Green investment - funds vs solar system

Johnnyboy11

Solar never stacked up for us either, £15k upfront and a 15 year breakeven period. But not wanting to miss out on the state subsidies being hosed around the renewables industry, we invested instead in BP and SSE shares. Happy with our decision so far, the dividends cover half of our energy bill and we have ready access to our capital if needed.

silverwhistle

Well, I have solar and rather too many SSE shares as I've has them 20+ years and never got round to re-weighting! My FITs cover my fuel bills and my SSE divis by over 3 times. As there are plenty of state subsidies being pushed the way of nuclear will you be investing there too? 

I can't comment on the economics as I've had mine 12 years and the £6k I paid came out of my rainy day cash ISA savings with a yield not worth mentioning. For me it was a simple calculation and they were in place a month after my return to the house from abroad.

But on a low income I found the fact that I didn't have to worry about my bills reassuring, as well as the environmental aspect which I ascribed a value to even if others might not. A new kitchen would have been nice, but a long term investment in the house that actually yielded an income, and minimised the amount I had to pay out of taxed income was a bonus.

As with any investment there are variables to consider, but this one was directly in my sight and under my control, without any mediation through investment funds, and the bureaucracy of business and the taxman. They also had an educational role in making me appreciate electricity and how to best use it efficiently. 

My next step is a heat pump as I'd like to get rid of gas. This time I'm going to include the kitchen as part of the upgrade!;-)

Newbie_John

Linton said:

I think the choice between investing in companies running solar farms and buying domestic solar generation equipment is a false dichotomy.

If your motives are green I dont see that buying shares in solar farms adds much to reducing climate change.  The point is that when you buy the solar shares you are normally paying the previous owner of those shares.  None of your money actually goes into increasing the total amount of solar electricity generated except possibly very indirectly.

But by buying your own solar generation you are directly adding to the total amount of solar electricity.

If you are solely motivated by the financial returns why restrict yourself to investing in solar funds?

 

But I guess that's the point, solar is only worth it if you want to be "green" otherwise if you want to lower electricity bills there are better investments. My idea similar to @roger1975 is to find something in-between, but I get that, it doesn't make you green..

Roger175

It is probably worth adding that in our case, we made other 'green' investments in the house. Being a new build and with me building it, it was easy to invest in measures which avoided needing the energy to heat it in the first place. Such measures included mega levels of insulation, loads of thermal-mass, triple glazing, underfloor heating (in screed) with air source heat pump, which all make for an incredibly efficient and very comfortable house. In my view this was an investment and a very green one at that -- we could have just built to a 'normal' new-build standard, but that would have meant additional heating costs. Many of these things are retro-fittable and must be considered alongside PV solar.