWh for 50% of the generated total.

I don't understand this 'They are also paid about 35p per kWh for what they use.' They are paid nothing, but the electricity they use is worth whatever the Tier 2 price costs on the tariff they use - around 10p per kWh.

Similarly you use in the evening tier 2 priced electricity at around 10p/kWh - you should ignore the tier 1 price.