Solar panels............. come tell me your tales of success/ failure

[noyouhavehadawee]

Just had a young chap at door to see if interest as we are south facing, wouldnt normally give door salesmen time of day but he was lovely and polite and a bit dishy and today im a bored housewife. Anyway me and dh have talked about it in past and am wondering whats to consider. These were free so they like hire your roof space for 25 yr and what you dont use gets fed back into grid and they get money like that, we just get free leccy in daytime. Does anyone here have them and have a better system where they get free panels/ leccy and some moeny back? or are they just a waste of space and hassle?

We have bought our own panels, 8 panel 2kW system, cost about £7000, but we have received £500 already for 8 months generation.
The feed in tariff is lower now, but so is the cost of panels, usual payback time is about 10 years now (ours is 8-9 years), but income is guaranteed for 25 years so a good profit if you can look long term.
I wouldn't bother with the rent a roof schemes, if they can make money from your roof so can you!
Solar PV also adds to your property value, as the house has an income stream (and it improves your home's energy rating).
If you're in the north west, PM me, and I can give you some companies' numbers.

Are they expensive to maintain if you own them?

No maintenance at all as no moving parts. Aim a hose at the panels once or twice a year to get the dust off.

what if they get damaged by a flying tile or somesuch or breakdown? We are in the north east.

They would be covered by your buildings insurance. Ours have withstood high winds and a nearby lightning strike in the north west with no loss of performance.

I'm interested in solar panels too but have been out off the rental ones because what if you want to sell the house, extend etc?

Energy saving trust are very informative on the subject.
As I've said before, I wouldn't bother with rent a roof, but then I had savings which get a better return on my roof than in the bank.
My energy bills are minuscule now: £45 a month gas & electricity combined, with a large excess balance, for a 4bed semi in the north west. In the summer, it takes days to even use a unit of grid electricity.
Since April, I have generated 1250kWh, which would run a kettle (3kW, the "hungriest" appliance I have) for 2.5 solid weeks!

The Feed in Tariff stays with the house for 25 years, it would be included in the "fixtures and fittings" for the house if you sold.

i think that sounds great but sadly i am lacking massively the 7k to invest so one where you get free panels are my only option - do some companies do a part pay back?

Could you put it on the mortgage or get a loan?

Contact energy saving trust and they will give you details of several local companies for either outright purchase or rent a roof.
I don't know if all companies do it, but several of the ones I spoke to teamed up with credit companies to offer finance packages.

'mmmm

so you sign a lease giving this company the right to own something on your roof for 25 years.

how do you think potential house-buyers will feel about that?

very little of the benefit goes to you, the homeowner, anyway, on the rent-a-roof contract.

Even the deal where you own the panels is not a great bargain any more.

The solar companies are desperate to shift panels though, so there's still money to be made. The PILs had 16 panels fitted last month for the price we paid for 8.

we looked into this recently and I found this Which article interesting about how much income you miss out on.

Hmmm yes i have to say having thought about this overnight whilst we have no way of paying for em out right at this time i wouldnt want to be held for 25 yrs - 5 to 8/10 max i might consider but we plan on downsizing in 12 to our retirement property lol and i do wonder how future buyers would feel about being commited and then who knows they might have tiny panels that are super efficient in years to comerather than the huge ones we see now. Also the rent scheme did not have a means to save energy to a battery for night use - inmysparetime do you have this facility or do you go on the grid and pay at night? I ear i have opened a can of worms here as dh been on at me for yrs and i just dismissed him but now i am about to dig out my leccy bill and see how much we used in last quarter and hmmmm how much would running an eleccy car benefit me .

fizzylemonade thanks for the which link am reading it now in fact i think i am turning into a panel geek already

Im sure i saw on the telly that government are planning energy saving loans of 10k next year for house owners. May have got it wrong but sure thats what they said

13.57 kw is the average daily consumption of leccy we use based on over last quarter using 1249 kw of leccy and to be fair i have used my tumble a lot . I have no idea what that means to whether we would save on the elec or not.

We use grid energy overnight, or when our usage exceeds the amount generated at a given time.
We get paid Feed in Tariff of 43.3p per unit generated (that's 21.1p for systems fitted now), plus 3p per unit for electricity we sell to the grid. As they have no way to measure this, they deem 50% of generated electricity is exported.
Overall we get 44.8p per unit generated, you would get 22.6p. If you run e.g. Dishwasher and washing machine during the day you effectively run them free.
Those figures increase with inflation each year and are guaranteed for 25 years.

Yes i see the feed in tarif didnt actually change in December and it is now going to be 31 March 2012 of a cut off - just out ofintereste from guy coming out how long did it take till installation - im adduming there is no way we would make the cut off date now and i woudlnt rush into it anyway i think . I am thinking even if i didnt save a load its all about the planet . I do qork through the day so in the winter i would have to set my dishwasher and washing mahcine to come on through the day i guess.

Sorry about my typing btw im tryign to mult-task.......

Ours all went a bit quickly actually. Once we chose a company (actually we played off two companies against each other and saved £500) it was done within the week, including us replacing the roof (which needed doing anyway). It all depends how much other work they have on, and how long it takes to access the money to pay for the job.
Putting up the panels takes about a day tops, they just move a few tiles to bolt metal strips to the rafters, then bolt the frame to the strips.
The inverter goes in the attic, as close to the panels as possible, and the cable needs running to the generation meter then linking to the fuse box and the mains.

The men are putting the scaffolding up behind me as I type - we get our panels on Monday from the same company MIL used and she's had them 6months and v happy. We had to get a loan to fund them but with the saving and the FIT its probably costing us slightly less than we were repaying before anyway. And no, the tariff hasn't gone down yet but you'll be lucky to get them done in time I'm afraid.
My next plan, after building an extension on the kitchen and an extra bedroom is to look at getting the hot water ones on the extension roof and see if we can reduce the heating bills too (for green reasons not being tight fisted obviously, nickname for a reason ) but that won't be for a couple of years

i think they are still appealing it are the not so it might not be april again like it wasnt december.......... there is a man coming out so i will find out how much it would be to buy outright and go from there.

There are arguments about the "save the planet" idea and also about the ethics of the subsidy.

When you get your 44.8p or 22.6p subsidy, it doesn't come from the taxpayer, it comes from an extra charge on the fuel bills of all the other customers.

So the people who can't afford a £12,000 investment, are all chipping in to pay the people who can