As long as you’re happy that the money is coming from selling electricity to the national grid that it can’t use…

Say what?

I think the suggestion is that PV generates on sunny summers’ days when the electrical load is low, but doesn’t generate at time of peak demand around 5-6pm on a weekday evening in December (or occasionally January)

for those of you using your electricity during the day, are you not better off selling the electricity during the day at the FIT rate and then getting an economy 7 meter for night use?

I think the suggestion is that PV generates on sunny summers’ days when the electrical load is low, but doesn’t generate at time of peak demand

That’s fine, but it’s news to me that all the power stations are sat idling during the daytime in summer because there’s no demand.

My house would be great for it – south facing, unshaded roof on the Isle of Wight. Probably get more panels again on the flat kitchen roof. Also I work from home so use plenty of leccy during the day.

Unfortunately I just don’t have the money and don’t intend to stay in the property for the length of time that it would take for it to pay for itself if I was to borrow money to have it done.

Had them fitted today, 15 of them, Conergy Noir 250watt panels.

We’re generating!

£5790 installed.

They look nice because they’re all black

for those of you using your electricity during the day, are you not better off selling the electricity during the day at the FIT rate and then getting an economy 7 meter for night use?

AIUI they don’t measure what you use, so you get the FIT rate for every kWh you produce regardless of whether you consume it all or none of it. Hence you may as well try and use as much as you can to benefit twice. NB I’m sure someone will come along soon with a more definite answer.

Dennis99

We used a company called Renewable solutions team based in Bolton and Leigh nr Wigan.

Cheap, did a good, well organised job that looked to be relatively safe with scaffolding around one side of the house and a team of 3 fitters who all looked like they knew exactly what they were doing.

Next nearest quote for similar panels was £8k but they dropped to £6 when I told them about my previous quote. They didn’t get the job.

AIUI they don’t measure what you use, so you get the FIT rate for every kWh you produce regardless of whether you consume it all or none of it. Hence you may as well try and use as much as you can to benefit twice. NB I’m sure someone will come along soon with a more definite answer.

You get the FIT on all energy generated, if you use it you get an additional saving equivalent to your energy cost of 14 p ish. If you don’t use it you get 4 p for electricity sold to grid in addition to FIT so better to use it.

How difficult are they to fit yourself? Strikes me as something you could do easily with a bit of research as surely they connect up in a pretty straightforward manner and if so what price can you get panels for? Or is it set up so that only registered companies can register for the FIT tariffs or whatever they are. Just all seems a bit like a modern day version of the double glazing cowboy boom in the 80’s with the same promises of saving a fortune on bills and hard selling techniques. I might be wrong but wouldn’t mind knowing if its actually possible to do yourself and miss out the middleman

coolhandluke

Thanks, I’ve had a few quotes now – quite a bit of variation in the prices though.

I understand the system requirements a little better now. Some of the contributors to this thread have been very helpful in understanding the whole solar panel issue.

Haven’t changed my mind – will make a decision on which quote this weekend.

Info from my guy yesterday – the tariff decreases slightly for installations put in after 1 July. Not a huge amount (15.44 to 14.90) but a bit of an incentive.

Bland

How difficult are they to fit yourself? Strikes me as something you could do easily with a bit of research as surely they connect up in a pretty straightforward manner and if so what price can you get panels for? Or is it set up so that only registered companies can register for the FIT tariffs or whatever they are. Just all seems a bit like a modern day version of the double glazing cowboy boom in the 80’s with the same promises of saving a fortune on bills and hard selling techniques. I might be wrong but wouldn’t mind knowing if its actually possible to do yourself and miss out the middleman

You can in theory fit the panels yourself but you still need to get an MCS qualified installer to sign off the installation in order to claim the FIT.

Your analogy about double-glazing sales techniques is a fair reflection of the situation in 2011/2012 when the tariffs were higher and a lot of dodgy installers flooded the market. Now things have quietened down a lot and it is mainly the decent installers that are left. Always look for an installer with a good track record and some testimonials.

Interestingly the capital cost of the equipment has fallen in line with the FIT rates, so return on investment percentages have remained the same (but obviously net cash return is reduced). With rising electricity prices, they are a good bet.

Get em in quick before the EU starts punitive import taxation on Chinese panels!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/10045150/Europe-on-verge-of-trade-war-with-China-over-cheap-solar-panels.html

OK – most everything in at least the last 50 years isn’t that well built.

I’ll partially disagree with you.

Our last house was built in 1998, a 3-bed detached. Even though it was a ‘better’ builder when we bought it (in 2001) it still needed ‘snagging’. I had this done myself.

But, insofar as heating efficiency/insulation it was top-notch with very low running costs. We always left the thermostat at a constant (15c when out or asleep and 20c when in). House was always warm.

On our new house we’ve hot water panels that have been up for 20 years. No idea how efficient they are, but we’ve plenty of hot water.

If you don’t use it you get 4 p for electricity sold to grid in addition to FIT so better to use it.

To be exact, it is presumed that 50% of your generation goes to the grid and this is what you get paid for [plus the FIT] regardless of how much you do actually export.
So if you generate 2000Kwh/year you’ll get 1000 x £0.04 = £40. Basically you should use every scrap of power you generate if you want to maximise your return.

If you need a heating system and thermostat then the house always will be warm, br. How much energy did that house use? What were your electricity and gas bills/consumption. We average under 2000kWh per year of electricity, use no gas and 2-2.5m3 of softwood.

More than 44kW/m2 per year and it’s not passive. More than 100kW/m2 and it’s just another house that “isn’t that well built”.

Where are you Edukator (I know it’s not UK but otherwise unsure)?

SW France. About 5°C warmer than the English Midlands through a typical Winter.

It’s more interesting comparing the recent houses of German friends with those of English friends. Even the most recent British houses have double glazing, no shutters and inadequate wall insulation.

Just wanted to say a big thanks to smudger666 for his impartial advice and help ( education).

This forum is truly very helpful and friendly.

I will be installing solar panels in the next 4 weeks.

You get the FIT on all energy generated, if you use it you get an additional saving equivalent to your energy cost of 14 p ish. If you don’t use it you get 4 p for electricity sold to grid in addition to FIT so better to use it.

Cheers, and footflaps.

Was just discussing this with my landlord/neighbour today as he’s getting an array put up in the orchard where we have our sheep.

Talking of which, need to get a small panel to power the electric fence.

I’d read that triple glazing doesn’t do much for heat insulation, but it does for sound.

Talking of which, need to get a small panel to power the electric fence.

A small one will do nowt I’m afraid. I looked at this for the 12v fence around our chickens…. we’ve ended up with a 12v power supply made from a house alarm system that is run from the mains. It also has a 12v house alarm battery as a backup which is constantly being trickle charged.

UG = 0.7
UW = 1.1

I doubt you’ll find big double glazed windows under UW = 1.4. They do save energy then but the return period given the extra cost over double is long, about 30 years in my case if I were heating with gas. If you are worried about sound then phonic double glazing is the way to to go, 10 or 12mm thick outer glass.

As for cost, when you get to the point where triple glazing is the final touch that means you need no heating at all you save on the cost of boiler installation and maintenance for ever more.

A small one will do nowt I’m afraid. I looked at this for the 12v fence around our chickens..

have a leisure battery powering 50m of sheep netting at the moment.

Was thinking a 20W panel should be enough, might go a bit bigger.

Scaffolders are here!

have a leisure battery powering 50m of sheep netting at the moment.

So are you looking to recharge the leisure battery from the solar to extend the periods between proper recharges?
It will work to an extent but you will still need to plug it into the mains sometimes.
We have a beach hut that has LED interior lights and music supplied by a leisure battery – I’d like to have a panel attached to this to keep it going for longer but it would probably get nicked 🙁

Done!

Fiddling on the roof by steverile, on Flickr

http://www.flickr.com/photos/steverile/sets/72157633492756041/with/8744219226/
I’ve made just over a pound so far 🙂

Uh oh they’re on sideways….. have you got the inverter set up to correct the alignment of the electrons?

Just 5 or more on the other side?

Think they put the wires at the bottom to make sure everything was collected. Another 3 round the corner – 2kW, SE/SW facing. One pound fifty now.

Think they put the wires at the bottom to make sure everything was collected.

Ahh you’ll be fine then.

One pound fifty now.

In how long?

If you’ve got an old laptop hanging around you could hook it up to the inverter and feed all the data to pvoutput.org – then you could look at pretty graphs abd see when the sun came out 🙂
Like this

I’ve looked at your graphs before. Went in Tues, peed it down Wed. The inverter gives the stats via a web page, but haven’t set it up with the router security yet. Looking forward to a datafest.

nice one 🙂

I’m considering a mix of both PV and Thermal for our South facing roof. We have a large open plan kitchen + dining room at the back of the house (north facing) with underfloor heating and it seems crazy not to heat (or pre-heat) this large floor with solar.

Anyone doing/done underfloor heating with solar thermal?

Resurrecting an old thread here.

Had my panels fitted over three months ago – cost £7,000.

Just had my first quarterly payment ( tax free) from the FIT (feed in tarfiff)>

£327

Is that good or bad?

Has to be marginal to keeping it in an ISA at that rate?

ETA – just done the maths and it is up to year 7 or so, then they start to pay off, as long as they keep working.

Has to be marginal to keeping it in an ISA at that rate?

£327 for the summer quarter, so let’s say £700 / annum = 10% return on £7k investment.

You won’t get anywhere near that with an ISA….

Yes I get that, but you probably need to assume some, or 100% depreciation of the panels, as you won’t be seeing your 7K again anytime soon

At 700 a year I would have saved £17,500 with FIT and have £20,132 in an ISA, the panels may or may not be junk

So not that great?

Plus my energy bill is reduced, as I don’t buy as much electricity or gas.

The gas saving is the usage I would have used to heat the hot water. Fitting an immersion heater and then scooping up the surplus solar panel energy heats the water in my hot water tank.

More like £900 a year is realistic.

Panels guaranteed for 12 years, probably last 25+ based on current thinking.

Yep, £7,000 gone.

But reduced energy costs – I don’t think energy prices are going to drop soon……

I’m pleased – doesn’t even compare to buying a used car for £7,000 ( or anything else) come to that.

Tax free…..

Forgot to say.

System provides me with say £900 a year tax free.

Have you seen how much an annuity costs you to provide a £1,000 a year?

I’m looking to retire soon, so even the financial part of it makes some sense.

£100,000 buys £5,000 annuity.