Solar Panels

[Number 1 Jasper]

Does anyone have Solar Panels on their home , if so , what do you think of them ? Do they save money in the long term etc ?

[pomp 'n circumstance]

Does anyone have Solar Panels on their home , if so , what do you think of them ? Do they save money in the long term etc ?

I have a relative that has solar panels - I get the impression that you have to wait quite a time to cover the capital expenditure of the panels before you gain any advantage from having this form of power.

[richisbradders]

I think the ship has sailed on good deals for pv panels. I think that green deal is over now isn't it? I know of a few people in some bother when they went to sell a house with them on, as any payments have to be taken over by new owners etc.

[eltorrro]

Jasp - can't speak too highly of them. Saves me oodles of euro each year for heating my hot water and swimming pool. Oh, hang on - we have about 320 days of sunshine here in southern Spain. What was the number for SO this year? Nah, maybe not worth the outlay for you!

[Earl Grey]

There was some talk of this on a thread a couple of years ago and the consensus was that the government had moved the goalposts on feed-in tariffs to the point where it wasn't really worth the potential hassle you might get e.g. selling your house as richisbradders has mentioned above, roof repairs, inability to put in a dormer window etc. etc.

Having said that, as the price of solar panels falls there will come a point where serious consideration would have to be given to the possibility.

[RubiconCSL]

I think the price of the panels will drop even more in the near future. The newer complications come with the batteries you can now get to store the power to use when you actually want it. They though are still very expensive. So possibly the feed in tariff drop has been offset to a large extent by the lower initial costs, but I found it very difficult to work out if it is worth it, once all the other bits and bobs get added in. Very confusing I'm afraid.

[Mickemo]

Yeah IMHO Solar Panel's time has been and gone along with Ground source Heat Pumps due to changes in FiT's - the lengthy ROI makes it unviable for many. Of course there are the rent a roof schemes that may cause issues when selling your home in the future.

[No Shot Sherlock]

Hi Jasper, depends on a number of factors but it can still be worthwhile, so long as you intend to stay in the property for some years to come. What I'd agree with is that gone are the days when you could just bang a 4kW solar array on any south-ish facing roof and expect it to pay for itself in 8 years.

Those who were 'early adopters' were paying circa £14,000 for a 4kW install and are earning circa 50p per unit on a typical average annual generation of 3.6MW (so about £1,800 per annum in FiT/export payments) guaranteed and index linked for 20 years.

On a new installation today you'd expect to pay around £5,000 or so for the same install but receive only circa 6.5p per unit generated (4.18p for each unit generated plus 4.91p for 50% (the deemed exported) of each unit generated), so about £235 per annum making the payback around 20+ years.

Of course, what these figures don't take account of is the saving you make on 'imported' electricity, and this is where, if you're smart, you can still make it worthwhile. Due to the 'deemed' export rate of 50% of everything you generate, you get paid the same whether you export every kW or nothing at all, so the trick is to use as much of the electricity you generate as you can, and export as little as possible. As others have mentioned, one option is battery storage but this is simply not (yet) financially viable.

A far more viable (and useful) option is to add the likes of a solar i-boost or power diverter to the set up. This is a device that automatically diverts surplus energy generated to the immersion heater on your domestic hot water cylinder rather than exporting it to the grid, effectively giving you free hot water (no good of course if you have a combi boiler and no hot water cylinder).

The other thing you can do, if your roof design/angles permit, is to align the panels in separate (smaller) arrays pointing East, South and West. This will result in a little less total energy being generated, but will give you free energy at times of the day when you are more likely to be at home and using it.

This is exactly the set up I've gone for on the new house i'm building at present and I estimate we'll end up exporting less than 20% of what we generate, but will still get paid at the deemed 50% rate.

By the way, we're also fitting an air source heat pump (ASHP) and the good news is that the RHI payments are, I understand, about to increase from 7.5 pence per kW to 10 pence per kW making this technology more attractive (similar increases apply to GSHPs too). With the levels of insulation we have, and the solar, ASHP and other technologies incorporated in the build, our total energy costs per annum for the first 7 years should be circa zero.