Solar PV Panels

Equaliser123

grahamc2003 wrote: »

I googled, and solar still doesn't make any sense to me.

It's either a good method of electricity generation, or not a good method. Simply taking money away from all electricity users and giving it to those users who have solar panels doesn't alter that fact.

BTW, solar is a rediculous and incredibly expensive method of generating electricity in the UK. Worse still, I have to pay for other's pv generation whether I like it or not.

The comment was in relation to the guy who couldn't understand the economics and seemingly had no knowledge of the FIT scheme.

Whether you like it or know, FIT is here.

Goldwing1

I've had solar panels installed for almost a year. They went live on 14/2/09.

While the FIT payments have not been running for a full year I have been running a spreadsheet which assumes it has in order to show an annual income.

In terms of cash, that means I should get a little over £500 per annum.

The system (7 panels) cost £7000.

My monthly fuel bill (Gas and Electric) has reduced by £20 per month. That does not take account of recent price rises.

I regards the panels as an asset to the house and will improve the saleability of it. Because of that I don't view the investment in terms of break even but more as percentage interest for cash invested.

On that very simple basis, I'm very happy.:)

zeupater

Goldwing1 wrote: »

I've had solar panels installed for almost a year. They went live on 14/2/09.

While the FIT payments have not been running for a full year I have been running a spreadsheet which assumes it has in order to show an annual income.

In terms of cash, that means I should get a little over £500 per annum.

The system (7 panels) cost £7000.

My monthly fuel bill (Gas and Electric) has reduced by £20 per month. That does not take account of recent price rises.

I regards the panels as an asset to the house and will improve the saleability of it. Because of that I don't view the investment in terms of break even but more as percentage interest for cash invested.

On that very simple basis, I'm very happy.:)

Hi Goldwing1

I understand you have panels, but your mathematics doesn't stand up to logic .... can you explain the discrepancy so that I can understand .... ?

If your FiT payments are £500/year you must be generating a total of 1210kWh per year (500/0.413), yet you are saving £240/year in electricity (20x12) which equates to somewhere near 2400kWh per year (240/0.1) ..... that equates to using, and therefore saving, 198% of what you produce .....

I'm confused .... are you sure ????

Regards
Z

Cardew

Goldwing1 wrote: »

I've had solar panels installed for almost a year. They went live on 14/2/09.

While the FIT payments have not been running for a full year I have been running a spreadsheet which assumes it has in order to show an annual income.

In terms of cash, that means I should get a little over £500 per annum.

The system (7 panels) cost £7000.

My monthly fuel bill (Gas and Electric) has reduced by £20 per month. That does not take account of recent price rises.

I regards the panels as an asset to the house and will improve the saleability of it. Because of that I don't view the investment in terms of break even but more as percentage interest for cash invested.

On that very simple basis, I'm very happy.:)

If they went live on 14/02/09 that is nearly 2 years ago.

FITs didn't start until April 2010.

You don't say what size panels, would that be 7 x 200wp = 1.4kWp?
£7k is very cheap for early 2009 or whenever!

If you worked out that FITs would give you an income of a lttle over £500 that means you are forecast to generate approx 1,200kWh per year.

Whilst your gas and electricity prices have reduced by £20 a month, (£240 pa) are you implying that all that reduction is due to your PV system?

If I invest money in a bank at x% interest, I always have access to those funds, plus the interest that has accrued.

Investing in PV panels means your funds are not available to you and using your calculation method, you have to sell your property to realise those funds - and what is more sell the house at market price plus £7,000.

Edit
I made it just under 1200kWh per annum as I took into account selling half your output @3p/kWh.

malch

forgotmyname wrote: »

These figures on solar panels never make any sense to me. How many units max and estimated would your £8500
setup produce in one year?

If it produced ALL the electric i needed it would still take over 14 years to pay for itself. Which i presume it wouldnt.

Payback in 7 years? Thats £1200 a year? What are your electric bills like???

if you look at the SAP figure 2410( which is the estimated max out put of the system) times it by the feed in tarrif @ 0.413p = £995.33
add to it the amount that you have produced but used your self, in this case they are saying £120 per annum.
also add to this the amount that you produce that you sell back to the grid for which your leccy company will pay you 0.03p per unit about £30.00 per annum

this gives you a grand total of £1145.33

this is very VERY rough, a large over estimatein my opinion, but it says you are estimated to produce 2410 kWh of energy. if you add up what you use and what you sell to the leccy company it will add up to the same as what you produce.

you get paid to produce it. you get paid to sell it.and you also save on your leccy bill.

i might have clarified this or made it a whole lot worse :rotfl:

M

forgotmyname

Oh no yet more headaches. FIT.... So many sites so many equations that do not make sense.....


Can someone please give me one simple answer? How much does a FIT pay per kWh ?

If i have an excess of 1kWh who pays me and how much? A government scheme or the power company?

OK several questions but my head does hurt.

Goldwing1

Just to clarify,
I should have said 2010, not 2009. sorry time flies when you're having fun.
Don't forget to add the 1.5p per unit for the "assumed" export (50% of all you produce at 3p per unit).

When it comes to what I pay it all gets interesting and far too difficult to work out.

At it's peak I was paying £117 per month for combined gas and electric.
That has now dropped to £68.50 per month.
Because it's a monthly rate, there was a balance of around £200 which we are now reducing so I'm currently underpaying.
When things get back to "normal" I reckon I'll be paying around £97 per month.

Whichever way you cut it, my panels pay for a significant part of my total house energy bill so I'm very happy.

As regards the price, haggle. I should mention that I got the 7th panel for free. When they installed one panel was damaged. They sent it back and got two in return! They didn't want it and agreed to install it for free.

Total output is one point something. I face almost directly south.

Equaliser123

forgotmyname wrote: »

Oh no yet more headaches. FIT.... So many sites so many equations that do not make sense.....


Can someone please give me one simple answer? How much does a FIT pay per kWh ?

If i have an excess of 1kWh who pays me and how much? A government scheme or the power company?

OK several questions but my head does hurt.

41.3 p per kwh - whether you use it or export it - it is not measured on "excess". 3p per kwh exported (assumed that 50% is exported).

zeupater

Goldwing1 wrote: »

Just to clarify,
I should have said 2010, not 2009. sorry time flies when you're having fun.
Don't forget to add the 1.5p per unit for the "assumed" export (50% of all you produce at 3p per unit).

When it comes to what I pay it all gets interesting and far too difficult to work out.

At it's peak I was paying £117 per month for combined gas and electric.
That has now dropped to £68.50 per month.
Because it's a monthly rate, there was a balance of around £200 which we are now reducing so I'm currently underpaying.
When things get back to "normal" I reckon I'll be paying around £97 per month.

Whichever way you cut it, my panels pay for a significant part of my total house energy bill so I'm very happy.

As regards the price, haggle. I should mention that I got the 7th panel for free. When they installed one panel was damaged. They sent it back and got two in return! They didn't want it and agreed to install it for free.

Total output is one point something. I face almost directly south.

Hi Goldwing1

Whichever way you look at the figures, post #44 stands ... you cannot possibly be saving £20/month on a system size which would pay a FiT of £500/year .... it's impossible ....

It's very likely that any saving you are making is enhanced by being more aware of your electricity usage patterns and changing them in order to reduce consumption ... something which could therefore have been done by purchasing an OWL (or similar) meter for around £30 .....

A major issue with solar pv and associated claims could be attributed to the way people address their energy saving strategy. My belief is that all of the cheapest and most efficient savings should be made first .... loft insulation, cavity wall, low power lighting, switching off instead of standby, remote power plugs, energy efficient appliances etc .... it's only when energy consumption has been minimised that energy delivery systems should be considered, whether they be solar pv, heat delivery system (boiler/ASHP/GSHP etc) or whatever.

Taking a path where only starting to address energy conservation & saving measures after installing any form of energy delivery system just destroys any possible payback justification for the installation of the system, therefore savings & conservation measures should always be considered first.

HTH
Z

Goldwing1

OK fine.

I clearly don't have a clue what I'm talking about. I'll keep my solar panels and continue to be very happy with my improved bank balance.