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Official MSE Free Solar Panel guide discussion
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hairdresser4 wrote: »We have 16 panels on our roof, we were told that it would not cost us anything, we just under 74 which is the cut off point to have them, we are now paying £117 a month, and when I phoned them they told me that in the end we break even, (if we live that long), we can afford to pay £117 a month but other people can not. nothing was mentioned about paying per month.so have we been had or is there a really away of having panels that do not cost anything.
- they give them to you free
- any electricity they generate that you use is free
- any electricity they generate that you don't use, the installer company get the feed in tarrif for
illegitimi non carborundum0 -
And £117 of electricity a month plus solar panels, it sounds like you are running one of those cannabis farms.illegitimi non carborundum0
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I thought the way these free panels work is that
- they give them to you free
- any electricity they generate that you use is free
- any electricity they generate that you don't use, the installer company get the feed in tarrif for
My reading of the situation is that 'hairdresser4' was led to believe that the panels were free, but in reality signed up to a install & finance package costing £117/month ....
Not knowing any further details, but working from the text ".. just under 74 which is the cut off point to have them" I'd guess that the finance package is based on 10years which would suggest a £14k(117x12x10) total cost of the system, which over the 20 years of a FiT contract would likely return around £600pa in FiTs and a annual £100pa in electricity savings, so £14k returned (20x700) on a current cost basis.
We've seen reports of schemes which are specifically designed to 'relieve' unwary consumers of the entire combined income & savings over the length of the FiT contract a number of times before, with the sales pitch being a little less open & descriptive than a consumer would/should expect. If my reading of the situation is correct, it's my opinion that someone has taken advantage of a 74 year old pensioner and 'sold' a package which was either not fully understood by the consumer, or deliberately misrepresented ... either way, it looks like there'll be no 'breakeven' until the 'hairdresser4' is in his/her mid 90s.
If it was me, I'd initially be tempted to call age concern (/age UK etc) and/or the CAB for advice ....
HTH
Z"We are what we repeatedly do, excellence then is not an act, but a habit. " ...... Aristotle0 -
hairdresser4 wrote: »We have 16 panels on our roof, we were told that it would not cost us anything, we just under 74 which is the cut off point to have them, we are now paying £117 a month, and when I phoned them they told me that in the end we break even, (if we live that long), we can afford to pay £117 a month but other people can not. nothing was mentioned about paying per month.so have we been had or is there a really away of having panels that do not cost anything.
Can you have a look at my previous post above to see if I've interpreted the situation correctly ? .... either way, can you provide more details ?
HTH
Z"We are what we repeatedly do, excellence then is not an act, but a habit. " ...... Aristotle0 -
I thought the way these free panels work is that
- they give them to you free
- any electricity they generate that you use is free
- any electricity they generate that you don't use, the installer company get the feed in tarrif for
On the Free solar panels scheme - often referred to as 'Rent a Roof scheme' your first two bullet points are correct. However the third bullet point is completely wrong.
The installer company gets the Feed In Tariff(FIT) for every kWh the panels generate regardless of how much is used in the house. e.g. if the panels generate, say, 3000kWh pa the installer gets the FIT for 3,000kWh and it doesn't matter if 500kWh is used in the house and 2,500kWh exported or 2,000kWh used in the house and only 1,000kWh exported.
In addition to the FIT it is assumed that 50% of the generated electricity(1,500kWh in the case above) is exported and the installer gets a further payment for each of those 1,500kWh - again regardless of how much is actually exported.
In the case of hairdresser4, I am pretty certain that zeupater has understood the situation correctly. I suspect they thought they were signing up for a 'rent a roof scheme' and have been scammed.
If that is the case they should go to Trading Standards and/or a solicitor.0 -
I read somewhere that an energy company got very upset when told by a customer that his meter was going backwards on a sunny day, and penalised him I seem to remember. They obviously know who is generating solar power, and my old meter is reading way lower than at the start of the quarter. Should I be worried?0
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Does anyone have a larger installation, I have been quoted for 28 panels with an output of 6755kWh, since most companies quote for 4kwh I can not get a reasonable comparison without inviting other companies to survey. I was just looking for a rough comparison as the quote was just short of 21K but did include everything, including storage batteries to utilise more of the power generated0
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Does anyone have a larger installation, I have been quoted for 28 panels with an output of 6755kWh, since most companies quote for 4kwh I can not get a reasonable comparison without inviting other companies to survey. I was just looking for a rough comparison as the quote was just short of 21K but did include everything, including storage batteries to utilise more of the power generated
Some basic questions immediately come to mind ... why such a large system?, why the need for storage (ie batteries)? , what is the quoted storage capacity of the battery system? and do you have the quotation broken down into a cost for the pv system separately to the storage?
A couple of observations, the number 6755 seems to be a little strange for the described system, so do you have details of which panels (make/spec) the quote is based on? ... also, kWh is a measure of energy, not power, so, to keep the many pedants around here sweet, the unit of measure used should be kW and, as it's effectively a nameplate capacity, the power measure would relate to a nominal system peak output in controlled conditions and is therefore normally referred to as kWp ....
HTH
Z"We are what we repeatedly do, excellence then is not an act, but a habit. " ...... Aristotle0 -
Hi, has anyone dealt with this company please?0
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An elderly relative was recently approached to have "free solar panels" installed on their roof by "A Shade Greener" the company mentioned on this site. before allowing them to carry out any work they asked me to advise as they know I have my own panels. The first thing I did was ask several building societies if the house was sold would they give a mortgage? The answer was a resounding NO. They all stated there would be a conflict of ownership and thus would not offer a mortgage.
The second issue I had was "A Shade Greener" do not advertise their telephone number on their website or marketing literature. to contact them to cancel the appointment that had been made, I had to obtain it from another website. It bothered me that MSE had given this company creditability by including them on their site as it is from this very website that I always use the rule "if they do not readily make available a telephone number, then don't touch them".
Conclusion "If it looks to be good to be true. It is". My recommendation to anyone who at some time in the next 20 years thinks they may want to sell the house; is do not fit someone else's panels on your roof...0
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