solar pannels

indi4

We've just recieved a letter off the council offering to install free solar pannels, in return we get free electric, and they make a nice profit.

What i was wandering is if we did install this how would it affect our houses value, as if it would reduce the value it's not something we'd want to consider.

poppysarah

What council is it?

It's a great idea!
You could pay for them yourself and earn the money yourself. That'd be more of a bonus but needs the money to pay for it.

BornAtTheRightTime

It's too early to say how solar panels affect house values, however it is reasonable to assume that where panels are owned outright by the house owner, the value will increase due to the ~11% annual return on the panel cost (typically £8k to £12k giving around £1500 back per year).
It is possible that where the panels are owned by a third party such as the council, which only gives savings around £150 a year, the value of the house will be decreased - since prospective owners cannot put up their own panels and may consider the look of them unsightly, or be turned off by having someone else's belongings on their roof.

if you want to know more about solar panels check out this MSE link.

wastedtalent

Do the council allow someone to buy the panels if they want, so could a new buyer purchase them off the council, or request they be removed?

indi4

It's Newport city council that are offering it at the moment.

The letter doesn't contain that must info, but the company i work for have just started doing the feed in tariffs for it, and they've said that usually once you agree to them being installed, they will only sell for the amount that they will make over the next 25 years, so an expensive way of doing it.

I'm just trying to way up the pro's and cons of them at moment, as we're not planning to sell in the near future, but would like to up size at some point, so don't want to do anything that will affect the house value to much.

Sugared-frog

We have solar panels and recently had our house valued. The person who surveyed our house reckoned that they made no difference at all to the valuation. I'm not sure he was a fan of solar though because he reckoned the payback time was 25 or 30 years whereas I think the 8 or 10 years looks more likely.

When we had ours done we realised that it would put off some buyers but hopefully it might appeal to some others as a positive selling point and it wasn't done to improve value.

Presumably the fact that they are offering to do it on your roof means that you have an ideally facing and angled roof if you wanted to go ahead with it yourself.

chappers

Check with the council what the score is with regards to you selling the property in the future and whether any buyer has to take them on.
A directly south facing roof should payback in around 10-12 years, if you are taking all the money from the feed in tarrf., but if they are owned by a third party then it all depends on your consumption during the day.
If the house is mostly unoccupied during daylight hours then savings would be minimal whereas if occupied then your consumption would be higher.

indi4

Having looked into a bit more, it seems unless your at home all day then you'll get very little benefit out of it unless you own them. It's looking like the only people benefiting from this scheme is the council.

maninthestreet

How will the council make a profit? They have to buy the panels and bear the cost of installation. Presumably the free electric you get is generated by these panels, so the only money the council could get would be selling any surplus electricity to the grid.

Sugared-frog

In the rent your roof solar schemes, the company that pays for the installation of the panels will pocket the 43 p/kW produced whether the home owner uses the electricity or not. And assuming they are doing it on a larger scale than the home owner, they will have a shorter pay back time than the home owner would - so the council should make a tidy profit on it I assume.

poppysarah

maninthestreet wrote: »

How will the council make a profit? They have to buy the panels and bear the cost of installation. Presumably the free electric you get is generated by these panels, so the only money the council could get would be selling any surplus electricity to the grid.

For each unit made it's 43 p
On top of that you get another 3p for any spare units that make it to the grid.

So each unit made could earn the council 46p.