Free Solar Panels

[snorkie]

There are a few companies currently offering to install solar PV on your roof at no cost to you if you have a large enough(~300m2) south facing one. They own the panels & maintain them & recoup the ~£800 per annum government subsidy for 25 years. All you get out of it is home use of the electricity generated (any revenue generated from any that is exported goes to the company) and the panels become yours after 25 years (efficiency may have diminished a bit by then, but generally solar PV is reliable for a very long time. Effectively you are renting out your roof space for a little free electricity (remember you may not be there to use it if you work away from home). Worth a thought if you can't afford to install your own or don't want the hassle of maintaining them.

More details here

What a shame, I have a west facing roof.

I have been looking at the British Gas website (www.britishgas.co.uk/energy-efficiency/renewable-energy/solar-offers.html?WT.seg_3=i100277) and look like you don't need such a big roof.

Sounds too good to be true though - free solar panels, supplied, fitted and maintained by them. It does sound like you will only get up to £152.97 free electricity per year though (for a 23.8m2 roof). Not sure about anyone else, but we use more electricity than that!

Does anyone know more about this or has anyone gone for this type of offer (there are several companies apparetnly not just BG)

I posted about this on the other solar panels thread:

'while "PV for free" as it's becoming known as sounds an attractive option, the latest edition of Which? crunched the numbers and concluded that you would be much better off financing it yourself, you should be able to get a loan easily enough as the repayments would be covered by the Feed-in tariff. An ordinary bank loan would do it, you don't need a special green one.'

However, if you don't want the hassle it is worth considering.