My Solar quote

[gc100]

So with the end of the feed in tarif we are trying to decide wether to both with PV on our new build/conversion. We realise its probably cheaper in the next 10 years to not bother, but we both work from home and we like the idea of just paying upfront for the electricity as part of the build and possible climate benefits. Also given the VAT raise, realistically are best opportunty in the coming years is during this build to get 5% rather than 20% down the line. So I contacted a local company and got this back:

 

Quote

These are only approximate figures for information purposes and to help with you budgeting, and not a full quotation although I would not expect the formal quotation price to vary very much.

 

20 panels in one row supply and fit cost £ 8,395.00 + VAT in applicable this will save you £720.00 worth of electricity each year this is based on you paying 0.12 per kw if the price of electricity rises to say 0.18 per Kw then you would save £ 1,080.00 per year

 

40 panels in two rows  supply and fit cost £ 12,800 + VAT in applicable this will save you £1,440.00 worth of electricity each year this is based on you paying 0.12 per kw if the price of electricity rises to say 0.18 per Kw then you would save £ 2,160.00 per year

 

Therefore based on the current price for electricity you are looking at pay back in 8 to 10 years, if the price of electricity rises as we expect it to the this could bring the pay back down to 6 years or below ,after that the panels will have paid for themselves, there expected life span is 20 to 25 years

 

Now I think his calculates are very very optimistic so say the least. Does anyone know the actual calculation used for https://www.pvfitcalculator.energysavingtrust.org.uk/ which seems to take into account the fact PV get less efficient over time? Its annoying as that calculator only support up to 4K system.

 

Any idea's how I can make a realistic calculation?

 

[ProDave]

Just quoting the number of panels is meaningless unless you say the wattage of each panel.

 

Remember more than 4KW nominal (3.68KW) you need prior permission from the DNO before you connect them which may come with a cost.

 

They must be some pretty big panels to produce the savings they are suggesting, and even if you did achieve those savings,  it is a payback time of over 11 years.

 

I keep saying this, for non FIT solar PV to be viable it needs to be a lot cheaper than that.

[gc100]

I think the 20 panels is a 6K from the call on the phone before. I've emailed for clarification

Edited May 15, 2019 by gc100

[ProDave]

7 minutes ago, gc100 said:

I think the 20 panels is a 6K from the call on the phone before. I've emailed for clarification

So 6KW (if they are 300W panels) you might generate as much as 5000KWh in a year, depending on where you are and how much shading, roof orientation etc. IF you were able to self use all of that, then your annual saving would be approaching £700.

 

But it is very unlikely you could self use all of that. Not without battery storage.  We are struggling to self use all that our 4Kw system generates and even that at mid day some gets exported.

 

I have a more realistic hope of self using £250 worth of electricity each year.

[Big Neil]

https://midsummerwholesale.co.uk/

 

scroll down on the first page. There is a 305watt longi panel (no idea how good they are) for 81 if you wangle their trade discount. admittedly i know nothing about your build but if you've got 20 in a single row, portrait orientation, with GSE mounts. £5213 inc vat plus fitting by whoever. i should note i just clicked an inverter I thought would cover it, but i doubt it's far off.

[Ferdinand]

Is this a domestic install or part of the farm business? 12 kWh seems a strange amount to connect to the grid for FiT, but the rules may have been buggered up in a different way than the previous buggeration.

 

It is possible now that inroof ie not onroof panels will be as inexpensive as as your roof covering, and so a no brainier.

 

F

Edited May 15, 2019 by Ferdinand

[gc100]

Its a domestic install. The roof is treated timber so probably cheaper than solar I would think

[Alexphd1]

Is it a difficult installation? Is it in roof or on roof. Approx £1.40 (+vat) per watt installed seams a bit high with no FIT.

 

Why not spec and buy the kit yourself, find a decent sparkie to do the electrical side and a roofer for the roof work. Probably comfortablely half that quote. 

[scottishjohn]

5 hours ago, Ferdinand said:

It is possible now that inroof ie not onroof panels will be as inexpensive as as your roof covering, and so a no brainier.

If not fitting tiles then you surely still need a waterproof surface below them of some sort?

not just the membrane ,which if exposed to uv will fall apart very quickly 

you can get concrete tiles down to £10sqm -

please enlighten me how solar panels are going to be same price as roofing ,

i sort of think that if it was ,then everyone would use  a roof that pays for itself 

[Alexphd1]

Jon, yes just the membrane under the flashing kit for the panel. Google gse in roof and have a look at images, the membrane stays dry and out of UV.

 

  As for the cost saving on roof covering, I don't fully agree with this (unless very expensive roof ie Welsh slate) as the flashings are pretty expensive on there own but it does make a very nice job! 

[dpmiller]

GSE trays fit a bit like a velux window flashing-wise and the PV panel then sits down into the tray.  Depending on the choice of roof covering there's a fair saving in cover.

[nod]

As I’ve stated before 

We decided against Solar panels 

Even though it was part of our planning 

I could of lived with them set in a concrete tiled roof 

But being as we were forced to use slate It seemed a shame to add something so modern 

Just a personal choice 

 

When we had the final Sap The projected saving was about £250 per year which is inline with Dave’s realistic expectations 

Supply and fit was around 9k 

So installing would not make financial sense

unless you where to self fit and bring the cost down significantly

 

Just browsing online Some of the predictions are extremely optimistic

 

Our previous home was a standard 90s 4 bed 2 bath new build  

With four of us living there 

£650 per year electricity and around £700 gas 

surely our SB s are more efficient than a standard 1990 s house 

Most of us will have low bills regardless of solar energy  

[Onoff]

6 hours ago, dpmiller said:

GSE trays fit a bit like a velux window flashing-wise and the PV panel then sits down into the tray.  Depending on the choice of roof covering there's a fair saving in cover.

 

Slightly off track but can you get in roof trays for solar thermal, evacuated tube arrays?

[SteamyTea]

14 hours ago, gc100 said:

based on you paying 0.12 per kw

Whats this, I would have hoped someone quoting would have got this right.

[Jeremy Harris]

I can throw some numbers in from our in-roof installation, which was back in 2013, when the FiT was a lot higher.  We have 25 panels, fitted to GSE in-roof trays, giving 6.25 kWp.  The installed cost was about £9k, and we saved around £2k in roofing cost, so the net cost of the PV system was around £7k.

 

We generate around 6 MWh/year, but are lucky if we can self-consume more than about 1/3 to 1/2 of that, so we always export more than half to the grid.  This means that we can only gain a benefit (ignoring the FiT and deemed export payments) of around 2,000 to 3,000 kWh/year.  At an energy price of 12p/kWh, that would mean that our system would save us between £240 and £360 a year.  With no FiT or deemed export payment our 25 panel system would recover its installed cost, allowing for the saving in slates, in around 19 to 29 years.

 

In reality, we get around £950 a year from combined FiT and deemed export payments, so with these added to the savings from self-consumption the pay back time is a lot less than this, less than 6 years (I need to do the sums, as it may be that it's now close to having paid for itself).

 

As above, unless you can get an installed system for a great deal less than has been quoted (which sounds ludicrously expensive to me) then the payback period is likely to be way more than has been quoted.

[SteamyTea]

What are people paying for a kWh of juice now?  12p seems cheap, even assuming that is before taxes.

Or maybe EDFs E7 tariff is not the best anymore from the big players.

[newhome]

9 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

What are people paying for a kWh of juice now?  12p seems cheap, even assuming that is before taxes.

Or maybe EDFs E7 tariff is not the best anymore from the big players.

 

Circa 10p for heating and 15p for everything else. 

[SteamyTea]

Better than I pay now, 22.65p/kWh day, 11.29kWh/night and 27.19p/day meter rental, all before VAT.

Think it is time I changed, shame as EDF has always come out cheapest for me.

 

Just worked out the overall unit price, and it comes out at 13.54p/kWh, 14.21p/kWh when VAT paid.

Edited May 16, 2019 by SteamyTea

[joth]

11 hours ago, Alexphd1 said:

Is it a difficult installation? Is it in roof or on roof. Approx £1.40 (+vat) per watt installed seams a bit high with no FIT.

 

Why not spec and buy the kit yourself, find a decent sparkie to do the electrical side and a roofer for the roof work. Probably comfortablely half that quote. 

Remember that the current stated position is only MCS installs are going to be eligible for the new guaranteed export scheme when it finally arrives. The risk of regret of missing that is enough to make me pay the MCS markup right now.

That said, the way all the other green incentives are going, I have a feeling the SEG won't happen until next government is in, and they might not feel beholden to promises made by their predecessors on this anyway. 

Edited May 16, 2019 by joth

[SteamyTea]

1 minute ago, joth said:

I have a feeling the SEG won't happen until next government is in, and they might not feel behelden to promises made by their predecessors on this anyway. 

Labour just announced that will fit 2,000,000 houses with solar panels, and nationalise the industry.

Is it worth a punt voting for Jeremy though.

[Big Neil]

I think we are about 14-15 per kwh - plus a standing charge - Bulb. If i can get 12, show me the way to that coal burning producer!!!

[Big Neil]

8 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Is it worth a punt voting for Jeremy though.

 

I think it's worth punting him in the nuts, if that's the best he can come up with!

[joth]

10 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

Labour just announced that will fit 2,000,000 houses with solar panels, and nationalise the industry.

Is it worth a punt voting for Jeremy though.

 

To clarify, their proposal is to (re)nationalise national grid and the DNOs, not the solar installation/generation industry afaict.

Installing solar on a million low income homes will be expensive enough, I can't see it would make him also in a rush to refund money to those of sufficient means to be able to self-install it without financial incentive prior to his time, but this is speculation to the Nth degree so not worth losing sleep over .

 

 

Edited May 16, 2019 by joth

[Jeremy Harris]

33 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

What are people paying for a kWh of juice now?  12p seems cheap, even assuming that is before taxes.

Or maybe EDFs E7 tariff is not the best anymore from the big players.

 

Currently we're paying 8.148p/kWh off-peak, 15.729p/kWh peak, and 20.44p/day standing charge.  Last time I checked about 55% of our consumption was off-peak, it's probably a bit more than that now we're in the "PV season".

[scottishjohn]

its a "throw away "promise anyway -- It is an aspiration  to do in next government,if they get in 

and it will drop down the list very quickly as they will say lots of others things to do first

just don,t see  re- nationalisation   ever happening  on power  -railways would be first I feel ,and don,t see that either,but would be easier as the government gave licenses --not totally sold it off

even if they killed HS2 -still would be not enough money