PowerSwitch

Hi,

I am looking at getting PV Solar using a 3.92kw system costing £14k with 9 panels on my west roof and 7 on the east. I have been looking for suppliers and there as so many and I am not sure who to trust. There are some much cheaper systems around but are these to good to be true and the companies disappearing after a 1 year.

I have looked at Solar essence and home sun. The solar essence system looks the best to buy out right as it has a good monitor, able to split the panels on the two roofs. Has anyone had any good or bad experiences with solar essence?

Many Thanks
Glyn

Hi Glyn

I see you're in South Wales, so you want to consider Watt & Sun. I'm getting them to install a 4 kW array installed sometime in July/August.

Simon

Hi Simon,

How much is you system going to cost? Are you happy with the service you have received so far? Do you get a monitor for the house to see what you are producing? Are you have a split array?

Glyn

Glyn81 wrote:Hi Simon,

How much is you system going to cost? Are you happy with the service you have received so far? Do you get a monitor for the house to see what you are producing? Are you have a split array?

Glyn

Our system is about £18k, but we opted for the more pricey hybrid panels (Sanyo HIT-245E01) and individual microinverters for each panel. That gives you a higher efficiency and the microinverters help if you've got any shading problems. Also, the microinverters have a longer lifespan - their warranty is 10 years, but they're reckoned to last 20 years (I think it's because they don't use components like electrolytic capacitors that degrade more quickly). Another advantage of microinverters is that you get remote monitoring of each individual panel so you can tell if there's a problem with one panel. It's harder to do that if you're only monitoring the entire array.

The Japanese earthquake has made it tricky to source some makes of solar panel. Watt & Sun had to phone around their suppliers to get our Sanyo panels.

I suggest you look at Ethical Solar http://www.ethicalsolar.org/
They did our system last summer and have supplied my brother and several friends of mine. Run by John Whiten johnwhiten ~ at ~ ethicalsolar.org He used to be an airline pilot but realised there was a planet that needed saving so set up a solar panel company.

We got several quotes and he was the cheapest and best value.

If you go with him mention my name and he'll make a small donation to Transition Town Louth

Biff, from their website it looks like they cover Monmouthshire, but doesn't say anything about the rest of Wales. Also, it might be better to obfuscate that email address, otherwise spammers are going to pick it up.

Another possibility is Dulas, who I think were spun off from the Centre for Alternative Technology.

caspian wrote:Biff, from their website it looks like they cover Monmouthshire

They are based in Bristol and Grimsby so try to get most of their jobs as close to base as possible but it's still worth contacting if you live elsewhere.

There's an article in today's Sunday Times on solar PV - usual ridiculous claims about rates of return. However, they do mention Greener Power Solutions charging ~£9000 for a 3 kW system - if that's to be believed.

Glyn, please ignore our resident troll, An Inspector Calls. It's usually safe to believe the opposite of anything he says.

My system is rated at 3.98kWp and has produced 2584 kWh since 15th September 2010. That's a mean 9kWh per day. Whatever the rest of the summer is like we will certainly exceed the official estimate and get a return of over 10% on our £14k investment. It's probably wise to assume that the inverter will need replacing at some stage but even with that factored in the thing is a financial no-brainer if you happen to be lucky enough to have the money sitting in a bank and an empty south-facing roof.

Here is a link to Greener Power Solutions system pricing:
http://www.greenerpowersolutions.co.uk/6.html

Biff's PV system production is par for the course. He bought early and paid over the odds for his system.

Even assuming biff uses 100 % of his output on site, he's not going to balance his investment book (i.e. recover capital and lost interest) until ~ year 13. This would be year 15 with a replacement inverter at year 10.

The Greener Power offerings are much, much cheaper. With the lower prices of Greener Power you should achieve this much sooner, perhaps as soon as 7 years, again with the assumption of 100 % on-site consumption of production.

However, you still have to ask if this investment (which is sunk capital) fits your needs. Unles of course, you consider you're saving the planet.

An Inspector Calls wrote:Even assuming biff uses 100 % of his output on site, he's not going to balance his investment book (i.e. recover capital and lost interest) until ~ year 13. This would be year 15 with a replacement inverter at year 10.

Why ignore capital depreciating in that calculation? The PV panel is an investment that produces benefit - it's not reasonable that their cost is just charged straight to the profit & loss account. At year 13 Biff may have received back the £14k he spent - but the PV system won't have depreciated to nothing in that time!

Firstly, which ever way you cut it, political intervention through the FiT has made PV economically viable for the small investor. Certainly better than holding cash where you'd be lucky to get a better return than inflation.

Secondly, as you recognise ("He bought early and paid over the odds for his system") PV prices are falling rapidly. PV investment was viable last year and it's even more viable this year.

How come you haven't ordered yours yet?

Other than some clues about remoteness, we don't know where Inspector lives. If he's in the NW of Scotland (suitably remote ), his solar figures will be miserable, at about half those of the South coast

Well, if you consider it's possible to dismantle a solar system from a roof and sell it on, you're right - biff still holds capital ! But somehow, I don't think an eBay advert for 5 year old solar panels is going to be much of a winner, esp. when you'll need an approved installer to get FiTs. But, I might be wrong - no doubt you're going to tell me people are gagging for secondhand solar.

There's little point comparing an investment of this sort against cash, because capital as cash is vastly different to capital as a load of panels on the roof. If you make this sort of investment the only way to assess it is at the interest rate of your best performing investment.

I think the reason we're seeing a drop in panel prices has nothing to do with manufacturing improvements (Germany's procurement will have done that) and FiTs driving any sort of technical excellence. It's all about dropping sales (not enough mugs - although it seems people are prepared to pay £18,000 for a system that can be bought elsewhere for £9,000) and price cutting to recover cash flow.

What you mean by viable is your own judgement - I don't think I share your view as that seems to mean hanging on for more than 10 years in the hope that (a) the panels don't fail and (b) the government doesn't decide to scrap FiTs.

Am I investing? Well, at these prices it starts to look attractive. But I can still match the returns with a managed investment portfolio and there I can get my capital out in less than a week, or shift it to match economic and political movements. And besides, PV panels on our house would be bloody ugly - I'm loathe to cover good quality slate work, or even slate roofs that I've laid (out-buildings)

An Inspector Calls wrote:Am I investing? Well, at these prices it starts to look attractive.

Great.

clv101 wrote:

An Inspector Calls wrote:Even assuming biff uses 100 % of his output on site, he's not going to balance his investment book (i.e. recover capital and lost interest) until ~ year 13. This would be year 15 with a replacement inverter at year 10.

Why ignore capital depreciating in that calculation? The PV panel is an investment that produces benefit - it's not reasonable that their cost is just charged straight to the profit & loss account. At year 13 Biff may have received back the £14k he spent - but the PV system won't have depreciated to nothing in that time!

Its not being ignored, they're only working out payback

There 2 (and a half) basic profitability studies.
Payback, and discounted cashflow.

Payback, the easiest, simply works out how long it takes for the project to pay its own capital costs, anything after that being profit.

Discounted cashflow is basicaly the same, but accounts for inflation

The and a half is Net Present Value, which allows you to compare multiple discounted cashflows

If Biff paid £15,000 for his solar install, and gets £1000 a year in electricity and FiT payments, then it will take 15 years to "payback" the initial amount.
If we assume a discounted cashflow of 0.5% per year, roughly what you can expect in a savings account, then his first payment is 1000, but his second should only really be counted as 995, and the third as 990, and so actualy in the 16th year it turns a £400 profit, not a £1000 profit.

If you assume a larger cost of capital, like borrowing the money, you can get a mortgage for a little over 5%, so lets use 5%.
In its 15th year, the £1000 payout is only really worth £505 (before you question this, would you rather have £505 today, or £1000 in 15 years?), and it takes until year 26 to make a £95 profit, by which point, the system is almost certainly junk.