Solar Panels

[Matildathebrave]

Has anyone had these? Have been contacted by ecovisionenergy who fit them for free and will save on the electric but would like others thoughts on it?

Thanks

We have them (though don't live in the UK). In the summer we get enough really hot water for 5 people to shower daily - plus washing up. We could use them in the winter too, though the guy told us we would need to increase the angle to allow for the lower sun. hth.

I think you are talking about solar PV: we're just doing the calculations on ours and basically a 2kW system generates around £700 income through the feed-in tarrifs, and gives you around £200 electricity saving. If you take up the free offer, the company will take the £700 and you basically rent them your roof for a fee of £200. On balance, I think that if you have around 8-10k to invest upfront, it is more cost effective to fit the panels yourself as you will get your investment back in around 12 years, after which you will have a guaranteed income stream of £700 for the rest of the FIT scheme. You can do the calculations here

Read this for some more on free schemes; I don't think there is much experience yet on whether it adds value to the house and affect resale (some people may not like buying a house whose roof is rented out)

Yes our roof is suitable, south facing and not overshadowed.

Sounds a bit dodgy though if the company are making out of it.

Will have a re-think...

Thanks for your replies.

solar panels usually have a working life of 20 - 25 years and should be fully warranted by a company with some real backing behind it for that time. that's my most important tip. ideally the manufacturer.

often these deals aren't economic for a long period of time, so be really careful on the maths. i would in particular see if you can get the average hours of sunshine per year for where you live to see if you will be making money out of the project.

Thanks for that really detailed link, Oricella.

It's not necessarily dodgy that the company are making money out of it, btw. Matilda.

A lot of people simply don't have the ££££ to invest in solar panels, so their perfect south-facing roofs are going unused. Having a third party supply the system and share the benefit should be win-win.

The third-party can also take advantage of bulk purchasing and having several jobs going in the neighbourhood. My solar thermal panel was a right arse to ship to my place -apparently ordered individually from the Netherlands or something - with no possibility of swapping when it turned out the builder had missed a vital measurement.

If I had a suitable roof and no cash I'd definitely be doing this. (Thermal takes up most of our tiny south-facing bit.)

Photo voltaics are only cost effective because of a huge government subsidy (Feed In Tariffs). The subsidy is due to be reviewed at the end of the year and it is expected that the amount you get paid for electricity you feed back into the grid will be cut, which will make the panels a costly white elephant.

PV panels are also very costly to make in resources, energy and pollution so in this country they really aren't a green option. Far better is solar heated water. It's low tech so is much cheaper to build and install and has a good rate of return, even without government subsidies.