I’m thinking of spending a boggling amount of money on a solar pv install for my house. Might just manage to squeeze in before the various deadlines run out (March 3rd, April) or might not…

Good idea? Bad idea? Better to spend the money on a bike?

Thanks!

Solar energy calculator

Isn’t the tariff that will apply to any post-Dec 2011 installation subject to legal proceedings currently ? i.e. you might end up getting the reduced tariff even if you install before March. If that’s fine then fill yer boots 🙂

Why do you want to do it?

Greeny or to make money?

If green there is plenty of better things you could do IMO.

If to make money you missed the tarrif boat in December.

If your in all day it makes more sense too as you get to use the electricity rather than sell it for a small amount of cash back.

Whilst the returns look good on paper, you can never capitalise your investment and the maintenance costs and reliability are a bit of an unknown.

Good luck with your potential white elephant!

solar water heating might be a better bet. PV is fairly energy intensive to manufacture and in the UK its debatable if there is much reduction in CO2 over the lifetime as a result

djglover – Member

Whilst the returns look good on paper, you can never capitalise your investment and the maintenance costs and reliability are a bit of an unknown.

Good luck with your potential white elephant!
Posted 1 minute ago # Report-Post

Spoken like a proper fossil fuel seller – oh that IS what you are isn’t it. 😆

Why do you want to do it?

Mostly for the money, but partly because maybe, just maybe, there really is something in all this CO2 global warming stuff, and burning shale gas might just turn out to be a mistake.

As far as the subsidy goes, I think I’ve not quite missed the boat – up until the end of Feb the 43p rate still applies, after that the 21p rate still applies until April, when you need a suitably efficient house to qualify.

Although, that is subject to ongoing legal proceedings.

Better things, such as? Once you’ve moved to walking distance from work, insulated your home to passive house standards, cut off the gas, installed a solar hot water heater and saved what you can, it’s time to think about production.

If your doing it for the money/saving then go right ahead. It was approx 10 year payback and then your laughing. It might be worse with the lowered tarrifs but I don’t know the exact changes and when they are effective from.

As said above more insulation if it’s feasable and solar hot water if you have a cylinder and not a combi.
Other stuff. Plant some trees. Commit to not flying on holiday and use the train to get to europe instead.

Where are you?

We have a couple of install slots for before 3rd march.

@smudger666 – ygm. Cambridgeshire.

Bugger – dalgety bay here!

@tomlevell – LOL!

Spent the last – nearly – twenty years going on holiday in the UK. This year, for the first and probably last time, we’ll fly as the children are all sick of being rained on in Scotland:-)

If you ask me, when you’re tired of rain and midges you’re tired of life, but I didn’t get to choose this year….

If you are doing it to reduce carbon emissions then you really need to understand where all your carbon emissions come from. You’ll be able to make much bigger savings for a lot less in other areas like heating and transport.

If it’s money your’re after why not just stick your money in an ISA? Instead of getting your money back after 10 years you’ll be getting on for doubling it?

Also are you sure that you are going to stay in that house for the life of the panels?

I’ve been reading some info for a while now and one thing that jumps out is: –

About 25% of the installation cost is the inverter that delivers power to the grid, the life expectancy of these are between 3 – 6 years. Taken on average the 25 year payback, many people fail to include this cost. Units have between 3 – 5 year warranty, which potentially wipes out any profit and is a bigger factor than PV failure.

I decided I’ll be better off putting the money into property, with the 95% loan to value for new house buyers the house price market is expected to rise by circa 4 – 8% by the end of this year alone.

Konastona – inverter cost £1200. Average lifespan 7-12 yrs. warranty extension to 15 yrs – £450 ish.

So not 25% of install cost.

You could be right about putting the money into property but PV is a lot cheaper than a house!

House price market is expected to rise by circa 4 – 8% by the end of this year alone.

You’re havin a laugh aren’t you? Who said that, the people who make money from selling houses/mortgages by any chance?

If you have done all the other stuff to your house, go for it. The ‘fabric first’ approach would see you improve the insulation, seal up cracks and air leaks and many other things as Edukator intimated. These would see a good return on a smaller investment, leaving you to do something else (small thermal PV and save the rest?) with your money.

OK, for the record, solar PV now fitted. Loft insulation probably going to be added in a few weeks time; the design of roof means lifting all the tiles up, which also leak somewhat when it rains.

Good oh.

Perhaps not the moment to add my first mildly negative report about PV. After three years the electrical side is all working faultlessly and slightly above predicted production. However, we recently had a small water leak under the panels that the company came to fix under guarantee. They showed me some cracks in the PV-tec waterproofing layer caused by extreme temperature variation causing the layer to shift and pull on the fixing points.

The company no longer uses PV-Tec in SW France for this reason and may decide to change the whole lot in favour of a “bac” system if the problem gets worse before the 10-year guarantee runs out. Affaire à suivre. Professionally replacing the whole waterproofing kit out of guarantee would cost about 1500e though I could do it myself for less than half that.

Financially I’m looking at a 6.5 years to profitabilty and in energy terms I’ve been positive for about a year. Production over the year is very nearly double our consumption and there are only seven weeks of the year around the winter solstice when we consume more than we produce.

While your news is not good, perhaps people will start looking at the long term rather than the short term financial gains.
The future is passiv. 😉

On the bright side we’re doing better than neighbours that simply had the tiles replaced. The new tiles leak and they’ve been embroiled in a legal battle between insurers and the roofing company for nine years while a green tarp keeps the rain out. The solar PV company turned up and fixed our leak with a week.

I did the rest of the roof myself so the PV part saved me a lot of work and the cost of a few hundred tiles.

The solar PV company turned up again today with a van load of “bac” to replace the PV-tec and went to work.

Not one letter of complaint, no threats, no blackmail, just a single e-mail with a photo of some leaky, temperature-damaged PV-tec and they’ve taken the initiative to replace the whole lot with aluminium and steel “bac”. Three people working for two days and a mass of custom-made roof parts. The cost must be painful yet when I asked if there would be an upgrade fee the boss said no.

The service is so much above what I expected I feel a little embarrassed. When I had it installed they were equal cheapest and the only company to quote with Solar World panels.

Mostly for the money, but partly because maybe, just maybe, there really is something in all this CO2 global warming stuff,

having been in an open air bar in Barbados that was air conditioned at the bar area 😯 I doubt chucking a few panels on your roof will make much difference.

having been in an open air bar in Barbados that was air conditioned at the bar area I doubt chucking a few panels on your roof will make much difference.

But putting a few panels on the roof combined with not flying halfway around the world to be able to enjoy said air coditioned bar, might.
*tuts*

TJ+1

You’re better off going for solar hot water, however this will depend on the type of boiler you have (some combi’s don’t like it). Would be well worth looking into before spending your dosh.

having been in an open air bar in Barbados that was air conditioned at the bar area I doubt chucking a few panels on your roof will make much difference.

All these rich europeans buying heavily subsidized solar PV has driven the price down globally of solar PV enough that, together with price rises in oil, in places like India, solar PV is now competitive with running a diesel generator, even without a subsidy:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21328505.000-indias-panel-price-crash-could-spark-solar-revolution.html

Cack, just realised you’ve already had the work done, will try and remember to read the posts properly in the future….