Solar panels-worth it anymore

Stevepd

We were travelling by a newly built estate and my wife suggested we perhaps look into solar panels. I was under the impression that the bubble has burst to get into the market now. We live in a 1962 bungalow and is easterly facing. Any thoughts please.

matelodave

You are correct, the bubble has burst and the boat has sailed.

There is no Feed In Tariff, so the only benefit that you'll get is from the electricity that you generate. As most of it gets generated during the day in the summer, most people can probably only use around 50% of what they generate unless they are at home all day and can make sure they use as much as possible when the sun shines.
The rest gets wasted unless you can find a way of using it to possibly help heat your hot water.

So with a 4kwp system that might generate around 3500kwh a year, you end up with around 1500-2000kwh of usable leccy. At 15p/kwh = about £250 a year if you are lucky.

A 4kwp system would cost around £5-6k, so 5,000/250= araound 20 years to get your money back (assuming that you had no problems or failures). Factor in around £1k for maintenance or a replacement inverter and that would add another four years to your payback period.

It gets even worse if you decide to borrow the money to pay for it because you'll pay interest on what you borrow. Just finding a savings account that would pay you say 1.5% would give you £75 a year (and you'd still have your 5k).

TBH I reckon premium bonds are a better bet than solar panels at the moment, but thats just my opinion

Heedtheadvice

^^^ as above, from a solar power user....


Unless:
You are off grid (not many of us)
You have it as an expensive hobby
You DIY install
You do it for it's green credentials


Even latterly whilst FIT was being paid it could be a gamble.
Many did not get an economic install, paid over the odds, borrowed to finance (and maybe paid more in interest than income!), had money tied up if cash used, over the longer term (20 years or so )could have done better by investing the cash (rather than low intefest accounts) or went for rent a roof scheme with a different set of risks and little financial benefit, or believed some of the 'optimistic' claim made by some sellers, or find guarantees are now worthless as companies vanish.........


Now a very poor financial proposition even if electricity prices rocket.


Here we are trying to go greener and the gov pulls the plug. We can argue about the method the 'subsidy' was found but paying to reduce consumption and what was exported was surely sensible to meet our environmental goals. Some other benefits do the opposite!


Glad I got mine but could now no longer afford it!