Solar Panel Guide Discussion

Fruit_and_Nut_Case

ToonArmy wrote: »

Dont Buy Solar Panels, unless you are going to stay in the same house for at lease 10-15 years, otherwise its not gonna save you. Also within 3-5 years technology with increase the power of panels so they will be half the size and a quarter of the price!

...but the FIT rate will have shrunk as well.

John_Pierpoint

ToonArmy wrote: »

Dont Buy Solar Panels, unless you are going to stay in the same house for at lease 10-15 years, otherwise its not gonna save you. Also within 3-5 years technology with increase the power of panels so they will be half the size and a quarter of the price!

Don't feed the troll unless he can come back and explain to which bit of this science fiction he can supply a link of record.

I think the "low hanging fruit" for improving the performance of panels has already been achieved:

* Moving the silver paper connectors to the back side of the panel

* The use of square cells to maximise the active area facing the sun.

* Putting something reflective on the underside to return light escaping underneath back through the cells.

* Multi layer technology, as pioneered (?) by Du Pont, to extract power from more of the frequencies of sunlight.

* One electronic inverter gizmo per panel, as pioneered (?) by Solar Edge, to negate the problems caused by moving shadows killing the performance of strings of panels.

Coming soon the magic battery that solves all the problems of lap tops, construction site tools, electric cars and storing PV electricity from the summer to be used during the winter.

buglawton

A nearby street of bungalows has started to get infected by solar panels and boy do they look butt-ugly when street-facing on bungalow roofs. Couldn't they have put these into arrays in the middle of some of our barely used 'green belt' farmland near here (Berks) I wonder?

The irony of this is not lost on me: Green belt policy (the is the the one that makes Home Counties living space near unaffordable and which long term will deplete the UK's economy) has the main justification that it keeps our neighbourhoods beautiful. And then these carbuncles are plonked right in the middle of our housing!

On the topic of house price valuation if you have panels: I assume that any young solar panel scheme on a house means the new owner of the house has to take over a complicated financial agreement?
I would run several miles from that, and the missus several miles from the ugly looks of most installations.

EricMears

buglawton wrote: »

On the topic of house price valuation if you have panels: I assume that any young solar panel scheme on a house means the new owner of the house has to take over a complicated financial agreement?

If the panels are owned rather than the roof having been leased, then the new owner would be completely free to remove them after taking ownership. Doubtful however if a new owner would be willing to discard an income stream that would probably be well in excess of a thousand pounds per year though.

buglawton

The majority of panels are installed on some sort of loan scheme with the 'income stream' hopefully paying the loan off, AFAIK.

Even if owned outright, the new owner has to sign up to a agreement with the leccy company - and get the same advantageous terms - as the previous owner had.

Martyn1981

buglawton wrote: »

The majority of panels are installed on some sort of loan scheme with the 'income stream' hopefully paying the loan off, AFAIK.

That's a totally new one on me! Have you got any data/references to support this?

buglawton wrote: »

Even if owned outright, the new owner has to sign up to a agreement with the leccy company - and get the same advantageous terms - as the previous owner had.

The FIT contract is linked to the install and the property, that is why it can't be transferred to another property, even if the householder was willing to move the panels. Instead the contract stays at the premises with the new owners for the remainder of the original term (25 or 20 years (pre or post Aug 2012)). Think of it as similar to taking on the responsibility of the energy contract(s) of a property you have just bought.

Mart.

EricMears

buglawton wrote: »

The majority of panels are installed on some sort of loan scheme with the 'income stream' hopefully paying the loan off, AFAIK.

Even if owned outright, the new owner has to sign up to a agreement with the leccy company - and get the same advantageous terms - as the previous owner had.

The current owners of the houses must have agreed to such a scheme and must surely realise that they are running the risk of prospective purchasers not wanting to take over such a contract.

If the terms are advantageous enough, more people would be attracted to buy so price will rise; if not and number interested is diminished, price will fall.

Only time will tell what the actual result has been.

cheeseplane

Two years ago I bought a solar pv system from Tesco. They used a company called Enact Energy. This company has gone bust and Tesco are refusing to speak to me. Anyone else having the same experience?

KevinG

cheeseplane wrote: »

This company has gone bust and Tesco are refusing to speak to me

They can't do that. Your contract is with Tesco. Keep at it. Having said that, what is the actual problem that you have with the system?

John_Pierpoint

Give Tesco a chance, I doubt the front line staff know as much about this as you do.
Dust off the T & Cs of the contract you signed.
How did you pay (CC ?)

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-22740425
http://www.thisiscornwall.co.uk/Tolvaddon-renewable-energy-specialist-Enact/story-19203523-detail/story.html#axzz2VW05bWHn

The Mark Group (I think) did most of Tesco's work, so is this a subcontract of a subcontract ?

Do you have consequential losses - ie you are currently losing £10 a day of FiT ?

Update:
It is looking like The Mark Group and M&S also have a reputation to protect.

http://www.navitron.org.uk/forum/index.php?topic=11513.0

If I have understood the situation, I think I would go for the Mark Group and see what they are proposing to do in what could turn out to be a big problem for them; or alternatively an opportunity to work with the liquidator and the credit card companies and Tesco and M&S to minimise the damage.

If you are in a physical and financial jam put this nibe exhaust air heat pump problems into Google and see what can be done when finding you are "piggy in the middle" of a problem.
[That little story of use of the on-line media, should put the fear of God into the above firms' public relations departments] Don't be palmed off by the grease rag, demand to talk to the engineer. It is such a shame that British economic power has been given to accountants, lawyers and bankers in this situation.

Unless you have a very complicated roof with shading issues, I cannot see how you might have a problem that £2k cannot solve, unless the initial concept was technically flawed.
There is absolutely nothing "rocket science" about about a PV system on a roof facing South.