Help and guidance please on solar energy

Martyn1981

Love_Solar wrote: »

I would recommend the following a 3 kW system

Do what?

With all the fixed cost expense of installing a PV system, you'd recommend stopping at 3kWp, when there appears to be room for at least 4kWp, even though the extra cost of that last kWp would be a grand or less. That's just plain daft.

Plus the OP appears to have an above average leccy consumption, so going small is doubly daft.

Love_Solar wrote: »

with the price of electric increasing by 6% per year the total savings over twenty five years would be £7703.00 approx.

With assumed RPI per year of 1.5%

How exactly is energy price inflation going to be 4.5% more than RPI for 25 years given:

that nuclear is to get ~£100/MWH
Large scale PV is already down to £80/MWh
On-shore wind £80/MWh
Off-shore wind £120/MWh
Coal (going)
Gas with CO2 tax ~ £80 to £100/MWh

So prices should only rise from ~£50/MWh now to ~£100/MWh (in todays money). Next take that rise of £50/MWh (5p/kWh) and apply it to our bills, that means a rise from around 14p to 19p.

14p to 19p = +36% (+RPI)

4.5% compounded for an additional 24 years = +187% (+RPI)

Don't expect a warm response, as PV'ers on here get a little protective when it comes to misleading financial estimates.

Mart.

Love_Solar

Oh dear I think I’ve ruffled a few feathers with my other solar PV installers, I only asked a simple question at the start about the customer consumption and price per kW they where paying for their electric, apologies to Hethmar is this is getting a little heavy but here is the reply tunnel and Martyn1981 questions and comments.

Q1 Why have I done electric savings over twenty five years when the FITs stop at twenty?
Answer the solar panels don’t stop saving you money then the FIT payments stop.

Q2 Why have I put a price increase of 6% per year when the RPI is now a 0 %
Answer Prices will go up over the following years as this is an assumption increase.

Q3 Why have I added 1.5 % RPI when the current rate is zero to the FITs payments?
Answer is, The FIT price has increased by the following percentage over the last few years.
In 2011 the FITs increased by 4.8% from 41.3p to 43.3p per kw
In 2012 the FITs increased by 4.8% from 43.3p to 45.4p per kw
In 2013 the FIT increased by 3.1% from 45.4p to 46.81p per kw
In 2014 the FITs increased by 2.7% from 46.81p to 48.07p per kw
This year the FIT increased by 1.6% from 48.07p to 48.84p per kw
Yes we are at zero % at present but this will go back up over the years and another table below shows a percentage rise of 1.5% per year as a guide only.
Please note the fits quoted above is for what I'm receiving from the system I installed back in 2011at my own home.


Below is a table with expected prices of electric and savings over the twenty years.
The start price is 10.735p as this is the price First Utility is charging at present and I’m on the same tariff.

My Price of System too expensive go to Swithenbanks for materials?
No thank you, I buy my materials from Wind and Sun they have been in the renewable business for over thirty years. I have done all my training there and now an approved REC solar PV installer, SMA approved installer and Solaredge approved installer. Being an approved installer I get paid to change solar panels, inverters and optimisation units if they fail, all this is free of charge to the end user do you offer this service?
All materials are traceable and with the REC solar Panels the end user gets a certificate with all serial numbers and test results direct from REC. REC solar have won the photon test back in 2011 and just won more awards with their twin peak panels.
All prices can be seen on the wind and sun website.

Why would I only install 3 kW of solar panels instead of the possible 4 kW
Yes I can install a 4 kw system for £5K with REC panels and SMA inverter, but why install more than you have too, as I said before the majority of people save only 30% of their total consumption with installing solar panels. Now I have a new figure of 5607 kW per year and as long this doesn’t include any storage heaters on cheap rate electric, I will use this as electric used in the home over one year and not my assumption of 4362 kwh.
Adding solar panels to the property with using 5607 kW per year they will save about 30% or 1682 kw per year. Even if I use your 3800 kw as a generation figure because you are in Norfolk using the 50% rule this equals 1900 KW, in my other post I was using the figure 3363 form the other solar PV provider. It’s always best to be on site to do a proper survey and I use the Solmetric suneye to do my shading for the MCS foil.

Solar PV system
7 x 265 REC panels on south roof 7 x 265 = 1.85kW x 961 = 1782
5 x 265 REC panels on South West roof 5 x 265 = 1.32 x 905 = 1199
Total generation 2981 kWh per first year.
In house usage of 1682 KW per year every year.
I boost usage of 600 kW on average per year
Exported kW 699 kW

Cost / Breakdown of 3 kW system sorry 12 x 265 watt = 3.18KW
12 x 265 watt REC panels £162.51 each £1950.12
Roof mounting kit £300
3kw Solaredge inverter £621.36 includes as standard a 12 year warranty
12 x P300 optimisation units £35 each £420.00 25 year warranty as standard
Solaredge extended warranty £156.00 from 12 to 20 years.
AC side cables, AC isolators, generation meter, conduit, fixings etc £130.00
DC Side Cables DC isolators, MC4 plugs and sockets £60.00
Scaffolding £400.00 unless you intend to do it off a ladder
Labour £800 two days work as this is installed correctly by myself with an apprentice.
Delivery cost £95.00
Iboost unit £260.00
MCs certificate £25.00
NICEIC extra circuit certificate and building control notification £8.00
NICEIC solar PV building control notification £5.00
Roof calculation for wind and snow loading £60.00 as per MCS rules.
EPC £55.00
5 Year workmanship warranty £40 sorry it’s free as I can’t charge for this.

Total Price £5345.48 + Vat 5%
My hand over pack to the end user contains every piece of information the customer should have according to the RECC and MCS.

So why put in a smaller system?
First is the end user going to stay in the same property for twenty Years?
Why spend more that you have too. Even with the 3 kw system you are still going to export over 699 kW per the first year, even more if you install a 4 kw system.
Value for money with warranties and back up service that means something, I’ve been an electrician for over thirty two years and been self employed for over twenty years, I have been installing solar Panels for the last five years and have kept records from past customers what the have saved and trust me it’s on average 30% not the 50% used and 50% exported.
I have just helped someone who had problems with his 7.75 kW system installed in Spalding Lincolnshire, yes 3.75KW on a south roof generating 3500 kw per year and 4 kw on the north roof generating 1600 kw per year. Total generation of 5100kw per year, the system is 1 year old and he has generated the 5100 kw but he was told he would save 50% of the 5100 kw from his electric bill a wopping 2550 kw @ 13p per kw so saving him £331.50 off his bill.
What the solar PV company didn’t ask was what was his consumption per year, his consumption was only 2000 kw per year and pays only £20 per month, so he wasn’t never going to make the savings the company suggested. His expected profit is £57.000 over twenty years, and he had it installed last year.

Your in house savings from a 3.18 kw system.
Inhouse savings of 1682 kw per year every year. First Utility 10.735p per kw, No saving can be made on your standing charge.
Y1 10.7p @1682 kwh = £180.56
Y2 11.4p = £191.40
Y3 12.1p =£202.88
Y4 12.8p =£215.05
Y5 13.6p =£227.96
Y6 14.4p =£241.63
Y7 15.2p =£256.13
Y8 16.1p =£271.50
Y9 17.1p =£287.79
Y10 18.1p =£305.06
Y11 19.2 p =£323.36
Y12 20.4p =£342.76
Y13 21.6p =£363.33
Y14 22.9p =£385.13
Y15 24.3p =£408.23
Y16 25.7p =£432.73
Y17 27.3p =£458.69
Y18 28.9p =£486.21
Y19 30.6p =£515.39
Y20 32.5p =£546.31

Total saving of £6642.11 over twenty years.
The energy saving trust quote £150 saving from a 4 kW system with generation of 3800kw per year.


Export payments as follows, with RPI again at 1.5 % assumed increase per year. export 50% of total generation.
Y1 £72.17
Y2 £72.74
Y3 £73.31
Y4 £73.89
Y5 £74.47
Y6 £75.06
Y7 £75.65
Y8 £76.25
Y9 £76.85
Y10 £77.46
Y11 £78.07
Y12 £78.69
Y13 £79.31
Y14 £79.94
Y15 £80.57
Y16 £81.20
Y17 £81.84
Y18 £82.49
Y19 £83.14
Y20 £83.80

Total expected fits payments £1556.92 with assumed RPI at 1.5 %

Total generation FITs payments with by generating 2981 kw per first year and RPI of 1.5% increase per year assumed
Y1 12.92p per kw @ 2981 = £385.15
Y2 13.11p per kw @ 2960 = £388.19
Y3 13.31p per kw @ 2939 = £391.25
Y4 13.51p per kw @ 2919 = £394.34
Y5 13.71p per kw @ 2898 = £397.45
Y6 13.92p per kw @ 2878 = £400.59
Y7 14.13p per kw @ 2858 = £403.75
Y8 14.34p per kw @ 2838 = £406.94
Y9 14.55p per kw @ 2818 = £410.15
Y10 14.77p per kw @ 2798 = £413.39
Y11 14.99p per kw @ 2779 = £416.66
Y12 15.22p per kw @ 2759 = £419.95
Y13 15.45p per kw @ 2740 = £423.26
Y14 15.68p per kw @ 2721 = £426.60
Y15 15.91p per kw @ 2702 = £429.97
Y16 16.15p per kw @ 2683 = £433.37
Y17 16.40p per kw @ 2664 = 436.79
Y18 16.64p per kw @ 2645 = £440.23
Y19 16.89p per kw @ 2627 = £443.71
Y20 17.14p per kw @ 2609 = £447.21
Total Generation FITs payable is £8308.95

System Fits £8308.95
Export payments £1556.92
In house savings 30% of 5607 kWh £6642.11
Iboost saving £64 per year x 20 years = £1280
Total profit £17,787.98
System cost £5000.00 + VAT 5%
Profit £12,537.95

Warranted system for twenty years, now if you wanted to add more panels you wouldn’t save any more off your electric bill.
Questions
How would you know if one of your panels stopped working without the monitoring of the solaredge system? Check out solaredge.com public sites, and see site neat you.
If I stop trading my customers have all telephone numbers for Wind and Sun, REC and Solaredge, for an approved installer to come and repair or replace their panels, inverter or optimisation units to the system free of charge as long as they have the extended warranty from 12 to 20 years and the system is fully monitored online.
What warranty do you give your customers if you stopped trading?

4 KW Solar PV kits can be purchased from as little as £2950 + delivery and VAT online but would you install them, where are the warranties if anything goes wrong, the wholesaler will be long gone and only warranty material for one year so it's down to the installer to put the system right.

You get what you pay for in this world and profit is not a bad word, training apprentices being members of the NICEIC, RECC, MCS and insurances cost money and doing the job correctly and doing it right first time for the customer is a must. A satisfied customer will always get more work for you in the future, most of my work comes from word of mouth, I only looked at this site to find out about the cuts to the FIT payments.


Date 20/072015
With the government in the news about slashing the FITs payments for small solar PV system within the new few weeks, I know I will only get more solar PV systems to install, the cowboys will leave the market as they won’t be able to sell the systems and get the returns, the only way to survive is to install smaller system and be 100% efficient so every kw you generate you use yourself.
I sell more 2 kW system than 4 kw system and customers still reduce there bills down by 1200 kW per year when using 3500 kw per year. Check out the Geo111 generation meter it monitors pv generation, self consumption and export it cost £300 but well worth it.

Good trustworthy honest solar PV installers are had to find so do you home work and don’t sign any contract on the night, get at least three quotes, and compare what they have to say.
A 4 kW system can cost between £4500.00 to install on a bungalow to £7000.00 for a fully integrated system on a two story house using scaffolding.

Battery storage
Tesla are developing a battery storage unit in conjunction with Solar Edge which can give you up to 10 kW of power from the batteries, but at present this is not cost effective but the prices of the batteries will come down, just another reason to install a solar edge inverter.

tunnel

Wow,
It's pretty obvious that electric savings will continue beyond the 20yr FiT. So why not continue and add in up to 30yrs, maybe 40. That's because payback is based on a 20year FiT and anything beyond that is just massaging the figures to make it sound more appealing to the end customer.

There's no point detailing your price, £5345.48 + Vat 5%(£5612 inc VAT) for a 3.18kWp system is in my view still expensive, people come on this site for advice to save money, although sometimes some do go for the local touch and don't mind paying that bit more(they are few and far between)

As for monitoring, there's a whole host of options open to monitor your panels performance without going down the more expensive, good for shading, solaredge system(of which your price is some £160 more than the swithenbanks retail price). I admit the monitoring is great, but to quote and charge for something that's not needed is still beyond my comprehension.

Going next to the iboost, you have used electric for the saving comparison when more often than not the unit of energy "saved" will be gas at nearly a third of the cost of electric

I still can't get my head around the fact that you advise a 3.1kWp system when the basic costs are the same for a 4kWp. When someone wants payback figures it makes sense to get the maximum return for their investment(maximum return from the FiT), which to me comes from the biggest system of up to 4kWp they can achieve.

I have no doubt that you probably do a great job and pick up recommendations, but the fact remains that for less than £1k more someone can increase their return from the FiT by nearly 33% by going to a 4kWp system, a far better return than your 3.18 will ever achieve.

Ps, I've thanked your post for the effort.


Edit, just to add, the panels you are buying are nearly £40 each more than the retail price from the company I've stated, maybe if you changed suppliers you'll be able to become competitive.

Martyn1981

Love_Solar wrote: »

Oh dear I think I’ve ruffled a few feathers with my other solar PV installers, I only asked a simple question at the start about the customer consumption and price per kW they where paying for their electric, apologies to Hethmar is this is getting a little heavy but here is the reply tunnel and Martyn1981 questions and comments.

Wow. Huge post, no real info, just a lot of misinformed statements, and no actual answers to the points we raised.

Firstly, I'm not an installer, which is why I always find it odd that my tiny, tiny knowledge is often in dispute with the claims made by installers. So here we go:

Secondly, you use a 50% consumption of generation figure, all of us on this forum know that, that is nonsense, with a true figure around 25% to 35%.

Later on, you state that 50% is too high, so why state it then? The usual excuse is that if the govt can assume 50% export, we can assume 50% consumption, but I don't buy that. It's misleading.

Thirdly, you give costs for a 3.18kWp system, claiming that is cost effective. But extracting some costs;
Panels 3 x £162.51 = £487
Roof kit (£300/9) x 3 =£75
PO's 3 x £35 = £105
Labour DC (£800/2) = £400/9 x3 = £133

Total £800

3.18kWp = £5,612

3.973kWp = £6,452

Price + 15% whilst generation is +25%

If I take your FiT + Export and add more modest leccy savings of £120 I get £577.

Increasing FiT and export by 25%, and leaving leccy savings at £120* I get £691. A 20% increase for 15% cost.

*Of course leccy savings will be higher, whenever demand exceeds generation from the 3.18kWp, but the extra savings will diminish with every additional panel.

Your post makes repeated arguments for sub 4kWp systems. You seem to be making a system size argument for a post FiT (or minimal FiT) world, when FiT (plus export) are currently still the majority income streams.

Fourthly, whilst you spent a lot of time explaining the 1.5% RPI (I have no issue with that) you completely failed to explain the 6% energy price inflation figure. I tried to point out in my last post an 'idiot check', in that prices can only rise by a certain amount before 'new generation' costs have maxed out, and will then only rise in line with RPI.

You made that very simple for me by supplying two figures - 1.5% RPI and 6% energy price inflation. Meaning that 4.5% is the increase on todays prices.

I showed that energy supply prices (in todays money) can't really rise from £50/MWh to more than £100/MWh. That is a rise on our leccy bills of roughly 14p to 19p.

Martyn1981 wrote: »

So prices should only rise from ~£50/MWh now to ~£100/MWh (in todays money). Next take that rise of £50/MWh (5p/kWh) and apply it to our bills, that means a rise from around 14p to 19p.

14p to 19p = +36% (+RPI)

4.5% compounded for an additional 24 years = +187% (+RPI)

If we work back from the +187% figure, that's a leccy price (again in todays money) of 40p/kWh. Deduct the 9p difference, gives a 31p/kWh or £310/MWh cost of the leccy generation.

Why will generation in 25 years time, in todays money (we are both accepting a RPI increase of 1.5%) cost 3 times more than the cost today of 'new generation'? By all means explain the cost of large scale storage, and expensive HVDC interconnectors if you like, but please explain the numbers, rather than just ignore them this time.

If you want, have a read of the PV FAQs section 1. These were written by a large group of PV'ers over 3 years ago, but even then we were well ahead of energy price inflation tricks. Section 1 (part 3(cont)):

Similarly, some quotes project enormous savings in the future via compounding large annual bill increases for the whole 20 years. Do not be misled, future prices remain an unknown, for decision purposes only expect reasonable annual savings.

Mart.

PS. Like T, I appreciate the effort you have put into replying, and you seem to be quite genuine, but I couldn't bring myself to thank your post, since you seemed to dodge the energy inflation issue, and I really, really, really don't like maths tricks, or misleading financial information. M.

Martyn1981

tunnel wrote: »

Edit, just to add, the panels you are buying are nearly £40 each more than the retail price from the company I've stated, maybe if you changed suppliers you'll be able to become competitive.

Ouch! I missed that completely. The BenQ 285Wp mono black frames are each £20 less too at retail prices.

Mart.

hethmar

Oh dear, Im sorry to have caused anyone upset.

Had another quote today, local firm - says that only 12 seraphims will fit on the roofs. Another extension roof could be used to up it to 18 if we wanted.

The chap seemed very honest - the accumulated "profit" figure was much lower than the previous quote - and have to say based on 12 panels with i booster and ABB inverter giving otput of 3.42 KW - the table presented was a lot clearer and seemed to say that our savings would basically be only about £173 a year (+ £395 FIt, £74 export total return year 1 £643), which shocked us a bit as we assumed all our electricity bill would be covered plus we would get the input money. As new pensioners, would we see much benefit if it takes about 8 years to clear the original installation cost?

Am I looking at this the wrong way? The cost was £5995 this time on basically same plan but with 2 less panels.

tunnel

I'm guessing 285Wp seraphims? May be worth considering the other roof too, using 250Wp panels and hitting the 4kWp size for maximum return for the least investment. Which way does the extension roof face, same as one of the others? can it be linked to the other 2?


Don't worry about upset, I'm not, I, like Mart don't like anyone making false representations and poor advice.

hethmar

Thanks

The chap actually got up a ladder to check stuff which the other guy didnt. He said the side extension is partly shaded by the main house and that using 3 roofs would require oh, cant remember - another thing rather than just 2 strings? He said that the shading for 4 hours a day would bring down the output of the other two set ups? The cost was over £9k for all three roofs and he suggested it wouldnt be worth the extra layout.

He also gave us a quote for sunpower panels for the two roofs but that came out with all the other stuff to £8000.

Love_Solar

Thank you for your comments and where to buy solar materials from at reduced prices.


In the original post the customer had a quote for a 4KW system generating 3363 KW of power/kW per year and a price off £7195.00 and given an expected profit of £29,711.00, this I pointed out was well over inflated and my expected profit for the 3.12 kw system was £12,537.00 with using the consumers annual electric consumption of 5607kwh per year.

First of all do you agree with my profit for this system or should it be lower?

What price should the customer pay for a 4 kW System ?

What would be the return on investment on this solar PV System?

What would the customer save on their electric bill in the first year, remember that the customer is paying 10.735per per KW for electric with First Utility?

One other point is that on the Energy Saving trust website they quote the customer would use 25% of what the solar PV system generates, and would export 75%.
On a shade greener website they quote a saving of up to 40% of the customer’s bills, not quite the same as consumption saved but they have installed over 55 thousand solar PV installations and they do have a lot of grafts and tables on this page.

I think we all have the end user best interests at heart and a small disagreements about what percent of price increase on energy per year is taking us off the subject.

tunnel

I know of one poster who used the company I told you about who got 12 x BenQ 330Wp panels installed for I believe £6500 with a solaredge inverter
This is him, I'm sure he'll be happy to answer your questions
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/member.php?u=2377076


You could probably get away with not having solaredge(its really made for shading) and maybe shave a little(not much) off the price.