solar advice

razor344

Not sure if this deal is too good to be true

Had a chap from green energy solutions round to chat about solar panels

16 panels 4kw system £7500

Paid for on finance over 10 years at £ 96 pm

They recon they will start to self fund after 3 year but also offer a sweeter of £700 cash back to cover 1st year payments.

They say this £700 added to the feed in tarried monies of £800 expected for the year (200 per quarter) and us adding the election savings to the pot and they will pay for them selves

All sounds too good to be true

Panels are 250 watt. Black Herman made panels. Covered for damage and failier etc for 20 years by the company etc etc

I'm up for it but my better half thinks it's a con

Any one else used them

Ta marc

Martyn1981

razor344 wrote: »

Not sure if this deal is too good to be true

Had a chap from green energy solutions round to chat about solar panels

16 panels 4kw system £7500

Paid for on finance over 10 years at £ 96 pm

They recon they will start to self fund after 3 year but also offer a sweeter of £700 cash back to cover 1st year payments.

They say this £700 added to the feed in tarried monies of £800 expected for the year (200 per quarter) and us adding the election savings to the pot and they will pay for them selves

All sounds too good to be true

Panels are 250 watt. Black Herman made panels. Covered for damage and failier etc for 20 years by the company etc etc

I'm up for it but my better half thinks it's a con

Any one else used them

Ta marc

Hiya Marc. Short answer - it's a con.

Slightly longer answer - better half's are always right, at least that's what mine tells me.

Very longer answer (sorry ) - To earn £800 a year (forget £200 a qtr as generation will be weighted towards the summer) you would have to generate 4,918kWh's per year from a 4kWp system.

You won't do that. So they've already made false claims.

To be fair, £7.5k isn't the worst overpricing I've heard of lately, but a quick read of the threads on the Green and Ethical board will show you that £4.5k to £5.5k is possible if you ask for advice and shop around.

Financing at anything other than very low (mortgagey) rates will make purchasing PV far less attractive.

Regarding income, this will depend on generation, which itself will be affected by location, roof orientation, shading and even roof pitch, but if - for the sake of providing some real numbers - I assume you have a good location are south facing and have no shading then you could earn:

FiT subsidy 4,000kWh * 13.88p = £555
Export set at 50% of generation 2,000 * 4.77p = £95

So subsidy income £650

Leccy savings will depend on house use (time of day) and how much leccy you use, but probably in the £80 to £160 range, so estimate £120.

Total income/earnings of approx £770pa.

For more general advice try the PV FAQs.

All the best.

Mart.

System

razor344 wrote: »

Not sure if this deal is too good to be true

Had a chap from green energy solutions round to chat about solar panels

16 panels 4kw system £7500

Paid for on finance over 10 years at £ 96 pm

They recon they will start to self fund after 3 year but also offer a sweeter of £700 cash back to cover 1st year payments.

They say this £700 added to the feed in tarried monies of £800 expected for the year (200 per quarter) and us adding the election savings to the pot and they will pay for them selves

All sounds too good to be true

Panels are 250 watt. Black Herman made panels. Covered for damage and failier etc for 20 years by the company etc etc

I'm up for it but my better half thinks it's a con

Any one else used them

Ta marc

Trust your wife's instincts and WALK AWAY from this deal.

Just to add to the above calculations. Your loan will cost you £1152 per annum. For the first 10 years, you will have to find from your income/savings £382 per annum to cover the loan repayments. The 'income' from your roof will not come in even quarterly payments as the sun does most of its work in the period April through to October. By the end of 10 years, you will £4584 out-of-pocket which then the loan has ceased will take you a further 6 years to recover what you have paid out. Oh, before I forget, you will need to budget for a new inverter at about the 10 year point.

macman

Also not a good idea if you think you may be selling in the next 10 years...the new owner will have to take on the repayments added to their electricity bill. Which may deter some.

System

macman wrote: »

Also not a good idea if you think you may be selling in the next 10 years...the new owner will have to take on the repayments added to their electricity bill. Which may deter some.

I confess that I have not heard of that before. As it is not a Green Deal, then I would have assumed that, on legal completion, the present owner would have to pay off the balance of the outstanding loan as would be the case with a mortgage. Happy to be proved wrong.

matelodave

I agree with Hengus - if you take on a loan outside the green deal then you'll either have to pay it off or keep paying it until it's finished.

If you get a "green deal" loan, then it stays with your house until it's paid off, so any future purchaser would have to maintain the payments - something I'd be reluctant to take on if I was buying a house - especially looking at some of the GD interest rates.

As suggested you should investigate it all a bit deeper if you are interested, as there are better and cheaper ways of doing it.

Even lashing out the cash up front it would still take you 8-10years before you start to make a profit on the investment and you can't cash it in if it's screwed to your roof and you need the money.

macman

Apologies, I read 'Green Energy' and the 10 year finance deal as Green Deal.

jooulez

Hi everyone

Need some help with PV/Solar panels. My parents (in their 70's & 80's) have had a cold call (via phone call) from a company in Norwich called Green Home Energy Solutions. My problem is that they have been taken in by a sales persons speil, & believe what this person said to them. I didn't know anything about this until I visited today & saw the gumpf & they'd both signed a piece of paper (I only got a quick look so unsure what it was, but did see HUGE amounts of money in at least 3 boxes) I did try to explain to mum about a scam I'd seen on Watchdog or another type programme, but she was adamant that they were telling her the truth. As you can imagine I'm worried that they've signed something which may not be true, & going to be paying out money that they don't really have, & for something which they more than likely don't need.

Has anyone heard of this company in Norfolk??? & is anyone able to give me any advice, bearing in mind I only caught a glimpse of what may or may not be a contract, & how to convince my parents that this is a waste of their money.

Hope someone can help

Thanks

Julez

[Deleted User]

It will pay you double if your current meter is an old analogue meter, eg Sangamo Weston type with a rotating ring. That old thing will run backwards as well as advancing the feed in tariff meter. The suppliers are mostly oblivious to this and are quite happy to let them run for years.So long as each quarterly or monthly read does nt go backwards they re happy

eeny

Hi

I've just started working for a Solar Panel company, and there are a lot of pushy salesmen and outrageous claims out there. We would expect £5500 to £6000 for a 4Kw system, the yield for my first 2 quotes gave an annual income of £750 with a payback of around 6 to 7 years. You would be best to get a cheap personal loan (sainsburys have some good rates atm if you cant afford cash) , we would never recommend finance. Got to be some better options out there for you.

Cheers

Ian

System

jooulez wrote: »

Hi everyone

Need some help with PV/Solar panels. My parents (in their 70's & 80's) have had a cold call (via phone call) from a company in Norwich called Green Home Energy Solutions. My problem is that they have been taken in by a sales persons speil, & believe what this person said to them. I didn't know anything about this until I visited today & saw the gumpf & they'd both signed a piece of paper (I only got a quick look so unsure what it was, but did see HUGE amounts of money in at least 3 boxes) I did try to explain to mum about a scam I'd seen on Watchdog or another type programme, but she was adamant that they were telling her the truth. As you can imagine I'm worried that they've signed something which may not be true, & going to be paying out money that they don't really have, & for something which they more than likely don't need.



Has anyone heard of this company in Norfolk??? & is anyone able to give me any advice, bearing in mind I only caught a glimpse of what may or may not be a contract, & how to convince my parents that this is a waste of their money.

Hope someone can help

Thanks

Julez

Julez - have a read of paragraph 6.2.

https://www.recc.org.uk/pdf/consumer-code.pdf?t=201503020958