Free Solar Panels - Whats the Catch

[expertgasman]

[quote="Agile";p="2009074"]

Not true. The government do guarantee the rate per kw for 25 yrs.

Is that per kWh ?[/quote]

THAT'S how you've racked up nearly 34.000 posts. ffs

 

[bengasman]

Not true. The government do guarantee the rate per kw for 25 yrs.

A guarantee from politicians.
Would you be interested in house in Leicester for £39,995 in walking distance of the beach?

 

[simond]

Is that per kWh

Yes.

I don't trust the Government either, I don't trust any Government.

But the term is 25yrs and it is a contract.

The likes of IKEA and other greedy large organisations are busy covering their premises with PV - the Government are massively reducing the FiT for commercial users in August to prevent their allocated funds from being robbed by large corporates.

IKEA and the like have to complete and sign off before the tariff drops to around 9p per kwh. But for Joe Public, the deal is still 44.3p. I am awash with enquiries.

 

[digdilem]

Not true. The government do guarantee the rate per kw for 25 yrs.

Can you give a source and link for that please? I couldn't find any backing to that claim when I looked, only advertising guff.

(Also heard that Germany is pulling its FIT subsidies early, although how they're going to manage to keep their lights on by dumping nuclear in 2022 escapes me. They're actually banking on demand going *down*!)

 

[kirkgas]

Is that per kWh

Yes.

I don't trust the Government either, I don't trust any Government.

But the term is 25yrs and it is a contract.

The likes of IKEA and other greedy large organisations are busy covering their premises with PV - the Government are massively reducing the FiT for commercial users in August to prevent their allocated funds from being robbed by large corporates.

IKEA and the like have to complete and sign off before the tariff drops to around 9p per kwh. But for Joe Public, the deal is still 44.3p. I am awash with enquiries.

simon can you advise roughly what m2 of panel is required, and a rough cost for installation

 

[electronicsuk]

The likes of IKEA and other greedy large organisations are busy covering their premises with PV - the Government are massively reducing the FiT for commercial users in August to prevent their allocated funds from being robbed by large corporates.

Can't see how it's greedy. Surely it's irrelevant whether the electricity is generated on commercial or domestic premises? It's all renewables either way.

 

[bengasman]

The bottom line is: are you confident that future governments will keep paying about ten times the commercial price for generating leccie by microgenerated solar for the next 25 years so people can stick a nice profit taxfree in their pocket?
Personally, I doubt it. Didn't our friend Brown change tax legislation retrospectively when it suited him? Precedent was set by that, and nothing stands in the way of slapping tax on leccie income. Addition of a small clause in the gct book maybe?

 

[simond]

Depending on angle, direction pointing (due South is best) and shading, you should work on around 1kwp per 10 sq metres.

The small p is 'peak power', it is accepted that real power is unlikely to exceed 80% of this. Maximum size you would probably want to install on a domestic house is just under 4kwp, over this there are some more regulations which make life more complicated.

There are different outputs for different panels, I err on the conservative side and only fit Mitsubishi, because my customers want them to last 25 yrs.

Anal computer types tend to search for the best outputs but the manufacturers you've never heard of might not be around in 10 years time if their panels go pop, which makes the whole thing pointless.

Bengasman, I see your point and if that is your view don't fit them.

But don't complain when you neighbours do, and your electricity tariff keeps going up.

 

[bengasman]

Bengasman, I see your point and if that is your view don't fit them.
But don't complain when you neighbours do,

I doubt they will, the houses around here are totally unfit for solar panels as front and back are both north facing.

 

[Agile]

I doubt they will, the houses around here are totally unfit for solar panels as front and back are both north facing.

How is a house designed so that both front AND back are both north facing?

Tony

 

[Agile]

Yesterday at a public consultation meeting over a school planning proposal a neighbour complained that a 5-story building due NORTH of his house would cut off all his light !

Many years ago it was considered that the effective life of solar panels was limited to 5-10 years. I wonder why this has changed?

Part of my disinterest in PV panels is the very low efficiency. Practically they give about 0.08 kW per sq m. Even the highest claims are still only 0.18 kW psm.

There will never be any payback without an inflated feed in tariff which is unsustainable.

Tony

 

[bengasman]

I doubt they will, the houses around here are totally unfit for solar panels as front and back are both north facing.

How is a house designed so that both front AND back are both north facing?

Tony

U-shaped bungalows.

 

[ianniann]

The government has already cancelled the "guaranteed" FiT for small commercial operations. The domestic one is still in place, but a new government may always mean a new law.

In this case it isn't likely to get cancelled any time soon because it isn't costing the government anything. If anything the government benefits because everyone's electricity price goes up, they get more VAT, the electricity companies most likely make more money, and the government gets a slice of that too. Although maybe it was only the Lib-Dems that stopped the whole thing being cancelled by the new government?

Still, I find it astonishing that they can promise anything of this type out for 25 years when they can't make meaningful economic predictions from one year to the next.

Many years ago it was considered that the effective life of solar panels was limited to 5-10 years. I wonder why this has changed?

Progress. One day we won't be relying on horse and cart, but there'll be self-propelled carriages and every family will have two

 

[Agile]

So is that a mono slope roof with the slope down towards the north?

Presumably there is a garden which could be taken over as a PV fdarm?

 

[bengasman]

So is that a mono slope roof with the slope down towards the north?

No Tony, it is a joke; there are not areas in south London that are full of u-shaped bungalows.