Working and financially viable are 2 different things. Obviously they work, would be rather odd if they didn't.

I had a really close look into them quite recently. To my mind the outlay of £12k is not justified with savings I calculated. People forget that the £12k left alone even in current situation will return at least 3%. (my investments have even in last year returned 4.8%)...So selling £12kinvestments earning £500 a year(roughly) is certainly not worthwhile to save £100 (ish, not guaranteed) a month. Wasnt viable for me... Stuff would need replacing before real savings made.

The investment in wind farms looks far more attractive for UK,but I, m sat in sun in Cyprus at moment. I, ll have a look when home.[ATTACH=full]49794[/ATTACH]

 

Danidl. I had a quick look at your at your quoted figures, by my shaky calculations you are saving 19p per hour whilst generating 700w. My 12k is making 6p per hour, 24 hours a day, hail, rain or hopefully shine.???? And its there if I need it to buy a Porsche or tooth implants.??

Indeed but I was picking that data on what was the nadir of the year. And that 700watts is at the 44cents per KW hour peak day rate. Meanwhile during the heady days of Summer the Energy it can be 500kwHrs a month ,also at 44cent per KW.Hr. .. Or 3.7MWHrs per annum. And my outlay was 7000 euro. There were are some additional rebates coming my way based on a notional calculation of what I sent into the grid and I expect that to be about 200 euro since February last ...

The other point is this is totally tax free, there are no wealth tax or investment taxes levied on it.

When I was doing my calculations 16 months ago, I was planning on a 9 year payback ... But now with the increases in electrical charges, and the new grid calculation deal, it will cut a few years off that.

I will admit that I was particularly fortunate in my timing ... The Evergreen ship had not yet blocked the Suez, there was a glut or a surplus of panels and discounts were available. If I were younger, and more agile, or had a bungalow, I might have been tempted to DIY at half the price..It's a very easy two man job , no worse than putting up a shed.

Edited December 19, 20223 yr by Danidl

Averages are no use when for 4 -5 months either side of winter, any out put is useless when one may want the energy the most or will use more energy.

Not really so ... Our base load is seemingly about 220 watts. Probably 1KW at evening with TVs and computers . When kettles or heat pump or oven kicks in it can jump to 5 or 6 KW or higher. Now the peak power .. Noonday clear day is 3.6KW . .. , but above the 1KW for a lot of the day. ..It was 98.8KW.hr collected in November last. But as I previously said very high daily variability . Batteries would help ,and even batteries to just purchase nightrate electric power is workable. But I decided against them at present.

you sell the first tranche to yourself, so it's 28p a kwh until you produce more than you use.

I think if you have unused land, solar panel is worth considering.

With land, it makes a huge amount of sense. A pergola with panels for the roof is really a no brainer..

If I had unused land wind turbines woul dlikely be a better bet, one isn't reliant on just a few hours of sun.

There are limitations with wind turbines also. They do need maintenance .. much more than Panels and they are noisy .. and forget about putting them on the roof .. the vibrations would damage the building. Wind power is excellent.. but scales better . PV is better in an urban area

I must admit I've been extremely fortunate with my timing. The meagre 1.75Kw array went onto the single story, south facing kitchen roof in late 2011. It got signed off about a week before the original feed in tarrif was reduced. Consequently I get stoopid pence per Kwh produced (I think it's currently 54p) plus around 3.5p/kwh for an assumed 50% export. All guarenteed, tax free for 25 years. I really can't believe the gov did this, but am extremely grateful.

This year the payments for the first two quarters paid my annual electric bill. Last year I had to have a new inverter, cost around £360 installed. That's the only replacement/maintenance costs so far. I clean them myself.

Payback time of original investment is difficult to calculate as consumption savings are an unknown. It certainly seems to be ten years, possibly as little as seven.

With payments due to continue until 2036, increasing at CPI rate, I think I stumbled onto a no brainer. The installation was around £7k a not insignificant sum for a tradesman, but we managed to put it together and, with much trepidation, took the risk.

Providing the gov don't change their mind (which of course is only ever a ministers personal whim away) then I'm good.

I have and am still looking at batteries. If capital cost comes down and I can make accomodation for consumer unit infrastructure changes, it could still be a goer. Especially if supply reliabilty starts to wobble.

From what I've read here, seems like solar panels are not just good for the environment but also for cutting down those electricity bills. Who wouldn't want that, right? Plus, you're doing your bit to go green!

 

I'm in Dublin, and while I haven't taken the plunge yet, I'm seriously considering it. Anyone here got solar panels dublin? How's it working out for you? I'm curious about the cost, benefits, any hassles during installation—basically the whole shebang!

 

Let's keep sharing our experiences and tips, so we can all make informed decisions. Looking forward to hearing more about your experiences with solar panels!