Solar energy whilst renting?

jamesingram

paddyrg wrote: »

PV cells - depends on the manufacturer and how efficient they are. Earlier ones took more energy to make than they could capture except in absolutely ideal circumstances. More modern ones break even in energy terms more quickly if you measure everything in terms of carbon (which is a pretty useless scale, but the best available). They do still require mining of minerals, and an intensive and dirty production process however.

Best in market for EROEI , REC pay back in 1 year
http://www.recgroup.com/en/sustainability/
Not just CO2 based analysis
http://www.recgroup.com/en/sustainability/reducing-energy-payback/

Yes , many nasties in Pv production. it'll be important to deal with /recycle/reuse these resources if possible at end of life of product.
http://www.recgroup.com/en/sustainability/PV-Cycle/
Also usual condiditions of work force arguement applies to those in the sweat shops around the world manifacturering PV

I'm dont work for REC but think it good to see a company considering the life cycle impact of its products, moving toward the 'cradle to cradle' cyclicial approach for production of consumer goods and resource use (unless of course it's just a smoke screen)

MrGreen

This might be a good idea for you as it's portable http://solar-power-station.co.uk I'm not too clued up on solar start up costs but it may be expensive, though the whole package and ease of use sounds good.

Martyn1981

Cheers Mr Green, that's a cute little thing. I suspect more things like this will appear.

Sorry to be negative, but I can see a few problems.

It sells itself mainly on backwards meters, but that is probably not allowed, and we don't have net metering. But saying that a 200Wp panel will probably never export. Shot myself down there didn't I!

The cost is proportional to a 4kWp system at £13k+.

Being so low to the ground it would (or could) get a lot of shading.

Someone might 'borrow' it, as they pass by.

I notice they avoid the repayment issue, cleverly, but if you got 5 full hours a day on average, which I doubt, that would be 11p savings, or £40 pa.

I love the thought, but would expect it to get damaged or nicked well before it could ever pay for itself.

Mart.

johnnyredgate

Have you discussed having solar panels fitted with your landlord? If he had them fitted then he would be entitled to the fit payment and the energy company payment and you would be able to use the energy generated foc. I rent out a property and had solar panels fitted last November, it seemed a good way to generate a little extra income from the property, which being an older property has ongoing maintenance costs. Admittedly the fit rate is now lower but i understand the cost of the panels has reduced significantly too.

grahamc2003

MrGreen wrote: »

This might be a good idea for you as it's portable http://solar-power-station.co.uk I'm not too clued up on solar start up costs but it may be expensive, though the whole package and ease of use sounds good.

Depends on the aims of the system. If I pro-rata my sap prediction, then a 200W system would produce 130kWh a year, worth about £15 if all used (as is likely). So a 43 year payback at today's prices.

I'm afraid that in practice it would probably be less than that, since the inverter doesn't have an mppt, to set the load to give the maximum power at any time.

The advert is a bit telling where the FIT is spinned to be something better avoided! when of course, the returns from the fit are about 4 or more times the returns from the value of the electricity (in most domestic existing systems)

Not sure what the dno would have to say about it too - looks like on a power cut the panels could potentially keep the network live unless I've missed something - no probs for a single system I expect, but if there are several plugged in in the local vicinity they could potentially cause problems.