Why is my neighbour installing solar panels?

[xdave]

My neighbour is having solar panels fitted to his roof today. It's the usual deal - one of the national companies fits the panels for free and takes the FiT payments. It's not my cup of tea (personally I object to forcing everyone else to pay for my benefit), but compared to the twenty other solar panel installations that have popped up in my road this one strikes me as particularly odd.

Firstly, the roof faces north east. During the winter it gets very little sunlight and during the summer completely misses it.

Secondly, the eastern-most end of the roof is shaded by a large fir tree so any direct if somewhat angled sunlight it would get when the sun is low will be blocked for at least half of the area with panels (it's my tree so they won't be able to remove it).

And thirdly the roof is at a pitch of about 60 degrees from horizontal.

Being curious as to why on earth they would be installing them I asked one of the contractors and it was explained:

1) All the electricity generated during the day would be sold on to the supplier and his company would receive the payments, but all that generated at night could be used by the household. (I swear that he said this with a completely straight face.)

2) Although the panels are facing away from the sun and will rarely get any direct sunlight they will still work with just daylight.

3) The pitch of the roof is unimportant - in fact steeper is better because it can get sunlight and reflections from neighbouring properties and the ground.

Now I am not PV expert but with the exception of answer 1 which is just plainly ridiculous, answers 2 and 3 just don't sound right to me? So given that the company paying for and installing the panels probably won't get their own money back, what possible reasons could they have for installing them?

 

[DetlefSchmitz]

what possible reasons could they have for installing them?

Probably some salesman has a quota to fill.

 

[17thman]

in the future, gas, oil and coal will be gone, unless we dig up antartica.Nuclear will eventually be the way and probably fusion, but there are too many objections at present, look at the Germans and Japanese. Anyway, we are at the age in the human race of discovering new ways of generating electricity. Mistakes will be made, people will be offended and some will tell lies. Some will have to pay for the fact that others have more money or foresight than others. But at the end of the day (no pun intended) The sun and wind and waves will be around for thousands more times than fossil fuels. So let us experiment, make mistakes and lie for a little. Imagine the electricity we are generating as a whole, with all these panels going up. technology will get more efficient as will the installations and regulations.

Europeans are excelling at this technology.Hopefully we can perfect it and export it to the rest of the worlds deserts. Many with this knowledge and skill set would not mind jobs installing massive arrays, cabling, inverters and supplies anywhere in the world, after all its sunny

 

[dumbrill]

Now I am not PV expert but with the exception of answer 1 which is just plainly ridiculous, answers 2 and 3 just don't sound right to me? So given that the company paying for and installing the panels probably won't get their own money back, what possible reasons could they have for installing them?

It's because of the government subsidy they are getting. Maybe they make money even with a poor installation.

 

[bernardgreen]

Good quality PV cells can generate under moonlight.

The subsidies and to the "investment" the house owner donates to the installing company make it very worthwhile to be an installing company.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Mistakes will be made, people will be offended and some will tell lies.

Lying is unacceptable.

Some will have to pay for the fact that others have more money or foresight than others.

Why should those with less money be forced to give some of it to people who already have more?

So let us experiment, make mistakes and lie for a little.

No - lying is unacceptable.

Let those who lie be sent to prison - how about that?

Imagine the electricity we are generating as a whole, with all these panels going up. technology will get more efficient as will the installations and regulations.

It doesn't matter how efficient they get - even if they get to 100%, solar energy in a country at our latitude, with a predominantly wet and cloudy climate is a stupidly pointless thing to pursue.

Europeans are excelling at this technology.Hopefully we can perfect it and export it to the rest of the worlds deserts.

Then let the companies and people who excel at it go to where it does make sense and do it, and improve it, and invest in it there.

Don't make the poor in this country pay the rich in this country to put useless toys on their roofs.

 

[xdave]

The subsidies and to the "investment" the house owner donates to the installing company make it very worthwhile to be an installing company.

Can you explain this a bit more? I know previously you could get 50% contributed to the initial cost of a small array but I didn't realise we were still paying installation subsidies for PV arrays now we have the FiT payments?

And what is the investment part? Does the installer place a charge on the house? If so surely the properties would become unmortgageable? I can't believe the finance companies lending to the installers would accept unguaranteed loans given the large costs per property, but most mortgage companies would demand repayment if you start lowering their equity stake. You can't exactly take the array with you when you move, and in my area the people who buy these properties would not be able to afford any premium on the asking price.

Good quality PV cells can generate under moonlight.

The amount of energy received from the sun is about 342 Watts per square meter. Moonlight provides only about 1 milliWatt per square meter - that is 1/342 thousandth the intensity of sunlight.

On a bright full moon a typical domestic array wouldn't be able to generate enough energy to power its own inverters so would be a net importer of energy from the grid.

I wonder if that is in the pre-sales leaflet?

 

[flameport]

The FIT payments are the subsidy - they are funded from electricity companies, so everyone who pays for electricity is already subsidising these panel installations and will continue to do so for many years.

PV installations are not an investment of any kind, since the capital is destroyed. Rent-a-roof schemes are more likely to be a liability when it comes to selling the house rather than something that adds value.

As for the original points:
1 - True during the day, the FIT payments are for electricity generated, regardless of whether it is used by the dwelling or not. At night - blatant lies.
2 - They will work in daylight, but the output will be substantially lower than if facing full sun.
3 - The pitch is important. Reflections from the ground - total rubbish.

 

[17thman]

for all those not in favour. Put another log on the fire and deny another man oxygen. Get over your selves and see the future. the amount of the suns light energising every square metre of the uk could power the world, unless we get the "nimby" attitude and stuck in the mud guardian readers who think that starting a new industry or exporting skills is exploiting people

 

[17thman]

sooner or later, some one is going to say that we only have so much sun light, but imagine the vast expanses of our land and roof spaces, we have enough technology, ie batteries, inverters, mirrors, change over switches. The sun always shines somewhere in the world.. Think of the future and what is possible. Not just head in the sand stuff about it being a bit cloudy here.

 

[xdave]

I agree that's all very well (although I personally believe geothermal and mechanical - i.e. wave with solar capture - generation would be a better choice this far north), but that discussion doesn't really belong in this thread.

I do not want the thread to go off on the merits of solar electricity generation and whether it is morally justifiable to make people living below the bread line pay for others who are most certainly not in that same position to keep up with the Joneses and feel good inside... That has been done to death in other threads.

My question was quite specific - given that a third party was footing the capital cost of this specific installation, why would they do so knowing that the conditions and the technology they were installing would not generate enough in FiT payments over the lifetime of the equipment to cover the initial costs and labour. The payments are based on actual generation not equipment costs so it doesn't make any sense. I don't buy the 'investment in the property' argument because despite the half dozen properties in my street to have had a 'for sale' board appear outside in the last few months the one with the PV array on a perfectly aligned roof is the only one not to have sold - and the asking price and physical attributes are otherwise very similar. I can only assume there is some sort of liability on that property.

I am genuinely curious because when I last looked at having solar PV installed four-or-five years ago (pre-FiT) I just couldn't get the figures to balance. For £15-20k my entire 15m x 6m south-facing side of a 30 degree pitch roof would generate enough energy for approx 20% of my daily electricity use with peak conditions. At a time of day when I don't use much electricity. I know technology changes rapidly so I was hoping to learn something new such as "despite the unideal conditions of this installation the newer generation of PV panels will still generate at 80% of peak". That might make them worth another look in a few years time if my ISA investments ever recover.

As no-one has been along to say that then the only other answer I can think of is that they are installing with borrowed money and their agreement with the homeowner must pass the balance onto them or charge the property should the FiT payments cease or not meet the required total over the lifetime of the equipment. A bank somewhere will own the debt, I am curious as to whether the homeowner would be left with the liability or whether the installation company would just pull a phoenix when the directors have extracted as much cash as they can... Not that that would ever happen of course!

 

[17thman]

you cant make an omelette without breaking eggs

 

[xdave]

you cant make an omelette without breaking eggs

You would still need to buy some eggs or a chicken though.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

'

for all those not in favour. Put another log on the fire and deny another man oxygen. Get over your selves and see the future. the amount of the suns light energising every square metre of the uk could power the world, unless we get the "nimby" attitude and stuck in the mud guardian readers who think that starting a new industry or exporting skills is exploiting people

You really don't have a scientific braincell in that head of yours, do you?

It's not nimbyism, you utter idiot. I don't give a **** if my neighbour wants to waste his money on solar panels.

What I don't want is for him to waste other people's money on them.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

you cant make an omelette without breaking eggs

What does that mean?

Does it mean that we can't avoid killing old people to subsidise those with money to waste on something which doesn't work, and will never work in this country, in the hope that when it does work in other countries the companies and installers who've killed enough old people to be considered experts can go there and work?

Answer, yes it does.

You disgust me.