Breaking news -FIT's ending soon than expected?

Cardew

BornAtTheRightTime wrote: »

Found the file in my temp folder. Here is the text.

.

Thanks - copied this to the thread in the gas forum - with disclaimer.

Hope you don't mind!

bjohnson

We had a quote from Solarlex on February 7th and the system was installed on March 15th. It is vital to get the FIT application form to the supplier (in our case nPower) as soon as possible. You can get the form before the installation starts.

Cardew

Reading the reports I get the impression that the 8th Dec was chosen to preclude any new installations being ordered now, but allow time for existing applications to get through.

There are almost certainly going to be people who have paid money upfront and for one reason or another, don't get approval and certification by 08 Dec.

It is also a racing certainty that many of these installation firms will fold and just move onto pastures new. What will this do for any guarantee?

lanstrom

I feel sorry for the small businesses that have invested money in this. Printing costs are not cheap and most of them have had thousands of leaflets printed urging 31st March as the final install date for the 43.3p rate. Well I have had quite a few through the letterbox anyway. They wont get chance to reprint with the 8th December information.

I do NOT feel sorry for the double-glazing cowboys who will STILL be pushing the 43.3p rate but neglecting to mention the 8th December cut-off date nor the fact that it will drop dramatically from 1st April. I only hope that people dont get caught out by doing a quick search on the net and then totally missing any reference to 8th December.

I realise that this is only draught and hopefully they will see some sense and forget all this 8th December nonsense.

Meanwhile ... I sure am glad I had my system installed 2 weeks ago

BornAtTheRightTime

Cardew wrote: »

Thanks - copied this to the thread in the gas forum - with disclaimer.

Hope you don't mind!

Not at all. The powers that be may be wanting to embargo the info for a few days but IMO the 8th Dec deadline is so close it's immoral to hide the info for any length of time, even if it's possibly not 100% correct, as long as it's made clear to consumers that that is the case.

Cardew

Originally Posted by keith_r59
Update
I'm not too sure that the EST payback figures in their report are that accurate. By my own calculations a 3.96 kWp system costing £12k would only take 11 years to payback with the FIT at 20p.

keith_r59 wrote: »

Here you go.

http://i1235.photobucket.com/albums/ff435/keith_r59/SolarPaybackCalculator.jpg

Thanks,
Some comments:

Firstly an estimated annual output of 3,808kWh pa is way above the predicted output for a 3.96kWp system for most parts of the country. It may be for you? But you didn’t say that in the post.

According to the EST in their report above:

Annual generation has been calculated as 853kWh/kWp using the Energy Saving Trust Solar Energy Calculator (see below) using the postcode SW1A 0AA (Westminster Palace)

London is pretty far South in UK, but using that figure, which will be above average for UK, a 3.96kWp system will produce 3,378kWh so your estimated generated electricity figure of 3,808kWh is 12.7% higher than even the above average London prediction. That alone will make a considerable difference.

Secondly it just isn’t realistic to assume that there will be no repairs, new inverters etc for 25 years.

Thirdly – I cannot see any input for the exported electricity of 3.1p for an assumed 50% of generated electricity.

However by far the biggest ‘error’ is that you haven’t offset the income by the lost interest on the capital expenditure(or the cost of borrowing) Investing £11,880 even in a long term Building society will earn up to 4.65% - 3.72% after tax(AA 5 year bond) and this is compounded. So you will be losing £442 pa in interest compounded.

You simply cannot ignore this factor. To do otherwise is like saying if I borrow £100,000 from a building Society and pay it back at £10,000 pa after 10 years I will have paid back the loan.

To get a true picture you will have to invest the annual income/savings from the panels each year.

So I would submit that a 20 to 25 year payback is not unrealistic.

mickyduck

London is pretty far South in UK, but using that figure, which will be above average for UK, a 3.96kWp system will produce 3,378kWh so your estimated generated electricity figure of 3,808kWh is 12.7% higher than even the above average London prediction. That alone will make a considerable difference.

Hi Cardew

I "think" my system 3.95kWp is predicted to deliver 3891 kWh based on the PVGIS database. Living in Farnham Surrey unless I have done something wrong when using their database ?
Thanks

Cardew

The EST report

http://www.itcreation.co.uk/navitron/newfit.pdf

Cardew

mickyduck wrote: »

London is pretty far South in UK, but using that figure, which will be above average for UK, a 3.96kWp system will produce 3,378kWh so your estimated generated electricity figure of 3,808kWh is 12.7% higher than even the above average London prediction. That alone will make a considerable difference.

Hi Cardew

I "think" my system 3.95kWp is predicted to deliver 3891 kWh based on the PVGIS database. Living in Farnham Surrey unless I have done something wrong when using their database ?
Thanks

zeupater will be better placed to answer that query.

I was simply quoting the EST figure and across the country from reports on MSE and elsewhere 800kWh to 850kWh per kWp is pretty standard.

keith_r59

Cardew wrote: »

Thanks,
Some comments:

Firstly an estimated annual output of 3,808kWh pa is way above the predicted output for a 3.96kWp system for most parts of the country. It may be for you? But you didn’t say that in the post.

London is pretty far South in UK, but using that figure, which will be above average for UK, a 3.96kWp system will produce 3,378kWh so your estimated generated electricity figure of 3,808kWh is 12.7% higher than even the above average London prediction. That alone will make a considerable difference.

Thank you for your comments.

You are correct that I have included output figures from my own region in the UK but no deception was intended. The estimated output figures come from two sources:

a) PV Estimation Utility - http://re.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pvgis/apps4/pvest.php - using the Climate-SAF PVGIS database
b) First years actual results from the panels installed on my roof (which are actually higher than I have used)

Posters can use their own figures and re-calculate accordingly.

Cardew wrote: »

Secondly it just isn’t realistic to assume that there will be no repairs, new inverters etc for 25 years.

I accept that you will probably need to invest in a replacement inverter but I'm not too sure what other repairs will be required.

I have added another £1500 to the installation cost to compensate.

Cardew wrote: »

Thirdly – I cannot see any input for the exported electricity of 3.1p for an assumed 50% of generated electricity.

You are right, plus I mistakenly used 20p and not 21p for the FIT payment. I have changed the FIT to 22.55p to compensate (21p + 3.1p/2).

Cardew wrote: »

However by far the biggest ‘error’ is that you haven’t offset the income by the lost interest on the capital expenditure(or the cost of borrowing) Investing £11,880 even in a long term Building society will earn up to 4.65% - 3.72% after tax(AA 5 year bond) and this is compounded. So you will be losing £442 pa in interest compounded.

You simply cannot ignore this factor. To do otherwise is like saying if I borrow £100,000 from a building Society and pay it back at £10,000 pa after 10 years I will have paid back the loan.

To get a true picture you will have to invest the annual income/savings from the panels each year.

Not an 'error' as such, however if you make such an assumption you would not be calculating the payback period by it's accepted definition which ignores the time value of money - http://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/paybackperiod.asp#axzz1c54jqhea

Now I'm not saying that there is anything wrong in you including lost interest in your own calculations but you also making the assumption that if you don't use your money to buy Solar PV you will not spend it on anything else for 25 years and leave it in your savings account accruing interest. That may be so but in my opinion I don't think that is very realistic.

I will leave it to posters to make their own minds up as how to treat 'lost' interest based on their own personal and financial circumstances.

With regards your Building Society analogy you are not really comparing like-for-like so I don't really understand the relevance.

Cardew wrote: »

So I would submit that a 20 to 25 year payback is not unrealistic.

Maybe you could upload you own calculations as how you have arrived at this payback figure. In the meantime here are my updated calculations based on your feedback.

http://i1235.photobucket.com/albums/ff435/keith_r59/SolarPaybackCalculatorv2.jpg