Renewables: "talking 'bout my generation"

Martyn1981

Oscargrouch wrote: »

Good return; don't forget interest rates being offered on savings have gone down each year, even ISA's are struggling; although , tax free. (No thanks to the Stingy Bankers) But FIT goes up RPI every year......:beer:.

Too true. I used to base my calcs on here (for those asking for advice) on 3% savings rate. I suppose for several years ago, it might be fairer to use 5%, comparing say £12k from a long term investment. But more recently, probably ISA monies £8k or less.

Now it may be rainy day money (for PV ... ironic perhaps?) from cash savings and easy access ISA's and they seem to have collapsed, even using 2% in the calcs seems overly high.

Got me thunking now! Perhaps returns of 8% or so now, are actually directly comparable to 12% a few years ago, and require much lower investment ... but I digress, as usual.

Back to PV and weather. Forecast is for 3 days of nothing but sunshine, not that my panels see much of it these days being a little too far off south. But have been ticking along at 0.5 to 1.0 O each day, so monthly target looking fine, and ESE only 20kWhs away from annual target (WNW hit target in early Oct). Good year ..... now if I can just work out where to fit another 1kWp of SSE to SSW panels I'll be a happy Welsh bunny.

Mart.

John_Pierpoint

tunnel wrote: »

Interestingly, the RPI index dropped in October to 2.6% in line with CPI which was down due to cheaper road fuel and tuition fees(apparently) but may look set to increase again with the latest round of energy hikes due to take effect in the next few months.


Just in time for December when the rate is taken for the annual rise in FIT

Well I suppose if the rate of inflation carries on like this. we could end up cancelling the FiT contract early and demand net metering - I wonder what would be in the T & C's to cover that possibility.:D

Seriouslythough the more the price of electricity goes up the higher the residual value of the panels after 25 years - my original calculations assumed they would be a write off by then.

Perhaps the new better technology ("Solar edge", black panels with reflective backing and patent films, to extract electricity from a wider frequency of sunlight.) will make replacing the panels an economic option anyway. Will I be allowed to put the old ones on the garage roof?

InVestor_2

Funny how the idiots saying solar panels weren't a good investment in the past have gone weirdly quiet these days...


:dance:

John_Pierpoint

Some wacky ideas of how to store green electricity plus some scandal figures of how to waste public money throwing it at windfarmers just to boast that they are generating a higher percentage of our electricity sustainably.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/63850717#Comment_63850717

But hell does Joe public complain about throwing billions at the EU land owners for growing nothing (and taxing food imports to make sure they don't suffer from competition if they actually agree to grow something.).

legoman62

Oscargrouch wrote: »

Good return; don't forget interest rates being offered on savings have gone down each year, even ISA's are struggling; although , tax free. (No thanks to the Stingy Bankers) But FIT goes up RPI every year......:beer:.

I looked for a decent rate of interest in 2009 before I bought my S/P.
My local bank offered me 3% if I was willing to tie my cash up for 1 year min....this was before tax! Since then rates have plummeted.

Since my S/P installation I have become (thanks to many of the people on this board) much more aware of how much electricity I was using (wasting) so some my savings will have come from this. I believe I will recoup my outlay within 6 years:T

I've insulated my home as much as possible too, with cavity walls, even more loft insulation and UPVC windows.

Over the last year, using some of my FITs payments, I renewed many of my old and inefficient UPVC windows with better quality, and more efficient "A" rated ones.

I used a local firm and tradesmen so, feel I am putting something back into the local economy.

Even at today's lower FIT rates I would still say the time is right to go for S/P.

Talking about time;)

http://www.poodwaddle.com/worldclock.swf

Oscargrouch

Todays result was 1.72 O's

Sent in my reading for FIT payment for last 1/4; 208.48 O's..:beer::beer: Hope they understand that........

tunnel

2.1 O's today, can't wait till my new system kicks up next week, downside is my O's may drop some as its not exactly pointing in the right direction, still..i'm going to see a big difference in the summer evenings, should be able to leave my aircon on for longer

KevinG

tunnel wrote: »

Just in time for December when the rate is taken for the annual rise in FIT

It makes no difference. RPI is an annual rate. A value is taken in the same month every year. It is completely irrelevant what happens to the rate in the particular month that the annual "snapshot" is taken. This misunderstanding occurs regularly in the media where sometimes accusations are made that the rate is manipulated in the month when, for example, pension rises are calculated. This is a mathematical impossibility. The only way to manipulate it would be to keep changing the month that is used to determine the following year's rise.

EricMears

KevinG wrote: »

It makes no difference. RPI is an annual rate. A value is taken in the same month every year. It is completely irrelevant what happens to the rate in the particular month that the annual "snapshot" is taken. This misunderstanding occurs regularly in the media where sometimes accusations are made that the rate is manipulated in the month when, for example, pension rises are calculated. This is a mathematical impossibility. The only way to manipulate it would be to keep changing the month that is used to determine the following year's rise.

RPI is indeed based on a year's results. However, a large increase at any point during the year would result in an increase in RPI. Energy price increases of 8 to 10% in the last few weeks wouldn't put RPI up by 10% but might well push it up by almost 1% which along with other less spectacular rises would still mean a nett increase.

zeupater

legoman62 wrote: »

It's now 16.15 here and dark at lego towers, invertor has allready gone to bed:D

Made 1.075 O's today.

Sent FITs reading off on 14th Nov and payment (£380.90) was in the bank yesterday:)

Total FITs payments for 2nd year = £1735.24 + savings over Eon (Pre Solar Panels) electric and gas use of £676.00 means I'm £2411.24 better off than I would have been.

Add the £2411.24 to last years £2133.15 = £4544.39 means I have (roughly) 37.8% of my original investment back in the first 2 years:beer:

OK, I know this is not taking into account any interest I've lost, or year to year weather fluctuations.....or the fact that my unit cost for kWhs has gone up over this period but am I happy:rotfl:

Hi

And this is all due to the pv ???? ..... :doh:.... :rotfl:

If the average FiT paid over the period was ~48p/kWh then you generated ~3615kWh (1735.24/0.48), which would be pretty typical for a 4kWp system ... if you used 100% of this energy and saved £676 then your average cost/kWh for gas & electricity used in your calculations must be 18.7p/kWh(676/3615), which would typically be considered as being expensive for purchasing >3MWh of electricity and ridiculously expensive for any volume of gas ...

... considering that 100% self consumption is pretty uncommon and taking displaced tiered gas unit pricing probably averaged at somewhere between 4p & 9p per kWh must make up a proportion of the stated saving ("electric and gas"), doesn't this suggest that the savings are just a little overstated ??? ....

Are you taking other savings such as loft & cavity wall insulation into account at the same time (?), in which case all of the savings are not strictly due to the pv system .... and/or are savings resulting from changing energy supplier/product being considered (?), in which case these also should not logically be included as any savings would be possible without the pv investment....


_pale_
Z