Does anyone here have an ideological objection to Solar?

doughnutmachine

Energetic wrote: »

\I'm not going to answer that, What's your income? lets just say that what we made in 2011 has been well and truly balanced out by not making enough in 2012.

i think graham asked a fair question. how have solar prices dropped so much so quickly? it seems like solar installers were getting greedy when fits was higher?

could i just confirm that solar panels installed in spain produce about 50% more power than panels installed in the UK? would it not make sense to forget about installing solar in the UK and install it in spain instead? in large solar farms.....

grahamc2003

Energetic wrote: »

Give me a system spec and a price and i'll tell you if it's in line with the current market.

I don't need to know the answer to that question because it's trivial to find out, but thanks for offering to answer a question I'm not asking, but confused, given the title of this thread, why you won't answer the question I did ask. Your perogative of course.

My breakdown from the limited information at my disposal would be

£1.0k for two man days work for installation
£0.1k office support
£3.5k wholesale panel cost for 4kW in Jan 12
£0.5k brackets and sundry items
£0.5k surveyor/salesman commission

Totalling £5.6k, leaving £7k/£8k profit.

The profit must have been something of that order in order than, when the fit dropped, systems were offered instantly 4 or 5k cheaper, leaving £2k/£3k profit form say March 12 onwards.

I.e. the pricing of the systems was based on the return to the buyer, rather than a cost plus price. All to be expected of course, no problems with that. But it does look to me like the fit kept prices artificially high, and the large price drops were due to a less generous fit, rather than lower hardware prices, as many seem to think. The main immediate beneficiary of the fit (actually it's the case of most subsidies imv) were the business owners, rather than the customers.

grahamc2003

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

You meant £10K ?

I have already answered the question for 30% of the charge assuming it was a simple roof, pointing in more or less the right direction?

No, I don't mean the probable £10k you paid during an exceptional period of a few weeks which you, and I, benefited from. I mean the £13/14k system price before the period when prices were reduced in anticipation of a lower fit, yet the fit was not reduced at that time. There aren't thast many who managed to get a St Vantines Day (massacre) installation.

Energetic_2

grahamc2003 wrote: »

I don't need to know the answer to that question because it's trivial to find out, but thanks for offering to answer a question I'm not asking, but confused, given the title of this thread, why you won't answer the question I did ask. Your perogative of course.

My breakdown from the limited information at my disposal would be

£1.0k for two man days work for installation
£0.1k office support
£3.5k wholesale panel cost for 4kW in Jan 12
£0.5k brackets and sundry items
£0.5k surveyor/salesman commission

Totalling £5.6k, leaving £7k/£8k profit.

The profit must have been something of that order in order than, when the fit dropped, systems were offered instantly 4 or 5k cheaper, leaving £2k/£3k profit form say March 12 onwards.

I.e. the pricing of the systems was based on the return to the buyer, rather than a cost plus price. All to be expected of course, no problems with that. But it does look to me like the fit kept prices artificially high, and the large price drops were due to a less generous fit, rather than lower hardware prices, as many seem to think. The main immediate beneficiary of the fit (actually it's the case of most subsidies imv) were the business owners, rather than the customers.

You're out on the panels and you've omitted an inverter. I've declined to answer but John has which you've ignored.

Customers got an excellent deal and we did alright too, this year the industry has suffered immensely, lower margins are not a problem, low volume is.

Energetic_2

Pre november 2011 we paid more for 4kw of average panels - no inverter mounting etc, just panels- than a fully installed system costs now.

John_Pierpoint

grahamc2003 wrote: »

No, I don't mean the probable £10k you paid during an exceptional period of a few weeks which you, and I, benefited from. I mean the £13/14k system price before the period when prices were reduced in anticipation of a lower fit, yet the fit was not reduced at that time. There aren't thast many who managed to get a St Vantines Day (massacre) installation.

I have a feeling my installer would have done the job for £7k on the 4th of March.;)

My offer of £10k was dependant on meeting the deadline.

Surely slashing the price by upping the volume was exactly why the FiT was set at 41.5p not the mid 30s as originally suggested?
It is just like buying something in the January sales?

It is interesting to see that "the powers that be" have backed off monkeying about with the RPI measure of inflation - were they ready for the comparisons with LIBOR?

doughnutmachine

Energetic wrote: »

Customers got an excellent deal and we did alright too, this year the industry has suffered immensely, lower margins are not a problem, low volume is.

by any chance have you had experience in selling double glazing?

grahamc2003

Energetic wrote: »

Customers got an excellent deal and we did alright too,

I'd agree with that.

Just a shame for those bill payers who actually are now paying for those excellent deals and multi-grand - i'd say excessive, taking everything into account - profit the industry made on each installation.

Martyn1981

grahamc2003 wrote: »

Just as a matter of interest, what were the margins a year ago when the fit was 43p/kWh - when a typical 4kWish system had an install cost of say £13,000?

Weren't install costs about £13k 2 years ago?

They were about £11k to £12k in the summer of 2011, and around £10k at the beginning of 2012.

It must be nice always living in the past, trying to use hindsight to look clever. Much harder to see what's coming, I guess that's why so many people are scared of change.

Mart.

Cardew

My position is quite simple, domestic PV is more economically viable than farm scale PV.

Have you noticed that not one of your supporters and sympathisers have actually come on MSE and agreed with you on that statement.