Solar Panel Guide Discussion

grandadsmith

And why are we 'poor' forced into subsidising the profit's of the corporations fitting these systems, when I'm sure many of us could do the job,with an electrician just to check and connect ?

digitaltoast

KevinG wrote: »

'Yet solar panels don't need sunshine to work, just daylight'

The sun is always shining, it's just obscured by clouds or our part of the world not facing the right way! This might be a bit of a niggardly point, but what's daylight if it isn't sunshine?! But it does kind of illustrate the simplistic nature of these sales pitches.

denisetownsend

hello i have recently began to look into getting solar panels for my house roof, we have contacted a few companies and recieved a couple of quotes. the common discussion that arose in my quotes was the fact that the new companies could go under after 5 years and change hands. and so the panels would lose their warranty. my question is, how badly would this affect me and is there anyway of avoiding this? thanks :rotfl:

jaddingt

Just wanted to say what good information you have in your post about solar panels. I wish we had the information to hand when we purchased our 3.51kw system for about £14,000.

There are two important aspects that I think need pointing out. The first is the importance of having a south facing roof and the second the impact cloudy weather has on electricity production.

To get the most out of your panels its really important that your panels are south facing to get the maximum benefit from from the sun as it travels from East to West. It makes me really sad to see the amount of people that have had panels installed every direction but south, they really are not getting the returns they are due. Second cloudy weather, there is a massive difference between what you will raise on a sunny day compared with a cloudy day. I have been writing a blog solarpv365.wordpress.com since January that maps our solar production on a daily basis and the difference is amazing for example on the 12 June it was cloudy we generated 8kw on the 16 June it was Sunny we generated 23kw. Its quite a difference when you get paid £0.43 a kilowatt.

KevinG

denisetownsend wrote: »

hello i have recently began to look into getting solar panels for my house roof, we have contacted a few companies and recieved a couple of quotes. the common discussion that arose in my quotes was the fact that the new companies could go under after 5 years and change hands. and so the panels would lose their warranty. my question is, how badly would this affect me and is there anyway of avoiding this? thanks :rotfl:

I've got an insurance-backed warranty on mine, which is fine as long as the insurance company doesn't go under!

jgrove_2

This is what i have read and understood so far.

I am not a solar novice, i fitted my own solar PV system a few years ago, that supplies power to a large 140amh battery, 12V appliances and some 240V appliances via a 1000w pure sine inverter. This works very well, and i have yet to over draw the supply or drain the battery down completely. In fact if i replaced my lighting system in my house to 12v led only, i don't think i would ever be in the dark even in the winter. This would be very expensive to install and i dont think the cost would pay for itself for a long time.

What is clear is the cost benefit, i don't believe at all the figures i have been supplied with after all they are after sales.

But with all that considered, it possibly will increase the value of your home, i know this because an estate agent told me. By how much, well thats depends.

It is possible to produce more power than you use, but this is only if the power you export in the day matches the cost you pay for it to get it back after the sun goes down!

In my case i think it would take me around 12 years for the system to have paid for itself, and that is based on current and future energy costs.

I have been quoted 12,000 pounds for a 3.12kw system based on a 16 panel system.

Reading some of the comments, it makes me believe that solar sellers are simple cashing in on the market and the costs are hugely elevated and if they weren't so greedy the system would be a viable option.


BUT i think you are limited to 4kw systems? So you will never be bale to export more than that? Even if you have a huge roof?

MoneySavingTart

A few key points to help wade through the guff that Solar PV salesmen might tell you.

1) It is exceptionally difficult to consume much of the power you will generate. It is not stored in any way and is largely available just when you don't need much electricity. ie in the middle of the summer on sunny days
2) If you arrange to switch on a suitable load when the sun comes out, then as soon as it clouds over, you will be powering that load off the grid and need to switch it off again - not many loads will accept this.
3) This is made even worse if the house is empty during the daytime and you use a timeswitch.
4) Selling back to the grid is irrelevant as virtually no one has leccy meters capable of indicating exported power; even then the rates are 3.1p per unit which is about 1/4 the current price of imported power.
5)Treat any savings in power consumed as a small bonus. Base your financial decision solely on the FIT and the assumed 50% export -effectively a further 1.55p per unit
6) Because the panels are connected in series, it only takes one panel to be in shade and the whole string output falls drastically.
7) If your proposed panels are not in shade now, what with the nearby trees be like in the next 25 years and are they yours to cut down?
8) What would the shading be like if your neighbours put up a two storey extension? Historically 'right to light' planning appeals have not always succeeded and there are no precedents set yet for 'right to solar' appeals.
9) What is the likelihood that you will move house? If you do so in less than 10 years you might not even payback your capital. You need to be there in years 10 to 25 to make the real 'profit' from the system.
10) What would be the impact on your finances if the Govt of the day were to change their policy on FITs. Avoid getting into a position where you would critically depend on the 'income' from your PV system.

I have a solar PV system and I'm very happy with it but I also see that it is not an automatic choice for everyone.

HTH

MoneySavingTart

celerity

grandadsmith wrote: »

And why are we 'poor' forced into subsidising the profit's of the corporations fitting these systems, when I'm sure many of us could do the job,with an electrician just to check and connect ?

First of all, it's not just corporations benefitting from the subsidies, it is normal homeowners like many of us on here.

Secondly, people that complain about solar FiT rarely acknowledge the huge and ongoing subsidies provided to just about every power industry, especially when they are in an early stage. In those cases the subsidies do indeed just go to corporations, and we all have to pay for it. In the case of solar PV, I for one think it's rather nice that homeowners are the ones intended to benefit (I admit I'm not entirely neutral on this though ).

Regarding your DIY question, you are free to install yourself, but unless you are MCS accredited you won't qualify for the FiT. This is presumably to ensure the people getting the FiT have done a decent job on their system and not just bodged it together, which would reflect badly on the entire industry ("my mate put panels up and they don't even work!" etc etc).

Regarding solar PV in the UK, I find myself gravitating between believing the FiT incentive could prove to be a bold move to promote a viable domestic micro-generation scheme, or that it will (unfortunately) not really make much of a difference and will end up being a waste of resources.

The truth is, none of us can know which of these two extremes will be closest to the mark. I for one am hoping that in the next 5-10 years the price of solar PV will have come down enough that small businesses and property owners with suitable roofs will install systems without any FiT.

The technology *is* viable now, despite the naysayers, but only with suitable usage patterns. For example, I comfortably power my whole office and house for most of the day (probably not during winter though!). Without the FiT, I of course wouldn't have bothered doing this, but provided the price continues to come down, it will be an option for future decision makers, even without subsidies.

And, once the price drops and there is no subsidy, there is no artificial "optimum cap" in having a 4kWp array - so businesses will be basing their decision on larger arrays, and will have plenty of hard data to make good estimates of how much power they will generate.

Finally, whether or not history proves that the FiT was a folly or success, I for one have to applaud the fact that the UK government actually made a decision and have tried to boost a small-scale renewable in our country. There is so much opposition to renewable energy (eg wind farms) but we can't just keep burning increasing amounts of fossil fuels and expect everything to be OK.

/\dam

digitaltoast

celerity wrote: »

or that it will (unfortunately) not really make much of a difference and will end up being a waste of resources.

The truth is, none of us can know which of these two extremes will be closest to the mark.

I'm pretty sure we can take an educated guess which way it's going to go: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2010/mar/11/solar-power-germany-feed-in-tariff

Solar PV has failed in Germany and it will fail in the UK
Our tariff plan is near-identical to Germany's – that's the one that produced woeful amounts of energy, jobs and innovation

Against my instincts I have come to oppose solar photovoltaic power (PV) in the UK, and the feed-in tariffs designed to encourage it, because the facts show unequivocally that this is a terrible investment. There are much better ways of spending the rare and precious revenue that the tariffs will extract from our pockets.

The German experiment, almost identical to the UK's, has now been running for ten years. An analysis published in November by the Ruhr University (pdf) shows just what it has achieved.

The real net cost of the solar PV installed in Germany between 2000 and 2008 was €35bn. The paper estimates a further real cost of €18bn in 2009 and 2010: a total of €53bn in ten years. These investments make wonderful sense for the lucky householders who could afford to install the panels, as lucrative returns are guaranteed by taxing the rest of Germany's electricity users. But what has this astonishing spending achieved? By 2008 solar PV was producing a grand total of 0.6% of Germany's electricity. 0.6% for €35bn. Hands up all those who think this is a good investment.

After years of these incredible payments, and the innovation and cost reductions they were supposed to stimulate, the paper estimates that saving one tonne of carbon dioxide through solar PV in Germany still costs €716. The International Energy Agency has produced an even higher estimate: €1000 per tonne. There are dozens of ways in which you can save carbon for 100th of the cost of solar PV at high latitudes.

celerity wrote: »

The technology *is* viable now, despite the naysayers, but only with suitable usage patterns. For example, I comfortably power my whole office and house for most of the day (probably not during winter though!). Without the FiT, I of course wouldn't have bothered doing this, but provided the price continues to come down, it will be an option for future decision makers, even without subsidies.

And, once the price drops and there is no subsidy, there is no artificial "optimum cap" in having a 4kWp array - so businesses will be basing their decision on larger arrays, and will have plenty of hard data to make good estimates of how much power they will generate.

It's pretty safe to say that in the foreseeable future, Solar PV can and will never be viable without massive subsidies. Monbiot again:

The Ruhr University paper comes out against using feed-in tariffs to stimulate wind power as well, but in this case it shows that large-scale wind power in Germany is likely to become cheaper than conventional power by 2022, at which point subsidies will become redundant. It makes no such prediction for solar PV.

celerity wrote: »

Finally, whether or not history proves that the FiT was a folly or success, I for one have to applaud the fact that the UK government actually made a decision and have tried to boost a small-scale renewable in our country.

And Monbiot again:

As for stimulating innovation, which is the main argument Jeremy makes in their favour, the report shows that Germany's feed-in tariffs have done just the opposite. Like the UK's scheme, Germany's is degressive – it goes down in steps over time. What this means is that the earlier you adopt the technology, the higher the tariff you receive. If you waited until 2009 to install your solar panel, you'll be paid 43c/kWh (or its inflation-proofed equivalent) for 20 years, rather than the 51c you get if you installed in 2000.

This encourages people to buy existing technology and deploy it right away, rather than to hold out for something better. In fact, the paper shows the scheme has stimulated massive demand for old, clunky solar cells at the expense of better models beginning to come onto the market

So, there you go. There are the experiences of a country with more land mass and far more sunshine than us. Against all the reports, against the hard evidence and experiences of countries with similar schemes, what makes you think the UK experience will be better?

Feel free to link to as many white papers, journals and peer-reviewed research papers as you like.

RenovationMan

Small scale renewables, indeed small scale green solutions just don't work from a financial standpoint. As I said on a thread entitled "Is Green Money Saving an Oxymoron" on the Green & Ethical Moneysaving Board, when you do the sums none of the technologies such as solar PV, Solar Water Heating, Rain Water Harvesting, Ground Sourced Heat Pumps, Air Sourced Heat Pums pay off over any sort of reasonable period, if ever and that the only Green Moneysaving technology that seems to work in insulation, insulation and more insulation!

Rather than taxing the many and giving it away as an incentive to the few, the government should be investing this money in large scale solutions that benefit the many ratehr than the few. These are the only solutions that work.