House Solar Panels
just been cold called about a product called Solar Edge. Told caller I wasn’t interest but decided to check on the interweb. There is plenty of info and if your panels are in partial shade it could be worth investing in on initial set up. Mine aren’t in shade and I certainly wouldn’t invest in a dubious retro-fit.
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Given that the general trend is increasing temperatures as the year go by I don;t understand why the government don't introduce a scheme where solo panels are provided and fitted free to householders. Rather than being paid for the excess electricity produce the home owner would only benefit from their share of the electricity produced. This would be a change from the present situation where by the home owner pays for the panels but is paid an inflated price for the excess electricity? Some Councils are doing this for their own housing stock.
David
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What I am suggesting is a change of format. Rather than looking at the installations of solar panels as an investment for the individual I am looking at it as an investment for the Country as a whole as a means of really pushing forward solar power. As things stand at the moment, with diminishing tariffs there does not seem to be much encouragement for people to personally invest. My idea would be to use the money spent on the tariffs to substantially subsidise new installations. Our estate of 35 houses has no more that one or two houses with solar panels so a long way to go yet!
David
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Your right David but in the meantime what would happen to folk who purchased panels in good faith on the basis of a 25 year contract?
It would be simple for the government/local authority to make it a condition of planning that all new builds have to have some sort of panels. The majority of new build houses here have at least water heating panels.
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I am thinking of a different approach from a starting point sometime in the future. As far as I am concerned current contracts should continue as they were originally agreed but no new ones entered into.
David
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Your right David but in the meantime what would happen to folk who purchased panels in good faith on the basis of a 25 year contract?
Nothing need happen to those that purchased in good faith as if they were happy with the deal then nothing need change for them
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That's exactly what's happening here to, both private and social housing have SP fitted and some of them have the water heating panels as well. The council I believe get the tariff payments while the tenant gets the 'free' electricity.
Our panels (10) have just about paid for themselves so looking forward to the rest of the years as profit, as you said up thread the banks could not give us the return we have had off the SP. Next payment should be a good one
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We had ours fitted in 2011,I think, and they will have paid for themselves in another year or so, but we have applied quite stringent conditions to that, as in factoring in the amount of interest we would have had if we had kept the money in the bank.
To get a realistic overview of the return, you do need to do that.
That will still give us over 15 years of "profit", if, as brue said, we live long enough!
Meantime, this has been a very good year and our income from the panels is more than enough to cover all our fuel bills.
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I so wish we'd installed them. But circumstances where such at the time that it was an unnecessary decision to think about at the precise time and we never reconsidered a few years later when we had 'headspace'.
I think it's a crying shame that now we have the means to harness the solar power it isn't considered standard/compulsory to fit on new builds. Keep existing schemes in place. Along with underground rainwater storage from roofs especially in such dry areas where we live. We are ALL supposed to be considering the environment and what better way to start? I'm sure the cost of including both would add very little in the great scheme of things. Especially when prices in this area are taken into account 😲😲😲.
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Whether houses have solar panels seems to depend on the builders/local planning. Both my sons have owned houses in Milton Keynes and both have had solar panels. One son recently moved to Northamptonshire, new house but no solar panels. So difficult to know why one and not the other. One clue might be that the Northamptonshire house was built by a relatively small builder but the two Milton Keynes houses build by large national builders?
David
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Yes, ours went in in mid November 2011, so around the same time as yours. Not quite 7 years yet.
To our last submitted reading towards the end of June this year we had generated 22245kwh, how does that compare with your figures? We have the max size of system allowed.
Checking my spreadsheet, it will be 10 years
till we break even now, the last 2 years our generation was a little down due to poor weather here. Overall our generation is roughly as predicted by the installer.Had we still had the money, it would have been in BOS Vantage accounts, so I am using that interest rate in my calculations.
One thing I have not factored in is the electricity we use ourselves and therefor are not paying for as it is impossible to know how many kwh that comes to. My best guess would be about 35% of the total . So we will be in profit a little sooner than my spreadsheet predicts.
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I presume you have to factor in unknown upward rate changes, I don't think we would have gained much, but I do think solar should be part of new builds. No sign of this happening where we are although we have a lot of solar arrays in fields in the SW.
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I understand that some insurers will not cover the use of solar panels on rooftops. One reason is the additional weight on the roof, which can vary greatly depending on the size and number of panels installed. Where such panels are installed, I wonder how many home owners checked the legal angles first, and how many installers carried out a reliable survey of structural strength of the roof before going ahead?
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Take it Le Touriste you are speaking from experience?
Never had a problem with that, I think there is a lot of 'urban myth' surrounding stuff like this. Have spoken to a number of other home owners with panels and none has had insurance problems.
Our installer advised us to check with our insurer which we had already done and surprisingly there was no uplift in our insurance premiums.
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Personally, I think they're ugly so I wouldn't have them on my house roof. If I could fit them to my summerhouse at the bottom of the garden, that wouldn't be too bad, but it hasn't a lot of roof area.
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Mine were installed in November 2011 as well and so far have produced 28360Kw. The installation cost has now been covered quite apart from the benefit of a reduction in my electricity consumption of about 30-35% over that time. Given that savings returns over the past six years have been pretty rubbish, I would say I am now well into profit. Whether I shall last long enough to get the full 25 years worth of payments is another matter.
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