Anyone with solar panels?

[Simon82]

The government already did an insulation scheme offering free cavity wall insulation etc so I'm not sure what your trying to get at there. They are also not "diverting" funds away from anything it's not as if they said they would do this rather than give it to the needy....
I'm assuming your not very happy with something other than solar systems here but personally I'm looking at it for a way of saving money on electricity bills, not stealing money away from, in your eyes more deserving people.

[r10crw]

Have to agree with Kelvin and I am/was in the process of looking at a wind turbine.

Basically for every Kw I generate (and use) the rest of the country has to pay me?? Doesnt seem very fair just because I have a bit of land that can house the turbine. Likewise Its not fair for others to pay me to generate solar electricity just because I can afford to buy the panels??

Even worse is the farmers in my area generating huge sums per month with the huge turbines, Im essentially paying for their electricity which they are using to heat the sheds. One of my friends has two medium sized turbines that set him back 65K each yet they are reliably generating £1600 each month!

[David]

I think you're looking at it the wrong way. The truth is that the scheme has raised a huge amount of private capital. Renewable energy is expensive, and we've got a lot of it for a fraction of the real cost - funded by private individuals in most cases. They won't get their money back for many years, and the contract will expire in time. I don't think that private cash would have been forthcoming without an attractive return.

[r10crw]

Possibly, I just think its crazy that I could potentially earn 20K/year for renting 30m2 of land and I dont have to lift a finger.

As it transpires thats not the case for me but had I been out of the blocks sooner

[Kelvin]

The government already did an insulation scheme offering free cavity wall insulation etc so I'm not sure what your trying to get at there. They are also not "diverting" funds away from anything it's not as if they said they would do this rather than give it to the needy....
I'm assuming your not very happy with something other than solar systems here but personally I'm looking at it for a way of saving money on electricity bills, not stealing money away from, in your eyes more deserving people.

I know they already did it but they could do more of it rather than solar panels. They could put the money towards insulating commercial buildings cutting their heating bills for example that would have reduced the demand for power and saved more CO2 for relatively little money.

Given it has been all part of the green agenda, solar panels is a ridiculous choice for the UK. The cost per tonne of CO2 saved is hundreds of pounds (£430 based on the £8 billion estimated cost compared to say geothermal which is about £3 per tonne) The scheme was so generous that solar panel uptake in the UK is disproportionate given where the UK is relative to many other countries better located.

Everyone is funding the FIT payments through their household energy bills. If there was no FIT payment no one would be fitting solar panels. I guess we'll see what happens given the recent changes.

It's not personal. It's just my view and you asked me why. I'm not very happy with lots of things on society but they aren't directly related to my views on solar panels.

[Mikie711]

Having just completed installing GSHP and although not a renewable system it is still subject to RHI payments and is considered a green technology. We would not have installed it without the pay back from RHI payments as it is approx 10x more expensive to install than a new oil boiler. However it is cheaper to run and uses considerably less energy to heat the house all be it in a different way.
Wind turbine will be next on my shopping list and I may still fit solar as the FIT was never the driving force behind wanting them in the first place. Really just want them to reduce our take from the grid. May wait and see where the battery technology heads as home systems are starting to appear.

[thinfourth]

Have look at hybrid solar panels

PV solar panels don't work very well when they get hot

How to make something hot

Paint it black and leave it in the sun

Solution

Water cool it

You end up with more efficient PV solar panels and warm water

Win/Win

http://www.thegreenage.co.uk/solar-pvt-hybrid-panels/

[Callummarshall]

Have to agree with Kelvin and I am/was in the process of looking at a wind turbine.

Basically for every Kw I generate (and use) the rest of the country has to pay me?? Doesnt seem very fair just because I have a bit of land that can house the turbine. Likewise Its not fair for others to pay me to generate solar electricity just because I can afford to buy the panels??

Even worse is the farmers in my area generating huge sums per month with the huge turbines, Im essentially paying for their electricity which they are using to heat the sheds. One of my friends has two medium sized turbines that set him back 65K each yet they are reliably generating £1600 each month!

No need to heat the sheds, in the winter the livestock do it for you and in the summer there are tonnes of warm dry wheat to do it! :
The Siemens turbines are the ones to have, variable vaines, geared generator will run on as little as an asthmatic child's cough(or draught from an elise' heater) and all the way up to some serious wind speed! Plus you get guaranteed call out and emergency response, remote monitoring and all that good stuff. Probably a bit too pricey and large for your garden though!


We looked at panels a few years ago figures looked good everything was checking out until we asked for proof/real world figures to back up what was said, turned out there was a guy who'd had his installed 6 months ago a mile down the road who we were given the phone number for. Pretty much said he was struggling to break even because the pannel wasn't operating at the efficiency stated can't remember what he said he was looking at as a percentage anymore but he said if he was to go into it again he wouldn't bother, it's not worth the hassle buy yourself a new car.

[scott_e]

Interesting thread chaps. Nothing of note I can add to the conversation other than to say I was considering an install but based on this thread the reality is it would be a poor investment. Interested to know how others get on.

[tut]

Good decision.

If you install solar now you are throwing money away, if you intend to install it after January, then if there are any Companies left they will be queuing up outside your front door along with men carrying straight jackets to take you away.

tut

[robin]

People will mostly do what's best for themselves. Whether that's arranging you financial affairs to minimise tax, erect wind/solar to take advantage of FIT, etc. So it's not reasonable to blame people for exploiting this nonsense - in their shoes (and with a little more motivation than I probably have) I would have done the same.

I am sure Kelvin wasn't blaming people for fitting them, but rather making a comment on overall energy policy.

But I don't really care about any of that. What I care about is the units!!!!

Tut - it's kWh (or kilowatt hours) NOT kW/hr (which is kilowatts per hour, a completely different thing!!).

Think about it this way - one 60W lightbulb for 10 hours uses the same energy as 10 60W lightbulbs for one hour - in both cases it's 1 x 10 x 60 = 600Wh - so you multiply the watts by the hours - hence the unit is W x h = Wh.

The / in units, for example miles/hour, means divide. So for miles / hour you divide the distance travelled by the hours it took you.

Cheers,
Robin

[tut]

Ah so, is it just my punctuation that is out, or are my figures incorrect.

To simplify it, FIT is 13.7 now but decreases to 1.6 in January, so fitting panels then would make as much economic sense as me not investing in Microsoft in 1980 when Bill Gates and Paul Allen were doing the rounds trying to get funding to expand their Company. I was doing my S76 conversion at West Palm Beach with American Airlines and I took them in the Simulator. They were developing MS-DOS and I keep telling myself that the software never took off.

tut

[robin]

Punctuation ... if you like you can call it punctuation ... though you might not call it punctuation if your bank balance was -1,000.00 instead of +1,000.00

[tut]

Was trying to find the correct wordage for the incorrect usage of the type of powerage but my brain got tiredage and I ended up with a blockage.

tutage