Solar ... In the news

JKenH

Reed_Richards wrote: »

A BBC Television regional news program will feature an item on the over-selling of solar panels this evening (9th September): https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-49566130

This is really sad, these people want locking up. It’s often the people who can least afford it that get targeted. I suppose most of us here have been lucky.

mmmmikey

JKenH wrote: »

This is really sad, these people want locking up. It’s often the people who can least afford it that get targeted. I suppose most of us here have been lucky.

Yes indeed. The worry is that the story will be presented as "solar panels are a rip-off" rather than focusing on the real issue of mis-selling. It will be interesting to see how balanced it is, but sadly I'm not holding out much hope of that.

ASavvyBuyer

mmmmikey wrote: »

Yes indeed. The worry is that the story will be presented as "solar panels are a rip-off" rather than focusing on the real issue of mis-selling. It will be interesting to see how balanced it is, but sadly I'm not holding out much hope of that.

From the details in the article, it also looks like they were overcharged for what looks like small systems, taking out loans for £10-15k for what looks like less than a 4kW system.:(

JKenH

mmmmikey wrote: »

Yes indeed. The worry is that the story will be presented as "solar panels are a rip-off" rather than focusing on the real issue of mis-selling. It will be interesting to see how balanced it is, but sadly I'm not holding out much hope of that.

Ah, I see your point. I think though now (after the scrapping of FiT) it will be more about people buying solar panels than them being sold by unscrupulous door to door salesmen. Having said that it seems that the energy companies are now using online marketing to push batteries and tariffs with questionable economics so plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

Martyn1981

mmmmikey wrote: »

Yes indeed. The worry is that the story will be presented as "solar panels are a rip-off" rather than focusing on the real issue of mis-selling. It will be interesting to see how balanced it is, but sadly I'm not holding out much hope of that.

I hope Project Solar get mentioned, as we literally waged a war against them on here with their ridiculous prices and income claims.

So many people ripped off, or in many cases about to be ripped off.


And as you say, the product will get tarnished (just like DG) when the problem is with the dodgy companies and dodgy commission salespeople.

Martyn1981

‘Get behind British solar’ and scrap the VAT hike, government urged

A letter penned by Good Energy chief executive Juliet Davenport has called on the chancellor of the exchequer Sajid Javid to axe government proposals for VAT raises.

The increase in VAT from 5% to 20% on energy saving materials, including solar and storage, is set to come into effect on 1 October. It had first been expected in the 2016 Budget, after the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled a year earlier that the UK’s discounted rate was illegal.

Why do I think coal will remain at 5%, am I making that up?

Martyn1981

Haven't posted a PV + batt story for a while, so here's one (that does include generators as back up), that will be displacing a lot of diesel/petrol generation.

Africa’s ‘largest off-grid solar hybrid’ goes online at Nigerian University BUK

In total, 37 universities and seven teaching hospitals will benefit. In addition, the programme includes other initiatives such as encouraging young women into STEM education and jobs, while the latest project at BUK also includes the further benefit of powering hundreds of local street lights.

Phase 1 of EEP, funded by the Nigerian government, will help nine universities and a teaching hospital. Phases 2 and 3 are set to be funded by the World Bank and the African Development Bank respectively.

A factsheet produced by the REA in July says the project at BUK totals 7.1MW capacity, combining 3.5MWp of solar PV generation from 10,680 solar panels, 2.4MW of backup generators and 8.1MWh of battery energy storage.

As with the project at FUNAI, the reduction of use in petrol and diesel generators will be significant at the site. METKA said the project has used modular off-grid system technology from global power electronics and energy conversion specialist Exeron.

GreatApe

ed110220 wrote: »

I've been trying to get my head around why more companies that consume a lot of electricity aren't installing solar PV for self-consumption.

For example where I work we consume about 900,000 kWh per year, mostly in the daytime, paying about 10p/kWh in the hours that solar would be providing electricity.

The company has installed solar PV at other sites. It recently announced that one such system has paid for itself in little more than 4 years. However it has also said that post FIT it has to "look at other ways to make solar financially viable".

Are there really such fantastic investment opportunities out there that only 4 year payback periods are attractive, and even the opportunity to pretty much self consume 100% of the PV electricity saving 10p/kWh isn't tempting enough? If the average household could self consume all of the output of a reasonable sized array replacing 10p grid electricity there would be a massive rush.

It's not worth it businesses don't operate with 2-3% returns and capital cost in mind and all businesses have a hazy future

Your business uses 100KW average power and for 900,000 units pays £90k per year
Say you install a 100KWp system at a cost of £100,000

This will save only £9k a year in electricity
So 11 years payback
Actually probably longer as there will be maintenance and insurance and capital costs and cost of an employee spending time to research this and implement it. Let's say it takes 15 years to break even

Most businesses don't even know if they have 15 years life so would be reluctant to make an investment that is going to take 15 years to potentially pay off

Also there is the risk of unknowns
Will the installation process or fire risk take the business down for 1 single day?
Any savings is more than wiped out if that happens

Better for a business to conserve energy and use less rather than try and self generate


Landlords on the other hand have longer lasting business
They may be happy with a 5-10% return
So the landlord can potentially do this
But then the legals and paperwork to set an agreement will not be worthwhile
A £100,000 cost investment returning 5% is okay but that 5% will rapidly drop if there is employee time used to coordinate this if there are legal people to pay to get this agreement up and if both sides are happy to sign up to a 15-30 year deal



But anyway none of this is required the UK already has under construction and committed to enough wind and Interconnectors so we will be saturated with green power as soon as 2024

GreatApe

Martyn1981 wrote: »

PV getting cheap in Europe.

PV cheaper than spot market electricity across Europe

Not long, worth a read, but here are some snippets.

Great news it means this gigantic industry needs no subsidies anymore

The British government is ahead of the curve it's probably all the spies we have they informed her majesty's government to get rid of the subsidies as they were no longer needed and with Marty confirming it today we can rest assured

Exiled_Tyke

JKenH wrote: »

This is really sad, these people want locking up. It’s often the people who can least afford it that get targeted. I suppose most of us here have been lucky.

I think most of us here were lucky because we had the forethought and sceptical minds to do our own research before investing. Also we were lucky because we had the likes of Martyn sharing their experiences and fantastic advice.

For those who haven't found the online article. (It may have been linked above but I can't be bothered checking).

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-49566130

From my skim through it appears to only mentions two businesses: PV Solar UK and MyPlanet.