5% from solar energy: would you invest?

redux

5 or 6% yield sounds very low, considering that some installations are supposed to make about 12 to 18%

Broken_Biscuits

Voyager2002 wrote: »

I have just been looking at this, see http://www.ecoe.org.uk/

In short, it is an offering to buy shares in a solar energy cooperative. They promise to pay interest at an average rate of 5 per cent p.a.; your original investment will eventually be returned to you; the revenue stream arises from the sale of solar electricity generated on the roofs of various public buildings in Exeter. The shares cannot be sold.

This looks like a fairly safe investment, giving a return comparable to the dividend yield of a basket of FTSE 100 companies. There is no scope for capital growth, but the tax relief (available only until tomorrow) should compensate for this -- not that the FTSE 100 has delivered much capital growth recently either!

I was going to invest 5,000 but after reading that there was no market for the shares I scaled this back to 1,000. Is that what you would do?

I invest with abundance generation as a small percentage of my investments. You can currently invest in a solar project at 7%, a biomass project at 8% and a wind project at 12%. Here's the wind one https://www.abundanceinvestment.com/app/projects/upper-pitforthie-windgen

You can invest with as little as a fiver and there is a secondary market where you can sell at a small premium.