Solar Panel Guide Discussion

grahamc2003

Joseph90 wrote: »

Yes I most certainly would have, as I have had to say on numerous occasions, I have not paid a single penny for the installation but have so far saved £40-50 in four summer months and in this sad stressful financial climate we are presently living in this amounts to a safe conservative saving prediction of at least £100 over 12 months.

Every penny counts!

No one ever doubted you would get something off your electricity bills for, in your case, zero cash outlay (but I expect you have invested some time). In fact, I expect most have even expected you to get the benefit you have done - afterall, the esi guidlines, or guesses, have bobbed around the £120/£70/£100 level over the last year.

But your return at the moment isn't the whole story. I don't wish to scaremonger, but just wish to point out some of the risks associated with the gain of £100pa.

When the time comes to sell, and if it's less than 25 years away, then there's an unquantifiable risk of your house not gaining the market value. (There's also a chance of the market value being exceeded too - being in the future, that is unknown).

Some assess a high risk of a depreciated value (by the burden of a new owner having to take on the remnants of the 25 year contract, and all that entails), some think it'll make no difference, and some even think the house value will be improved.

So your £100pa isn't at zero cost to you - it is at the cost of accepting a risk on your future property value. (I accept it is a zero up-front cash cost though).

The risk is geared too. At today's prices, your return is £2,500, set against a house value of (for eg) £400,000. If the market value drops by more than 0.6% due to the ageing old technology panels (and I'm not saying it will, just that it might), then you'll have made a loss overall. (I know you house may be worth more or less than £400k, but it is just for illustration).

orrery

I'm about to get my system installed (4 days and counting!) on a 20 degree roof.

I've seen one panel spec which indicates "self cleaning at angles of greater than 20 degrees".

Can anyone comment on panel cleaning?

whasup

Everybody will be different but I personally wouldn't consider leasing my roof for 25 years for a £120 or £140 pa return. Most people could save close to that just be tweaking their central heating boiler or adding some (very cheap at the moment) insulation. But they don't. You wouldn't believe the number of lofts I see with less than 100mm.

Joseph90_2

grahamc2003 wrote: »

I don't wish to scaremonger, but just wish to point out some of the risks associated with the gain of £100pa.

When the time comes to sell, and if it's less than 25 years away, then there's an unquantifiable risk of your house not gaining the market value. (There's also a chance of the market value being exceeded too - being in the future, that is unknown).

Some assess a high risk of a depreciated value (by the burden of a new owner having to take on the remnants of the 25 year contract, and all that entails), some think it'll make no difference, and some even think the house value will be improved.

So your £100pa isn't at zero cost to you - it is at the cost of accepting a risk on your future property value. (I accept it is a zero up-front cash cost though).

The risk is geared too. At today's prices, your return is £2,500, set against a house value of (for eg) £400,000. If the market value drops by more than 0.6% due to the ageing old technology panels (and I'm not saying it will, just that it might), then you'll have made a loss overall. (I know you house may be worth more or less than £400k, but it is just for illustration).

Graham

Lets see if we can agree on just two things (not asking a lot)

1: I have just stated past facts, where as the points you have raised would require a crystal ball.

2: You will always be negative about solar panels no matter what people on here say to the contrary

lanstrom

whasup wrote: »

Everybody will be different but I personally wouldn't consider leasing my roof for 25 years for a £120 or £140 pa return. Most people could save close to that just be tweaking their central heating boiler or adding some (very cheap at the moment) insulation. But they don't. You wouldn't believe the number of lofts I see with less than 100mm.

Sorry, Off the main topic but I just used 8 rolls of this stuff ..

http://www.diy.com/diy/jsp/bq/nav.jsp?action=detail&amp;fh_secondid=11127503&amp;fh_location=//catal!!!1/en_GB/categories<{9372016}/categories<{9372050}/categories<{9372230}/specificationsProductType=triple_roll

Bargain @ £3 per roll

Got all 8 rolls in an Octavia Hatchback but had to leave the wife and child at B&Q ;-)

zeupater

Joseph90 wrote: »

Graham

Lets see if we can agree on just two things (not asking a lot)

1: I have just stated past facts, where as the points you have raised would require a crystal ball.

2: You will always be negative about solar panels no matter what people on here say to the contrary

Hi

You obviously think grahamC2003 is very negative on solar pv, therefore, by definition you must consider myself as being positive on pv .... so here goes .....

The logic which you disagree with in the referenced post is correct .... what's more, almost the worst thing that could possibly have happened to someone with a 25 year RaR contract on their house, especially those which have been fitted to enhance a property value prior to sale, has just happened, the FiT subsidy will almost certainly be halved.

Reducing the FiT subsidy suddenly means that the UK market will react and reduce system purchase prices making them more affordable, there will be a rebalancing of subsidy to cost which, when correct, will open the market up for many more purchasers to consider having systems .... potential RaR house purchasers with a view to having solar will be further discouraged by having the option of retaining the restrictions of the existing 25 year RaR contract or buying the contract out (if possible) for around twice the cost of fitting their own new system on a different roof ...

Just my take on recent events .... if a house will not be marketed over the forseeable future it's all irrelevant anyway ...

HTH
Z

sinbinjack

i have just today paid my deposit to green planet,I have an installation date of 26 november,will I still get the old FIT ? The sales man has said I definately will ,but reading about it I am now becoming unsure and worry my money will not be working for me as well as I had hoped. Can anyone shed any light on my dilema.
Jack

larkim

zeupater wrote: »

...almost the worst thing that could possibly have happened to someone with a 25 year RaR contract on their house, especially those which have been fitted to enhance a property value prior to sale, has just happened, the FiT subsidy will almost certainly be halved.

Reducing the FiT subsidy suddenly means that the UK market will react and reduce system purchase prices making them more affordable, there will be a rebalancing of subsidy to cost which, when correct, will open the market up for many more purchasers to consider having systems .... potential RaR house purchasers with a view to having solar will be further discouraged by having the option of retaining the restrictions of the existing 25 year RaR contract or buying the contract out (if possible) for around twice the cost of fitting their own new system on a different roof ...

Not sure I would entirely agree with your predictions for the market. In the medium term if the reduction in the FiT creates a reduced demand for installations, then overheads and fixed costs of installing equipment per unit installed will likely increase, and in a world-wide market for the manufacture and sale of solar panels suppliers will likely be able to maintain volumes by supplying markets which have a higher demand (due to higher sun levels, more favourable subsidies etc etc).

So whilst the reduced FiT does certainly reduce the amount of UK money able to be spent on solar, it does't necessarily follow that the equipment manufacturers will respond by lowering prices which the installation companies can pass on to customers.

We may end up back in the world where no-one other than solar evangelists bother with PV systems as they are uneconomical in principle, which will drive installation companies out of the market and reduce competition.

I'm not sure it is entirely predictable one way or another.

Matt

BornAtTheRightTime

larkim wrote: »

Not sure I would entirely agree with your predictions for the market. In the medium term if the reduction in the FiT creates a reduced demand for installations, then overheads and fixed costs of installing equipment per unit installed will likely increase, and in a world-wide market for the manufacture and sale of solar panels suppliers will likely be able to maintain volumes by supplying markets which have a higher demand (due to higher sun levels, more favourable subsidies etc etc).

So whilst the reduced FiT does certainly reduce the amount of UK money able to be spent on solar, it does't necessarily follow that the equipment manufacturers will respond by lowering prices which the installation companies can pass on to customers.

We may end up back in the world where no-one other than solar evangelists bother with PV systems as they are uneconomical in principle, which will drive installation companies out of the market and reduce competition.

I'm not sure it is entirely predictable one way or another.

Matt

Hi, welcome to the forum.

If you take into account:
1) UK installers have been enjoying huge margins easily in the region of 40-50% and
2) that there is worldwide massive oversupply of PV panels and manufacturing capacity and that panel prices have dropped 70% in two years as a result;

You may conclude that in the short term (beyond Dec 12th) UK installers will be forced to drop their prices to match the reduced FITs to an attractive rate of return for the purchaser. Further, you can expect that in the medium term panel manufacturers will be forced to keep their wholesale pricing low, to compete in the worldwide market and to feed through to the UK installers' lower margin requirements.

Dave_Fowler

sinbinjack wrote: »

i have just today paid my deposit to green planet,I have an installation date of 26 november,will I still get the old FIT ? The sales man has said I definately will ,but reading about it I am now becoming unsure and worry my money will not be working for me as well as I had hoped. Can anyone shed any light on my dilema.
Jack

My understanding of the recent government proposal is that any system registered before December 12th will get the current rate of FITs which will be index linked each year in April. Systems registered after December 12th will receive the current rate of FITs (43.3p) until April 2012 and then the reduced rate of 21p - index linked by whatever rate is decided in April.

Dave F