Solar Panels - Project Solar UK

TamsinC

Any advice? Just had a salesman around. He's trying a bit of a hard sell but we are immune. So looking for advice.

Also for another companies? Only looking for electricity production not water heating etc.

Cardew

There is a long thread on this particular firm in the Green and Ethical board on this forum. See:



https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/5257124/project-solar-panels-quote


The many experts who contribute to that forum consider their prices are far too high - and that is an understatement!

System

TamsinC wrote: »

He's trying a bit of a hard sell but we are immune.

Putting the installer to one side for the moment, the real issue today is cost versus benefits. I had a PV array in my previous home and in 7 years, we just about covered the cost of the array plus installation. The remaining 17/18 years would have been all ‘profit.’

Sadly, that is not the case today. Costs have fallen but so have feed in tariffs. My simple calculations show that I would need to live another 15 years to cover the cost of a new installation if I was to go ahead today. This doesn’t take into account the loss of interest on capital. No doubt the ‘salesman’ will have produced some clever figures showing a rapidly escalating cost of electricity and high usage of free electricity. In truth, most people struggle to use more than 25% of the solar energy produced as it is not available at night or on a foggy Winter’s day. The salesman might also have mentioned battery storage. A great idea but batteries are expensive and they deteriorate with every recharge cycle. At the moment, the cost of ‘free’ home stored electricity costs more than power from the Grid.

The salesman might also have mentioned a loan which will be 100% covered by your feed in tariffs and energy savings. This is just not possible in Winter and it was a struggle for those who were receiving 50p/kWh feed in payments. I could go on.

There is a very good PV Solar calculator on the Energy Savings Trust website. You might be surprised by the results.

https://www.pvfitcalculator.energysavingtrust.org.uk

Cardew

Hengus wrote: »

There is a very good PV Solar calculator on the Energy Savings Trust website. You might be surprised by the results.

https://www.pvfitcalculator.energysavingtrust.org.uk

Totally agree with your conclusions. However not having seen this calculator I entered some hypothetical data for my property(Midlands).



I entered reasonably optimum details for a 4kWp system i.e. EPC band D, South facing, no shading, in all day etc using £50 a month electricity.


It estimated my instalation costs as £5,970 and my savings over 25 years as £6,130. so a profit of £130 or five ponds a year.



This was from an estimated saving of £303pa at today's date taking into account FIT, Export, and in house usage. It also took into account 20 years of FIT and 5 years without FIT and degredation in the 25 year calculation; but not inflation of FIT/electricity costs.


However it doesn't seem to have given any allowance for repairs over that 25 years.


Crucially it ignores the cost of borrowing the money(£5,970) for the installation; or the loss of interest if you had sufficient funds.


In a long term bond or ISA it is possible to get 2.7% interest on a 5 year deal. £5,970 thus produces £161pa. After 25 years that sum will have grown to over £10,000.


So in terms of money saving solar is a complete non-starter.

matelodave

I did the same as Cardew and got similar results however it sort of estimates that your leccy consumption is linear (ie you use roughly the same amount every month £50/mo = £600/year)

However if you are like me with electric heating thats running all day in the winter and hardly at all in the summer then I probably cant get anywhere near the savings as they estimate out of solar.

I use vast quantities of leccy more than solar can generate in the winter and probably can't even use 25% of the generated capacity in the summer.

Even when the FIT etc was at a decent level I struggled to make the sums work and I wasn't certain that I'd live long enough to see a return on the investment.

However I reckon my heatpump has just about paid for itself after seven years and I've still got three years worth of RHI to come

System

My 15 years RoI was based on the two extraordinary factors:

1. We are retired and at home all day.

2. We have an EV.

We were using c.60% of our annual output of 1900kwhs/year on a 2.15kWp array.

TamsinC

Yep - I was very suspicious about our EPC and even directly asked the salesman and he said it wasn't a problem. It's an F. His numbers came out at us 'earning' around 37K over 25 years with the system he was selling - this included some spurious maths around the cost of electricity increasing by nearly 7% every year - I am waiting for him to email the 'details'. I am positive he was using the highest feed in tariff. A couple of calculators on line have now basically said we would be lucky to get the cost of a cheaper system [8K rather his 13K] back over 15 years.

What we have to consider is would it still be worth that? Probably not I imagine, but I will crunch the numbers.

We've also been looking at air source - but . . 400 year old cottage and solid floors that I'm not sure we want to pull up to put UFH in, and doubling radiators isn't feasible really either - looking at a total cost of around 17K for AS and extra rads or UFH and would recoup 10K in RHI.

Lordy knows, I WANT to go green, but this house just doesn't make it easy. Maybe we should just stick the money in the bank.

System

TamsinC wrote: »

Yep - I was very suspicious about our EPC and even directly asked the salesman and he said it wasn't a problem. It's an F. His numbers came out at us 'earning' around 37K over 25 years with the system he was selling - this included some spurious maths around the cost of electricity increasing by nearly 7% every year - I am waiting for him to email the 'details'. I am positive he was using the highest feed in tariff. A couple of calculators on line have now basically said we would be lucky to get the cost of a cheaper system [8K rather his 13K] back over 15 years.

What we have to consider is would it still be worth that? Probably not I imagine, but I will crunch the numbers.

We've also been looking at air source - but . . 400 year old cottage and solid floors that I'm not sure we want to pull up to put UFH in, and doubling radiators isn't feasible really either - looking at a total cost of around 17K for AS and extra rads or UFH and would recoup 10K in RHI.

Lordy knows, I WANT to go green, but this house just doesn't make it easy. Maybe we should just stick the money in the bank.

There is no highest feed in tariff. The rate is set by Government and it is linked to the date of system registration and is subject to an RPI increase each April. If anyone told me that I would make £X in 25 years, I would show him/her the door. Currently, FITs are only paid for 20 years. There is no way that anybody should be paying even £8k for a 4kWp system. Have a look at the The Green and Ethical forum for typical system quotes.

Your EPC is also a problem and anyone who is telling you otherwise is telling huge ‘porkies’. You would have to increase the EPC from an F to D BEFORE you can apply for FITs - but that’s not the installer’s problem!!

TamsinC

We are stuck then it seems - there is no way to increase the EPC - the house has bedrooms in the roof, is solid stone walled, the roof is insulated with that sliver stuff but there is no way to prove it as it can't be seen as no attic space, solid floor - stuff that can be changed won't bring it up to a D

It's just not going to be sensible to go down any routes it seems. We can't get the EPC up to a D without ripping the heart out of a seventeenth century cottage.

My thoughts are that these are the houses the government should be helping the most. But hey ho.