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All I can say is owners the of solar panels

1. the Return on investment just got BIGGER
2. the payback period just got shorter

I know the fuel bill rises may get people thinking about solar again.
I glad we can now help people with out the funding upfront, and its better than rent a roof because you own the system from day 1

@MEP..... 'without the funding upfront'..... have i missed something?
 
Compare and contrast:


SSE announces 9% energy price rise | Money | The Guardian

"SSE has shocked consumers by announcing a 9% increase in both gas and electricity prices ... The price rise ... means SSE's average standard dual-fuel bill will increase by more than £100 a year from £1,172 to £1,274 ... SSE increased its prices in December 2010 and September 2011 by 21.9% or £227 in total. It cut them in March this year by 2.4% or £30."

"Ian Marchant, SSE chief executive, said: "In a time of economic difficulty we have endeavoured to keep energy bills as low as possible. Unfortunately, the increases in costs that we have seen since making this pledge can no longer be absorbed and mean that we are unable to keep prices at their current levels beyond this autumn"


BBC News - Power NI announces 14% reduction in electricity prices

"Power NI has announced a 14% cut in electricity prices for Northern Ireland customers ... The company said the price cut would shave £80 a year off a typical household's electricity bill ["... A typical Power NI customer currently pays £588 a year - but that will fall to £505 from the autumn ..."] It follows a rise of 18.5% last year."

"Stephen McCully, the managing director of Power NI, said ... "The cost of generation makes up about 65% of the customers bill. What we have seen over the last number of months is an easing in gas prices and also coal prices" ... BBC NI business reporter Colletta Smith said most of the cost of electricity comes from generation and generation prices were down by 17%."
 
I was told last weekend by a former carbon trader that the actual environmental payback once manufacturing and transportation impact of all component parts is considered, and allowing for the positive benefits of solar electricity compared to existing grid generation, is around 25 years. Do you know if that's true?

On another solar forum a few months ago this was debated and there was some research done on the carbon cost of solar panel manufacture and transportation. The answer was that the panels needed to be run for about 3 years to save the carbon they cost in the first place which I did not think was too bad, certianly better than 25 years.
 
I'll add a bit of balance to this.
The energy companies don't make a particularly great profit margin - certain companies produce bills which actually show how little profit they have made from their customer in the billing period.

Typically profit margins are only mid-single-digit percentages; food retailers about the same margins.
The water companies who nobody seems to notice, get away with about three times that profit margin, as do the big telecoms companies such as Vodafone and again the same profit margin for the manufacturers of branded goods off supermarket shelves (i.e. Unilever make about 15% profit margin, with ASDA making their 5% margin on top of that).

Note also that customers are free to switch utility providers. The electricity market has competition and there are regulators.

However, let's suppose we nationalise all the utility companies as "not-for-profit" state-owned businesses.
The mid-single-digit percentage profit margin would be about all that could be trimmed from customer's bills. So bills, on average, might be several percent lower. Say from £120 per month to £110 per month.

On the other hand, with all companies being government owned, there would be no profit incentive for companies to be lean, mean and cost efficient nor to invest in new tchnologies.
So I suspect that nationalisation would, eventually, result in much higher bills due to bureacrats and the typical government waste which dogs anyting government-owned, including the likes of the very-inefficient NHS. I worked for the government for a number of years and the inefficiency was shocking, caused largely by lack of competition meaning no need to advance technolocgy and no great pressure on the managers to exceed any targets. In fact, we were lucky if targets were actually met, and it was common for only the target to be met, while everything else was neglected because it wasn't being measured.

So if anyone thinks that utilities would be cheaper if government-owned, I think they'll be dreadfully disappointed. Do you really think that the government can run a business at competitive prices? Many nations have tried communism before; it usually fails.
 
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Scary talk about climate change on BBC Lunchtime News. Phrases such as "Irreversible Loss of Many Species" and lots of talk about floods, crop failure etc.
 
I was told last weekend by a former carbon trader that the actual environmental payback once manufacturing and transportation impact of all component parts is considered, and allowing for the positive benefits of solar electricity compared to existing grid generation, is around 25 years. Do you know if that's true?
it's a load of rubbish.

There is one report that does give that impression, but it's based on big solar farms and envisages that they'll need a full road network building from scratch to service the entire site - ie a full tarmac service road between every row of panels, brand new grid connection etc

Unsurprisingly these figures aren't particularly representative of the payback figures for solar PV mounted on a house roof. Neither are they actually representative of the vast majority of solar farms that don't actually have purpose built service roads between each row.

Most sensible studies come out at around 2-4 years payback depending on the technology, and assumptions used.
 
The sooner we don't depend on fuel companies, who are of the richest types of companies on the planet, the better.

We need to do genuine massive campaigns that we all back, which help customers to aim long-term into using all their own sources of energy and not connecting anything to the grid at all.

I'm not technically minded like that, but if I can build a website that we can all contribute to long-term (or at least start an article / how-to section on this website that we can post to) then I'd happily spend my time FOC to such a campaign.

This ripping us off with fuel, I can see us not being able to deal with well. Though the energy - I think we can change. Perhaps not gas/oil so easily. But certainly electric.
 
Many nations have tried communism before; it usually fails.

While I agree that nationalising the energy companies would be a bad idea, I think it is a bit absurd to call it communism.

Failed communist states are all too often used as an excuse for free-for-all capitalism and that isn't particularly clever either.
 
What an interesting thread!

mdovey: contrast indeed! It's a bit like the other news yesterday that Santander is putting up mortgage interest rates in a couple of months by 0.5% saying that costs have risen.

gavina: thanks for the informed response; I'm glad it's not 25 years. That would have been just sad.

dan: absolutely, I'm doing this in my own place now. I've done a fair bit of research into off grid systems and they seem to be very popular in remote parts of the US. I'm in the middle of designing a small system with some battery autonomy to power the tumble drier, the washing machine, bread maker and microwave, all conveniently close to each other with the flat roof garage on the other side of the wall (where the small number of panels will go). With a little bit of discipline in when the washer and drier are used, I plan to move these devices to be off grid solar and possibly other circuits as well if the battery autonomy works out as I calculate. I don't want to invest in a large roof solar system because we'll be moving move house in a few years and I'm not certain I'd get my money back; I can take my small system with me. I'd be interested to hear if anyone else has done this kind of thing and can guide on system component suppliers in the UK.
 
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9% increase on gas and elec {filename} | ElectriciansForums.net

Well, a good argument if any to get a PV install. Halved my consumption from the grid (and if Mrs Micrashed hadnt been a bit over zealous with the washing machine and drier last week it would have been less). So with a bit of luck I will end up reducing my direct debit.

If only I could do the same with my gas. 17kWh/day just for keeping the hot water tank warm is a bit frightening. Possibly another argument for me to retire the Baxi Solo and think about a combi. I just cant bear to replace something with just 2 moving parts and uBer reliability with something with a zillion parts to break.
 
9% increase on gas and elec {filename} | ElectriciansForums.net

Well, a good argument if any to get a PV install. Halved my consumption from the grid (and if Mrs Micrashed hadnt been a bit over zealous with the washing machine and drier last week it would have been less). So with a bit of luck I will end up reducing my direct debit.

If only I could do the same with my gas. 17kWh/day just for keeping the hot water tank warm is a bit frightening. Possibly another argument for me to retire the Baxi Solo and think about a combi. I just cant bear to replace something with just 2 moving parts and uBer reliability with something with a zillion parts to break.


You need an Immersun :)
 
big investment in renewable energy

Yes, we need to ensure the future of energy.

A big problem, though, is that renewable energy is not fully reliable to power our economy due to variations in the the weather. Some days too much power, while other days not enough.

SSE are well know for investing in renewables - mainly wind farms.
They also run some hydro stations of the type profiled on a TV program about a year ago; the hydro's sit idle for hours but when the adverts come on telly in the evening, the 3kW kettles go on all across the nation, the grid power plummets and SSE's hydro stations kick-in to provide a massive surge capacity, by letting literally an entire mountain-top-lake full of water through a huge turbine in just a few minutes.
After the surge the water is then pumped back up using cheap-rate power (night time) for using as surge capacity at another time.

So perhaps we need to use renewables and be prepared to use the pumped-storage-type power stations for "storing" energy when solar or wind are producing to excess, and then running the water through the turbines when the wind stops and the sun disappears. It might be relatively inefficient, but it's surely more eco-friendly than building huge batteries.
 
Yep good thread!!

I installed solar on my house I'm due my 2nd cheque of fit payment and I've halved my electricity bill
i have a combi boiler so thinking about underfloor heating now on the ground floor of my house 1st floor too much hassle I guess and I've had free loft insulation a few months back.
Just got to now get cheaper gas lol
 
They also run some hydro stations of the type profiled on a TV program about a year ago; the hydro's sit idle for hours but when the adverts come on telly in the evening, the 3kW kettles go on all across the nation, the grid power plummets and SSE's hydro stations kick-in to provide a massive surge capacity, by letting literally an entire mountain-top-lake full of water through a huge turbine in just a few minutes.
After the surge the water is then pumped back up using cheap-rate power (night time) for using as surge capacity at another time.


Dinorwig (First Hydro Company Dinorwig Power Station )was built back in 1984 SPECIFICALLY to do that as the coal powered generators can;t just ramp up to deal with. Yes we need lots more lke that - or Tidal - that isn't going away, [until 'The Day After Tomorrrow" :) ] and somewhere arounf the UK will be constant.

Trouble is in the 80's we had a 'Dash for Gas' know we have a 'Gush for Wind' and a 'Run for the Sun' ... strategy, not knee jerk is what is needed.
 
Gents

Great thread,and it shows that rising energy costs are the driving force now in solar pv, not how much money can be made from a feed in tariff.

Some of you have stated you want to reduce gas bills, well that can be achieved also. Look into biomass boilers,they really are the next big thing if the government introduce the domestic rhi scheme,biomass costs approx 4p kwh to produce, and this is what is being discussed as a rhi payment, thus making biomass a no running cost solution.
 
You need an Immersun :)
I thought that was a spelling mistake! Then I have just spent the last hour and a half reading through the threads. Still confused!
Some of you have stated you want to reduce gas bills, well that can be achieved also. Look into biomass boilers,they really are the next big thing

They are also Mahoosive and I have no where to place one when you compare them to a standard wall mount boiler.
 
I thought that was a spelling mistake! Then I have just spent the last hour and a half reading through the threads. Still confused!

They are also Mahoosive and I have no where to place one when you compare them to a standard wall mount boiler.[/COLOR]

Biomass are not as big as you may think!

Do you have a utility room or a garage where you could put the biomass?
You can also buy a ip65 version, so do you have room outside, or maybe a shed?

You could also look into an electric boiler system, or maybe an air source heat pump system?
 
Biomass are not as big as you may think!

Do you have a utility room or a garage where you could put the biomass?
You can also buy a ip65 version, so do you have room outside, or maybe a shed?
Im not convinced that an air source pump would be cost effective for me to replace a mains gas fired set up, Biomass yes, but space is an issue Im afraid. I have nothing near the house that could house a biomass boiler and hopper feed/store. The nearest outbuilding is some 40 feet from the house - and thats a helluva long run for heating pipes.
So thats partly why the interest in the ImmerSun system. The Gas fired heating system is on during the winter months anyway with spare heat going to the exchanger in the hot water tank, so its really just during summer months that I could do with heating the tank via another means.
 

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