Official MSE Free Solar Panel guide discussion

bugdavec

Has anyone else been drawn in by this? The website (with 'energy saving advice' boldly at the top) is made to look like a government advice site and claims fully funded solar panels without being up-front about the loan agreement. I decided to try filling out the online form and was then contacted by a different installation company by phone, . The salesman was all blather, pushing to get a survey done, and only confirmed it was a 9.9% loan agreement when pressed, and was very rude to me when I put it to them the website was misleading (he said I was insulting! I hope they were recording the call). On re-checking the site there are no contact details so I should have known better. I think this website should be investigated.

I contrast I spoke to Funded Solar separately and they were upfront and much less pushy, although I'm still wary.
Also got a quote from Ikea/Hanergy solar, anyone got experience of them? The panels seem expensive, at £7K for a 30 panel 3.75kw system. They also charge a 9.9% loan.

I don't really have the spare cash, but it does look like paying up front with someone like TP Solar as in previous messages is best.

Martyn1981

bugdavec wrote: »

I don't really have the spare cash, but it does look like paying up front with someone like TP Solar as in previous messages is best.

Hi, and welcome.

Ask for advice and recommendations on the Green & Ethical board. Aim for ~£5k for a simple 4kWp system.

Mart.

Deborah_Brown

I had solar panels installed last year on my west/south-west facing roof on the south coast and paid an extra £500 for an iboost. When I'm generating more electricity than I'm using my hot water tank is heated so my boiler is now switched off for the summer. This year I had a rebate of £123 for electricity, £107 for gas and received £620 in FIT payments for the year. It will take me 10 years to recoup my initial outlay but I love knowing I'm generating my own power and showering in free hot water.

relativestranger

tigerlee wrote: »

Hi we have received a few quotes from a few companies and I am wondering if anyone can give some advice please? Which quote would you go for?
Company: Maw-green.
1). 16 solar world panels + Solis inverter. £6385
2). 14 seraphim panels + Solis inverter. £5795
or with Enphase micro inverter
1). 16 solar world panels + Enphase micro inverter. £7520
2). 14 seraphim + Enphase micro inverter. £6935.

Company: EEC
1). 14 seraphim panels+ Tranergy inverter £6250
2). 15 Suntechpanels +tranergy inverter £5850

Company: Scottish solar
1). 16 8.33 gallium panels + ABB/ Power one Aurora inverter £5800

Any help will really be appreciated! Thank you very much!

833s are a decent panel with a long warranty. Out of those thats the one i would get

relativestranger

I work for a renewable energy company, please therefore take what i say both with insider knowledge and a smidgen of bias.


Free solar panels on your roof work, you do make savings but please bare in mind that your mortgage company may reject it as may anyone elses if you need to sell your house. It is not uncommon as effectively you no longer own your roof. That being said if you do not intend to sell your house then they are a decent option.

Buying solar panels. Be aware that a decent 4kW system (regardless of the size of panels) should cost between £4500-7000 . The majority of panels are 250kW so a 16 panel system is the maximum you should get wheras if you have a smaller roof space it is possible to get larger panels (such as benQ 325kW) but you should still never fit above 4kW on your house.

Domestic inverters are capped and they cannot produce more than 4kW (effectively 3.6kW) no matter what the salesman says about hours in the day, or daylight hours.

Additionally please remember that it is the number of daylight hours not the hotness of the sun that produces the electricity. That means that although you will get more production in August than December the best months for production are May, June and July.

Finally the tariffs dropped today but it hasnt made too much difference as it was a small drop. and panel prices have followed the drop.

Cardew

Welcome to the forum.


You may find it more interesting to contribute in the 'Green and Ethical' section of MSE where there are thousands of posts on solar PV and where many owners of systems post.

Martyn1981

relativestranger wrote: »

. The majority of panels are 250kW so a 16 panel system is the maximum you should get wheras if you have a smaller roof space it is possible to get larger panels (such as benQ 325kW) but you should still never fit above 4kW on your house.

What's wrong with more than 4kWp? A 5kWp system split 2.5kWp E and 2.5kWp W, run through a 3.68kW capped inverter would be a nice system. In fact 5kWp of 'normal' panels, will probably cost the same as 4kWp of high efficiency panels such as the BenQ 325's, 327's or 330's.

Yes, I know that the FiT will be 10% lower, but going bigger doesn't increase the price proportionately, as there are a lot of fixed costs. So it's a matter of getting quotes, then doing the maths to compare relative ROI's.

Whilst I appreciate that there are issues with going bigger, I'd be extremely concerned about dealing with any company that is unwilling to at least explore all possibilities.

relativestranger wrote: »

.
Domestic inverters are capped and they cannot produce more than 4kW (effectively 3.6kW) no matter what the salesman says about hours in the day, or daylight hours.

That's not true. Domestic installs with inverters up to, or capped at 3.68kW can be installed without prior notification to the DNO. But you can ask the DNO for permission to exceed that figure (I have permission for 5.9kW). However, you need to get permission, which might not be given, prior to the install.

Apologies for the pedantry, but you refer to kW maximums, then mention hours in the day! Power (kW) can vary from second to second, energy (kWh) will depend on solar levels, and the length of the day, so mixing up kW and kWh (daylight hours) only adds confusion when discussing the relevant rules.

Lastly, welcome and thanks for giving a cost guide of £4,500 to £7,000 I respect that. Many of us on the Green & Ethical board have been trying hard to advise people on the prices they should be aiming for (low £5k's for a simple install, with the odd one hitting £4.5k), but many dodgy firms, usually the type that employ sales teams, often push prices above (well above) £7k.

Mart.

zeupater

Deborah_Brown wrote: »

I had solar panels installed last year on my west/south-west facing roof on the south coast and paid an extra £500 for an iboost. When I'm generating more electricity than I'm using my hot water tank is heated so my boiler is now switched off for the summer. This year I had a rebate of £123 for electricity, £107 for gas and received £620 in FIT payments for the year. It will take me 10 years to recoup my initial outlay but I love knowing I'm generating my own power and showering in free hot water.

Hi & Welcome to the forum .....

Just a quick observation on the savings .... you may find that a good proportion of the rebates mentioned will be due to general energy usage awareness and comparative temperatures as opposed being directly attributable to the pv ....

As a quick sanity exercise ..... £123 for electricity would equate to somewhere around 880kWh (123/0.14) with gas equating to around 2675kWh(107/0.04), so a total of 3555kWh, which would be in line with total generation expectations for a 4kWp system .... now, £620 of received FiT (Incl Deemed export) on a system installed in (say)April last year would equate to ~3640kWh (620/0.17035), which effectively means that you'd have needed to use every watt generated by a 4kWp system & exported nothing, something which would be considered to be extremely rare by anyone with pv ...

Many with pv become far more energy aware than they were before it was installed, taking further measures such as purchasing low energy lighting and replacing plasma TVs with more efficient LED units and simply switching-off unnecessary consumption or reducing the heating thermostat setting by a little - for some it almost becomes an obsession .... of course, as these measures are achievable without pv, the savings shouldn't really be directly attributed to the installation ...

HTH
Z

tunnel

relativestranger wrote: »

Finally the tariffs dropped today but it hasnt made too much difference as it was a small drop. and panel prices have followed the drop.

Care to follow that up with some cold hard facts. I regularly speak to several installers and not one has mentioned a drop in panel prices in tandem with the FiTs drop.
I note also that you don't mention anything of the possible impending VAT increase that the EU would like to impose. Do you have any "insider" information on that that you'd like to share?

matchmade

We've got a perfect roof for solar PV - south-facing roof on a bungalow, no shading - but after getting some good quotes for a 4kW system, ranging from £4995 to £5500, and an estimated payback period of 5-6 years - we still decided not to go ahead.


Why? It's the elephant in the room with all solar panels: you can't take them with you when you move house. This means that we would be making a substantial capital investment with a good chance - given we may indeed move at some point in the next 7-8 years - we will be wasting out money. All the real benefit will accrue to the next owner of our house, and local estate agents tell us that houses with solar panels do not achieve noticeably higher selling prices: buyers just take the panels for granted as part of the in-built facilities of the house. My sister and brother-in-law found this too in Devon: they had 6kW installed in the days of the super-generous FIT, so they were making over £1200 a year, but they decided to move house after four years, so effectively made a loss on the deal: all the benefit will go to the new owners. Think of how much capital you would need to generate a tax-free pension income of £1200 a year, and that's how valuable the panels are, yet there was no discernible effect on the house's selling price.


So, why can't the panels be taken with you when you move house? I wouldn't mind if the feed-in tariff were recalculated when I moved and re-fitted the panels on my new roof: I just object to buying something and then losing most of my money if I need to move house.


The other factor that put us off Solar PV is the lack of reliable statistics on our likely returns. All the installers could supply us with estimated figures, but they couldn't justify this by reference to any real live users. We are concerned that the figures are like the fuel consumption claims by car manufacturers: figures achieved in perfect conditions that bear no relation at all to real-world ones.