Solar power payback takes much longer than you think

[nod]

1 hour ago, Onoff said:

 

Folk would just burn stuff in the garden.

Exactly 

 

Making it difficult or near impossible to take your waste to the tip has made life difficult for normal people 

and made a whole new industry out of fly tipping 

Very much like when a fee was introduced for a dog license Responsible people moaned about it but went along with and others wouldn’t have paid it if it had cost a penny 

[Kelvin]

The average daily mileage is steadily falling and is now something like 20 miles a day. Most cars spend the majority of their time parked up. I live very rurally and our EV spends most of its outside the house. 
 

The issue is this new world of EVs, V2G, ASHP, flow rates, PV and battery storage, when best to consume electricity etc is far too complicated for your average punter to understand nor actually care about. Look at the complex discussions that happen on here about the most efficient way to run all of this. That’s the real barrier to adoption for a lot of this plus the cost of it all. Meanwhile typical housing stock is poorly insulated and badly built. 

Edited August 29, 2022 by Kelvin

[Kelvin]

13 minutes ago, nod said:

Exactly 

 

Making it difficult or near impossible to take your waste to the tip has made life difficult for normal people 

and made a whole new industry out of fly tipping 

Very much like when a fee was introduced for a dog license Responsible people moaned about it but went along with and others wouldn’t have paid it if it had cost a penny 

 

How hard is it to take your stuff to the tip? I’ve lived in Cambs now Perthshire and I’ve not come against any barriers. I had to get an approval form for a trailer in Perthshire but other than that

[nod]

53 minutes ago, Kelvin said:

 

How hard is it to take your stuff to the tip? I’ve lived in Cambs now Perthshire and I’ve not come against any barriers. I had to get an approval form for a trailer in Perthshire but other than that

Very difficult 

No vans no trailers Even attached a car 

5 bags of rubble per year 

The here to help guys 

search for anything that isn’t household and don’t help 

Covid Obviously 

 

When my brother in-law died We cleared his garage 

They wouldn’t let us tip a 5 kg bag of dried up artex Classed as building waste 

It’s not surprising there’s so much fly tipping 

 

[Pocster]

1 hour ago, Kelvin said:

Meanwhile typical housing stock is poorly insulated and badly built. 

I did my (expletive deleted)ing best !

[Onoff]

I saw a nice load of what looked liked timber trellis fly tipped the other day. I was thinking, they'll be wishing they'd kept that to burn soon!

 

[nod]

We’ve a quarry across from us that also has a recycling mixed waste 

About 120 for a full trailer 

If you look on FB I can get the same waste collected for £70

There lies the problem 

[Kelvin]

I must have been fortunate to live in Cambs and Perthshire as never had any trouble getting rid of stuff. I generally start off with trying to give stuff away for free on Facebook Marketplace. 

[Dave Jones]

2 hours ago, nod said:

Then why are they sap accessors still predicting just a few hundred per year return on a 10 system If yours is saving thousands 

you would have to ask them.

 

Saving in purchasing electricity is an incidental benefit really.

[ADLIan]

The recommendations in the EPC (solar pv, solar thermal etc) are generated automatically by the ‘black box’ behind, not by the SAP assessor

[Onoff]

4 hours ago, nod said:

Exactly 

 

Making it difficult or near impossible to take your waste to the tip has made life difficult for normal people 

and made a whole new industry out of fly tipping 

Very much like when a fee was introduced for a dog license Responsible people moaned about it but went along with and others wouldn’t have paid it if it had cost a penny 

 

Since 2012 my tip has charged for taking old tyres. Think it's £2.50 a tyre. I've a few stacked up in the garden that I found clearing the place. I refuse to take them and pay on principle. It somewhat smacks that my road is full of tyre damaging potholes the council don't appear to want to fix. 

[Ferdinand]

5 hours ago, AliG said:

I actually think FiT payments should be reduced considering the current price of electricity. Instead they are index linked so will be increased.

 

Of course no one considered the price of electricity going up like it has but this is an unexpected windfall to people who are still receiving FiT payments. A simple solution would have been that the FiT payment reduces by 1p for every penny the price of electricity increases above 15p.

 

Given that FITs are only index linked, no one is going to get a massive cash windfall, perhaps. Is there modelled data on this for domestic FITs and commercial FITs?

 

I'd perhaps have more of a beady eye on the Export Payments of rent-a-roof companies - which perhaps fall more into "windfall" territory. In my domestic setup, the FITs are what I am relying on for a basic return to  pay for the £12k I laid out on the solar, and the Export payments are the thing that might balloon.

 

 

[TonyT]

3 hours ago, nod said:

Very difficult 

No vans no trailers Even attached a car 

5 bags of rubble per year 

The here to help guys 

search for anything that isn’t household and don’t help 

Covid Obviously 

 

When my brother in-law died We cleared his garage 

They wouldn’t let us tip a 5 kg bag of dried up artex Classed as building waste 

It’s not surprising there’s so much fly tipping 

 

When I go to the skip now, it’s 10 minutes before they have  lunch, no helpers then!

[Roger440]

5 hours ago, Kelvin said:

The average daily mileage is steadily falling and is now something like 20 miles a day. Most cars spend the majority of their time parked up. I live very rurally and our EV spends most of its outside the house. 
 

The issue is this new world of EVs, V2G, ASHP, flow rates, PV and battery storage, when best to consume electricity etc is far too complicated for your average punter to understand nor actually care about. Look at the complex discussions that happen on here about the most efficient way to run all of this. That’s the real barrier to adoption for a lot of this plus the cost of it all. Meanwhile typical housing stock is poorly insulated and badly built. 

 

If you can get an EV as a company car tax dodge, great. For the rest of us it makes no economic sense.Thats before you get to the practical difficulties. I tried to make it stack up for my wifes next car. It doesnt, not close.

 

[Roger440]

5 hours ago, Kelvin said:

 

How hard is it to take your stuff to the tip? I’ve lived in Cambs now Perthshire and I’ve not come against any barriers. I had to get an approval form for a trailer in Perthshire but other than that

 

Very. You have to pay to dump anything that isnt "household waste". Which is basically what you put in your wheelie bin. DOESNT cover anything else. Replaced your kitchen, want to dump the old units. Er, not, that will be £10 a cupboard. An old pallet. Another fiver. 

 

You can, quite literally, dump nothing without paying. 

[Roger440]

6 hours ago, AliG said:

I am well off but tight and do see that we can do things to improve the environment with little personal cost or indeed a benefit.

 

However, a large number of people think solar panels are ugly and care about that more than money, never mind the environment.  Lots of people are also too lazy to do anything. This applies to many things such as recycling, electric cars etc.

 

You either have to order people to do stuff (regulation) or make it so financially attractive that it overcomes their other instincts.

 

Almost universally everyone I know who has got an electric car in the last two years did it as a tax dodge. None of them give a hoot about the environment.

 

Well, your wish is granted! Energy costs spiralling out of control.. Inevitably it will force behaviou change. Sadly, i suspect it will be ugly. I think you will find yourself in a minority.

[Roger440]

8 hours ago, Dave Jones said:

I think solar without a battery is really losing out. As for cost, I look at the system just as i would a kitchen or bathroom. Our solar+powerwall is saving/earning over £10 a day for the last few months. Not counting the FIT. 

 

Context? What was the cost of it? So whats the "break even" point.

[joe90]

3 hours ago, Dave Jones said:

Saving in purchasing electricity is an incidental benefit really.

Not for me, knowing that fuel will only go up in price and my pension income is limited was a big driver for me to well insulate by new build, helping the planet was second on my list.

[Kelvin]

23 minutes ago, Roger440 said:

 

Very. You have to pay to dump anything that isnt "household waste". Which is basically what you put in your wheelie bin. DOESNT cover anything else. Replaced your kitchen, want to dump the old units. Er, not, that will be £10 a cupboard. An old pallet. Another fiver. 

 

You can, quite literally, dump nothing without paying. 

Like I said I’ve not had any of that experience in two counties. Just good fortune I guess. 

[Kelvin]

27 minutes ago, Roger440 said:

 

If you can get an EV as a company car tax dodge, great. For the rest of us it makes no economic sense.Thats before you get to the practical difficulties. I tried to make it stack up for my wifes next car. It doesnt, not close.

 

What are the practical difficulties? 

[Roger440]

Just now, Kelvin said:

Like I said I’ve not had any of that experience in two counties. Just good fortune I guess. 

 

Welcome to buckinghamshire!

 

Ive got a dump in towcester, but thats in northamptonshire. Still sensible there. Of course, they have got wise to peoplle crossing the county line. Proof of address required, though not always checked.

[Roger440]

1 minute ago, Kelvin said:

What are the practical difficulties? 

 

Finding a working charger when away from home. And all the planning required when doing so. Or in my wifes case given the length of  journey to work choosing a car with enough range. Sure, they exist. At a price. If they had chargers at work, it could just about make sense, but they dont.

[Kelvin]

I’ve done 20,000 miles in mine in 9 months including many trips between Scotland and England. Other half has driven all over the country in it with work and neither of us has had any problems. I’ve come across two broken chargers in all that time but there are generally other chargers nearby. I’ve had to queue but only a handful of times. We went to Lewis , Harris and Skye for our summer holiday and again no issues. Do you need to plan a little more, yes but not much. It’s also not a Tesla so we are even at the mercy of the wider charging network. There are loads of new charging stations going live so much so that we can probably do Scotland to England (425 mile trip) in two stops. If that wasn’t good enough I’ve powered a concrete breaker from mine and all our camping stuff is now electric including a portable induction cooker all powered from the car. I won’t ever buy another ICE car. And for the time being most of the public chargers where I live are free. 

Edited August 29, 2022 by Kelvin

[nod]

1 hour ago, TonyT said:

When I go to the skip now, it’s 10 minutes before they have  lunch, no helpers then!

My mother in-law got a permit to allow me to clear her garden and take the old summer house to the tip 

The guy said the permit applicant should accompany the permit 

Lots of jobs worth at these tips 

[Roger440]

19 minutes ago, Kelvin said:

I’ve done 20,000 miles in mine in 9 months including many trips between Scotland and England. Other half has driven all over the country in it with work and neither of us has had any problems. I’ve come across two broken chargers in all that time but there are generally other chargers nearby. I’ve had to queue but only a handful of times. We went to Lewis , Harris and Skye for our summer holiday and again no issues. Do you need to plan a little more, yes but not much. It’s also not a Tesla so we are even at the mercy of the wider charging network. There are loads of new charging stations going live so much so that we can probably do Scotland to England (425 mile trip) in two stops. If that wasn’t good enough I’ve powered a concrete breaker from mine and all our camping stuff is now electric including a portable induction cooker all powered from the car. I won’t ever buy another ICE car. And for the time being most of the public chargers where I live are free. 

 

That wonderful. You have been very fortunate.

 

It still makes no economic sense. But she isnt anywhere close to 20k miles in 9 months. Which would rather skew the numbers in favour.

 

Meanwhile, the corsa continues in service @48 mpg