Leased solar panels - maximising benefit

olbas_oil

My daughter purchased a house with leased solar panels in 2022. The original company had gone bust in 2014, but the leases were sold on to an investment company, and appear on the title register.

The investment company were unresponsive during the purchase (either to us or the vendors). Nevertheless, I understand she is bound by the original lease., which runs for 25 years. To buy herself out of the lease would cost £16k.

The lease says:

'The Landlord must not interfere with the PV
System or the Rights and shall indemnify the Tenant against all costs and expenses in respect <span>of any breach of this covenant, such costs
to include the removal <i>and </i></span><span>re-installation of any parts of the PV System (which for the
avoidance of doubt shall include the price
of replacing any part of the PV System which cannot be re-used after it
having been removed and any lost Feed in Tariff Payments).'</span>

She is allowed to use the electricity generated by the panels, and we’d like to identify a way of maximising this benefit. Anything plugged in to a socket is ok, but I’m unsure whether we would be allowed to get an electrician to wire anything in on the PV side of the meter.

What ideas are likely to be worth pursuing?

QrizB

I don't think there's anything useful that you can add to the PV circuit without violating the lease.

If you don't already have one, and assuming the property has a conventional heating system with a HW tank rather than a combi boiler, a solar diverter would let your daughter heat her hot water with solar electricity rather than gas /oil / whatever. But you'd need to weigh up the cost of a diverter (£200+) vs. the likely benefit.

Ditto when it comes to any type of domestic energy storage; the £3k+ cost of a professional battery installation might not make sense financially. There are some cheaper DIY plugin options that are intended for European markets; these  don't strictly comply with UK wiring regs, so be cautious around them.

Exiled_Tyke

So it looks like system went in before Aug 2012 (to be on the 25yr FIT scheme - which the investment company gets the benefit of).  This suggests that it is highly unlikely that buying out of the scheme for what at most will be 12 1/2 years won't be worthwhile - but it looks like you've reached that conclusion anyway.  

In theory it would be possible to install a battery with its own inverter to 'collect' the spare electricity. You'd need to do the maths to see whether saving 25 p a unit of electricity would be worth it over the life of the battery as the investment will be a few thousand. And then of course you'd need to consider what size of battery would be most appropriate.   

A good starting point it to collect some data on how much electricity she uses and when.  If she is at home during the day it is a lot easier to make use of the electricity produced. 

Some of us on these boards go to quite some lengths to minimise paying for electricity.  To do this you need to know how much the system produces and when (both time of day and time of year).  Fairly obviously if the panels face East or West you'll get maximum output in the morning or evening respectively.  Also consider that in winter the output can be almost nothing - my best late spring month averages more than ten times the output of December.   If you have a little knowledge about when is best then you can time heavier consumption appliances (e.g. the heating cycles of dishwashers and washing machines)  to coincide.  Unless the system is very large you should avoid running more than one heavy appliance at the same time.  Again you can go to enormous lengths but I avoid having more than one kitchen appliance on at once on a sunny day.  

Alnat1

Most kettles are 3kW and this will very often be more than the panels are producing. Next time the kettle needs replacing (assuming she does use an electric one) buy one with a lower wattage, 1kW, 2kW. This does take slightly longer to boil but is less likely to use grid power on a sunny day.

Will only save fractions of pennies each boil (which is why I said when old one needs replacing) but over time it adds up. As said above, some of us go to quite some lengths......

paul991

use the second feed from water diverter to feed a small converter heater ideal this time of year when bright but cold evenings

olbas_oil

Exiled_Tyke said:

So it looks like system went in before Aug 2012 (to be on the 25yr FIT scheme - which the investment company gets the benefit of).  This suggests that it is highly unlikely that buying out of the scheme for what at most will be 12 1/2 years won't be worthwhile - but it looks like you've reached that conclusion anyway.  

In theory it would be possible to install a battery with its own inverter to 'collect' the spare electricity. You'd need to do the maths to see whether saving 25 p a unit of electricity would be worth it over the life of the battery as the investment will be a few thousand. And then of course you'd need to consider what size of battery would be most appropriate.   

A good starting point it to collect some data on how much electricity she uses and when.  If she is at home during the day it is a lot easier to make use of the electricity produced. 

The MCS is dated 24/7/2012 for a 3.51kW system. Am I right in thinking the feed-in tariff is based on an assumed export, and doesn't depend on either the sun or the power used domestically? If I did buy out the lease (though £16k seems like an absurd amount of money) what kind of tariff could I expect?

I suspect the actual solar power is nothing like the 3012kWh estimated annual generation (on the MCS). I have to go into the loft to read the led, but even on sunny days it does not often exceed 1kW. 

Martyn1981

There should be a TGM (total generation meter) somewhere, which will show how much has been generated over the years. Unless it's failed and been replaced at any point.

3,012kWh from a 3.51kWp PV system is entirely possible, but will of course depend on orientation, pitch, shading etc, and if it's all still working well. [You mention rarely reading more than 1kW. If it's working well, then on a sunny day, after the panels have heated up (which reduces efficiency), I'd have expected you to see closer to 3kW, or about 85% of the 3.51kWp rating.]

At a very rough guess, I'd say the subsidy is probably around 33p/kWh*, so if generating ~3,000kWh pa, that would earn about £1,000pa (index linked), so between now and 2037, probably not worth the £16k.

*Rough guess at the FiT (feed in tariff) paid on all units generated, plus the payment for deemed export at 50% of the generation rate.

Ectophile

olbas_oil said:

Exiled_Tyke said:

So it looks like system went in before Aug 2012 (to be on the 25yr FIT scheme - which the investment company gets the benefit of).  This suggests that it is highly unlikely that buying out of the scheme for what at most will be 12 1/2 years won't be worthwhile - but it looks like you've reached that conclusion anyway.  

In theory it would be possible to install a battery with its own inverter to 'collect' the spare electricity. You'd need to do the maths to see whether saving 25 p a unit of electricity would be worth it over the life of the battery as the investment will be a few thousand. And then of course you'd need to consider what size of battery would be most appropriate.   

A good starting point it to collect some data on how much electricity she uses and when.  If she is at home during the day it is a lot easier to make use of the electricity produced. 

The MCS is dated 24/7/2012 for a 3.51kW system. Am I right in thinking the feed-in tariff is based on an assumed export, and doesn't depend on either the sun or the power used domestically? If I did buy out the lease (though £16k seems like an absurd amount of money) what kind of tariff could I expect?

I suspect the actual solar power is nothing like the 3012kWh estimated annual generation (on the MCS). I have to go into the loft to read the led, but even on sunny days it does not often exceed 1kW. 

The FIT is based on the amount of electricity generated.  So it depends a lot on how sunny it is.  It does not depend at all on how much you use vs. how much spare electricity goes to the grid.

Exiled_Tyke

Agree with all of the above.  And Martyn's estimate feels about right. It is highly unlikely that the buyout will be worth while. There is another option to make you aware of which is that if you did buy out of the lease agreement then you claim actual export (with a smart meter) rather than 50% deemed export. So if your daughter uses very little of the electricity this could improve the figures. That said I don't think you are ever going to justify £16k. 

The 1kW max generation figure seems worrying. How recent is this?  Go back to March and there was a lot of the day when 1kW was around my generation.  You need to find a sunny day and check at a time when the panels are facing the direction of the sun . My West facing panels produce next to nothing on a bright day when the sun is coming from the East but by mid afternoon they are at their peak. 

QrizB

Exiled_Tyke said:

 You need to find a sunny day and check at a time when the panels are facing the direction of the sun .

Or, if the property has a smart meter, read the export register on sequential evenings and see how many kWh are being generated in total. On a good day you'd expect 14-20kWh. Much less than this and there might be a problem.

(You'd hope the company that's leasing the roof would be monitoring this too, as it's where they're getting their income.)

olbas_oil

Ectophile said:

The FIT is based on the amount of electricity generated.  So it depends a lot on how sunny it is.  It does not depend at all on how much you use vs. how much spare electricity goes to the grid.

OK, so the leasing company would still get the same income, if we were to fit a battery. So they should have no objections. I don't hold out much hope, because they do no maintenance, and were very difficult to contact when the vendor's solicitor was attempting to obtain the MCS.