Just ordered Solar Panels!

[Onthepigsback]

And I'm so excited. Does anyone else have them? How do you find their efficiency? We are looking at about a 5yr payback on them which I think is reasonable considering they are warrantied for 20yrs and should last longer than that. The numbers were really good so it seemed like a no brainer. But anyone elses experience of them, and especially tips on how to make the most of them, would be greatly appreciated.

pigsback

I see now you are in NI which is a different scheme, and I do not know the figures that will apply.

PigletJohn, that looks pretty close. + savings of approximately £350 I think on electricity used. It was about £950/yr. Interested to see how it actually plays out.

Scheme in NI is close to what you said but definitely fixed at 12.5p I think per kw from the government. I've just missed the 16.5p rate by 2 weeks. But it's still good/worth doing.

saving of £350 on usage is a lot. Do you have an immersion heater and use a tumbledrier a lot?

We save almost £20 a month, most of it is on washing days, when the drier and iron are used one after the other, not at the same time, and on sunny days. None of the other electrical appliances use anything much. If we were both out during the day it would be less. I watched the meter, and without the panels, a washing day can add 20kWh (a bit over £2).

I think a dishwasher cycle is about 30p.

We had panels installed last month, same size system/ price. I reckon we're going to save a fair whack on electricity as I'm a sahm/ dh works from home so use most of the electricity anyway.

Sorry meant to say we worked out our payback as just over eight years but we based that on the average electricity saving but I think in general we'll save more.

yes, I noticed that so far the benefits have exceeded the pre-sales estimate. In our case it looks like about 10% above, but it's too early to say if that's because we just had an unusually sunny summer.

I work from home and my kids are minded here (3 under 3) so the washing machine and drier are never off it seems. Our house uses £75 electricity a month, I assume the majority of that is in the daytime. So we do consume a fair bit.

you do need to care where your electricity comes from as the UK will be short of it in a couple of winters.

which is the reason I am wondering about solar panels at some point. With a monthly electricity bill of £30 or less they will never pay off, but as and when suitable battery tech comes in they could give independence.

not yet, I fear.

the technology currently used synchronises your inverter to the grid, and if grid supply is lost, it immediately shuts down, so no use in a power cut.

If, as I anticipate, we see subsidies shrivel away, I think we will see stand-alone generation and storage being looked at, on its own justification, without the distorting effects of subsidy, and the additional costs of the schemes.

It is also preferable that the rest of the population doesn't end up paying subsidies to the lucky owners.

The Teslar batteries look to me to be too expensive at the moment, unless you are paying for security of supply. No doubt prices will drop and other large manufacturers will come into the market. A colleague tells me the new battery technology is so small and light that when he handled one, he thought it was an empty display dummy.

I was thinking standalone - I don't think the subsidies will be worth it again.

awaiting price drop for the kit!

PigletJohn - are you not aware that the government is proposing a massive 87% cut in the FIT subsidies? And there will probably be no incentive at all from January 1st.

www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/aug/27/slashing-household-solar-subsides-kill-off-industry-government-feed-in-tariff

By the way, we all pay far more in subsidies for fossil-fuel energy and will be paying through the nose for nuclear.

You can do something about it here: keepfits.org

at least nuclear power works. Onshore wind is a stupid idea for the UK. Solar is good, as is tidal.

best contribution - use less.

Love our panels. We've had them for three years and nine months and have paid over 60% of the cost, so are on track to pay back within seven years. We must save something on our bills too, but I've never worked out exactly how much.

Merguez - I can't believe how much they're planning to cut the FIT.

And our panels are Chinese! No problems so far.....

I haven't heard of anyone having any problems with Chinese ones, just a slight increased worry of 'if something goes wrong' it might be harder to enforce the warranty and also that the Chinese ones did not have quite the same efficiency as some of the other ones on the market making pay back marginally slower. No big deal if you are already well on your way.