solar 2012

dozydave2

Hi I have large south facing roof in cornwall.
£12k to invest and wanted to know if I should buy solar panels?
We work from home alot so all appliances could be run in the daytime a family of 5.
Any thoughts,recommendations of suppliers or fitters, makes or models.
What would be the FIT if I go ahead now.
Thanks

Martyn1981

dozydave2 wrote: »

Hi I have large south facing roof in cornwall.
£12k to invest and wanted to know if I should buy solar panels?
We work from home alot so all appliances could be run in the daytime a family of 5.
Any thoughts,recommendations of suppliers or fitters, makes or models.
What would be the FIT if I go ahead now.
Thanks

Dave, ran your specs through here;

http://re.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pvgis/apps4/pvest.php#

It's not as frightening as it looks!

Put in St Ives (just a guess), and true south at 35deg roof angle.
That gave 3,620kWh's generation pa from a 4kWp system. This is probably a little bit pessimistic, but best to work from the worst case end, and smile if you do better afterwards.

Prices have been falling, and several people are now reporting prices for such a system at around £8k.
Income / savings
1. 3,620 x 21p FIT generation = £760pa
2. 1,810 x 3.1p export (this is estimated at 50% of generation) = £56pa
3. Savings, tricky one this. If you have high consumption (sounds like you do) and can use a lot of daytime generation, then you could be consuming 50% or so of generation, so 1,810 x 13p (please insert your actual electricity price) = £235pa

Total £760 + £56 + £235 = £1,051pa

Insurance, maintenance, cleaning etc should be next to zero, however anticipate an inverter failing every 10 0r 15 years, which could be around £1,200. Some of that can be offset however against inflationary rises in 1 to 3 above.

Shading is extremely important, and can have a hugely detrimental effect on a poorly sighted install. When the sun is low at this time of year, you can start to get a good handle on where any problems exist.

How's it looking, what do you think, want to polish some of those numbers?

Mart.

PS, FITs could be 43p, but stick with 21p. FITs could be less after April, nobody knows right now. Kit and companies - just get loads of quotes, at least 3, before going any further, you need to learn at this stage. M.

HalloweenJack

you should be able to get a 4kw system for around 9000; micro wind (a small wind turbine) isnt as great as they say they are for the money as well.

dozydave2

Thanks for the info.
Can anyone suggest solar companies in cornwall?

zeupater

Hi

It's probably best to base the imported energy savings at around £100 for that size system ... if it's larger you gain, but it's pretty hard to save much over this ...

Regarding installers, have a look at the MCS installer search .... (http://www.microgenerationcertification.org/mcs-consumer/installer-search.php) ... best to use the 'map view' if you want to see local installers, the 'list view' will include the national installers which would likely operate in your area too ...

HTH
Z

Martyn1981

Zeup, I'd agree best to aim low and hope for better, but I don't think £100 (800 kWh's) is difficult to meet. My (our) consumption is quite low at 2,600kWh's pa, but we are on target to save 1,200kWh's.

Dave does seem to be describing the perfect situation for PV. Apologies Dave if I'm reading too much into your post.

He said a family of five, daytime use, and working from home. That would suggest to me lots of electronic goodies in use during the day, and probably weekends. During May to August, should be able to save background 500Watts for most of day, plus (with 5) probably washing machine / tumble dryer / dishwasher on every other day, so average 1 per day. That's probably 6kWh's per day.

As generation drops in the spring and autumn, consumption percentage will rise, so perhaps 4kWh's March, April, Sept, Oct. And then 2or 3 kWh's Nov to Feb.

All in all I'd guess around 1,400+kWh's consumption, so about £200pa electricity bill savings today and more with each price increase.

However, I appreciate that I'm being pedantic, and best to assume less and be pleased more.

Mart.

rogerblack

It may be worth considering going over 4kW, if you can get the system reasonably cheaply.
The FIT for 0-4 is 21p, for 4-10 is 16.5p.

However, this probably only makes sense closer to 10 than 4. (5 is right out)

zeupater

Martyn1981 wrote: »

Zeup, I'd agree best to aim low and hope for better, but I don't think £100 (800 kWh's) is difficult to meet. My (our) consumption is quite low at 2,600kWh's pa, but we are on target to save 1,200kWh's.

Dave does seem to be describing the perfect situation for PV. Apologies Dave if I'm reading too much into your post.

He said a family of five, daytime use, and working from home. That would suggest to me lots of electronic goodies in use during the day, and probably weekends. During May to August, should be able to save background 500Watts for most of day, plus (with 5) probably washing machine / tumble dryer / dishwasher on every other day, so average 1 per day. That's probably 6kWh's per day.

As generation drops in the spring and autumn, consumption percentage will rise, so perhaps 4kWh's March, April, Sept, Oct. And then 2or 3 kWh's Nov to Feb.

All in all I'd guess around 1,400+kWh's consumption, so about £200pa electricity bill savings today and more with each price increase.

However, I appreciate that I'm being pedantic, and best to assume less and be pleased more.

Mart.

Hi

Even at today's prices around 10p/kWh is possible for tier2 electricity pricing and it's tier2 electricity consumption which pv will eat into first ....

I have absolutely no idea what level of electricity consumption dozydave2 has or what the applicable tariff is, however, the EST guideline for saving is considerably below £100 for an average installation and my own saving, alongside others on this forum who have longer term data to call upon, are usually around the £100 mark. In previous discussions the only instances where considerable savings were agreed as being possible were where there is a constant high baseload, such as running a bank of servers or freezers, usually in a 'small business' environment, high load devices such as washing machines really don't seem to make that much difference due to the load cycle time and the frequency of use ...

Yes, £100 could be low, but it's likely to be better than around £250 (50% of the cost of xWh @£y/kWh) based on a flawed BRE/SAP calculation which installers seem to use to their advantage all too often, especially so after the reduction in FiTs raises the percentage of the investment returns this represents.

Like yourself our consumption is low, this being due to concerted efforts over a number of years before installing pv, reducing usage also to around the 2600kWh mark, so no matter what percentage of energy a system would supply in our case, it could not have saved more than the cost of 2600kWh ... try telling that installers who quoted us that though .... :D

HTH
Z

zeupater

rogerblack wrote: »

.... However, this probably only makes sense closer to 10 than 4. (5 is right out)

Would this theory be considered as being related to the 'Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch' logic on pin withdrawal & counting .....

insight101

Thinking also about 4Kw install in Somerset.
it will cost £7800 and should produce approx 3880kwh over year so £814 FITS at 21p
£60 export and say £100 less electricity bill total £974 = 8 years breakeven point.
Is it worth it?

HalloweenJack

as equipment prices have dropped by 30% in the last 12 months - some suppliers , as you have noticed, are also lowering there prices.

there`s a £10800 quote in another thread for a similar install and the message there was ` get more quotes` - it seems your coming in with a reasonable quote allready (10800 minus 30% is 7500 so close to your 7800) , with the reduced fit rate is allready roughly the same breakeven for a £12k installation at 43p


now, want to hedge your bets?

the government is being sued over FIT - and there is a chance they will lose ;
as of now the FIT is 21p , and IF the government lose , it`ll be back to 43p for about 4 weeks.
so , install NOW and get 21p , with a chance at 43p or wait and see what happens.