Solar panels-any good?

martin57

Hi,

I am on oil heating and wonder if the solar panels are any good and if you can save much with them. Has anyone got them installed, what your opinion now? and costs grants etc.

looking forward to replies,

thanks
martin57

leftieM

We looked into getting these installed. We were told it would be £3k for the best kind after the grant award was taken into account. At that price it would take at least 30 years to recoup the costs (it would save max of £50 a year off bills then allowing for inflation).
Check out the Energy Saving Trust for grant information. However I think that the technology behind this is newish but pretty simple and will become much cheaper and more cost effective in the medium term.

martin57

Well on a beautiful day like today I bet they work great, but I get the impression they are a bit of a fad and a must have for the trendy. At those kind of savings It would be stupid to put them in and a waste of money I think. Thanks for that info.

martin57

leftieM

Give it 3-5 years and they'll be selling them at B&Q for a few hundred. I am guessing that the technology is still under patent and they don't mass produce yet. When either of those things happens the prices will fall.

wacko911

Im by no means an expert but solar in norn ireland is a waste of good cash.

Again I'm no expert but I have been hearing some good things about ground source heating and it 'should' acutally reduce your heating bills.

From what I gather it works a bit like this

You get a couple of bore holes in your garden and 100's of meters of pipe is burired down the holes - or you can lay the pipes out under the ground without the bore holes.

Apparently the temperature of the earth about 6ft under is a constant 10 degrees all year round. Yea okay 10 degrees thats gonna heat a lot! The trick is you run a reverse refigerator type compressor and it extracts the heat from the water in the pipes and you get something like 40 degree water from the system.

The system uses electrictly to run the compressor, but this should be cheaper than buring oil - there is some figures out there for every unit of electricity you put in you get X units out (think its 3x or 4x)

Another drawback is traditional radiators dont really work with water less than 60 degrees, so the ground source is more suited to under floor heating.

Oh an it will only pre-heat your water, dont be expecting hot water from this, its designed to work with your existing heating system but in the long term should save you money.

Google it if your curious. If I was building a house I would consider it, retrofitting to an existing house would prob be too expensive/hassle with the underfloor heating and all.

Milko

Solar panels will work in NI. You don't need mediterranean style sunshine to drive a panel & given that my boss has just installed them in his house for around a £1000 (DIY & no grant assistance) then it could be viable for some.
But as leftieM says, at £50 per annum saving it doesn't really make much sense to me either unless I too was doing a new build in which case I'd stuff the house full of every energy saving / environmentally friendly device around.

moonrakerz

leftieM wrote: »

Give it 3-5 years and they'll be selling them at B&Q for a few hundred.

Like their wind turbines ?!?!

leftieM

Like wind turbines the technology is pretty straight forward. At the end of the day you're just heating water in pipes so you need to use a material that is an efficient conductor of heat and you need to pump the water into a storage vessel. Maybe the materials they use are really expensive, I don't know, but I suspect that there are a number of candidates for this material and it can be done cheaply. That is why I think the costs will plummet.

Lindsay-Lou

You could always try the DIY version. This is a project I have on my to-do list for the OH one of these fine days :rotfl:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/5272620.stm

martin57

Great find the diy panels. If someone is going to have a go, then be great to get a post back on how its working. I would have a go myself but the mere sight of even a flat-pack brings me out in a cold sweat.

and anyway the weaters changed, thunder today!!

martin57

nadnad

by the way - the ground source heat pumps sound good at first glance but the amount of electric they require is phenomenal add that to the fact they don't heat your water fully and the £13k cost of installation and you'll probably decide (as we did) to give it a miss for now!