Solar panels - Good or bad idea?

[axel132132]

Hey all,

Ive never done solar, never seen it done (Obvs seen solar panels)

My next door neighbor is a builder / conservatory installer etc owns his own business i do his work for him, he came upto me today and asked if we should start a business together doing solar.. He would go in, install the panels then i would go in and wire them is the basic idea

Just a few questions if anyone able to answer would be greatfull!

1. Is it worth doing?
2. Are people actually buying solar panels?
3. Is solar on the UP or down..?
4. How much is the course?
5. What qualifications / courses would i need to be able to install solar?

The big question... IS there money in solar my neighbors dickish comment was.. We need to get into this solar i want a porsche >.<! He doing well as a builder / conservatory installer.. Would be worth maybe going into business with him in solar if its a good idea

What do you guys think

Input would be awsome

Cheers

 

[whinmoor]

I would urge caution. Too many installers fighting for too little business at the moment. It will cost thousands to set up and get accredited.

 

[dansk]

your about 2 years too late, forget it mate, its not the road the to the golden land, its just another feather in the cap.

 

[sedgy34]

1,no
2,no
3,down
4,£1200 and more
5,G83/G59
courses might cost alot more now as training providers still want there wedge and there are less people doing the courses

 

[Gavin A]

come on in, the water's lovely.....

well, lovely if you ignore the fact it's all gone cold, and the big boys have been ****ing in the pool for the last couple of years, and the pool's littered the rotten destering corpses of installers who're no longer with us / are staggering around zombie like.

Those who wanted to buy a porshe have long since shut down operations and legged it with their ill gotten gains, leaving their customers without warrantees.

If you're serious about it though, I'd suggest gradually getting the courses done over the next few months, try to get a bit of experience, and then look to set up in the spring once the dust's settled a bit, as winter's the worst time for solar anyway for obvious reasons.

 

[Eco Deal]

MEP is now crying in a corner with sadness !!!!

NOT worth it unless

1. gov do a u turn on tariffs back to 21p (but that would never happen and be short term)
2. fuel bill go even higher
3 your a crazy mo fo

 

[axel132132]

Still cant decide as it not the main route i will be doing but surely for say £1500 for training.. If i do it as a SIDE business for extra work then it will be worth it if i get a couple of jobs?

Ummmm

 

[whinmoor]

Still cant decide as it not the main route i will be doing but surely for say £1500 for training.. If i do it as a SIDE business for extra work then it will be worth it if i get a couple of jobs?

Ummmm

I doubt it will cost just £1500. You'll be looking at more than double that. Accreditation isn't cheap - probably a grand and a lot of paperwork. Specialist tools and meters. Insurance. Website. Marketing. It all adds up.

Many companies are laying off staff and going bust because there's not enough work there. I received a CV this week from a guy who's just been dumped by a local firm.

 

[sedgy34]

The figure I mentioned axel was just the course in total for a business you need to be looking at investing £10,000 with everything and that's using your exhisting van (good luck)

 

[telectrix]

if only i could devise a machine to produce electrickery from rain, i'd be a millionaire.

 

[sedgy34]

if only i could devise a machine to produce electrickery from rain, i'd be a millionaire.

you got me thinking now tel, im sure there is something to invent

 

[zeljuga]

Single rain drop El Generator replacing leaves on trees. Connected via the roots free power to everyone on spot.Frying the Earth possible?

 

[dansk]

By all means go ahead and get your MCS - but don't go into this with your eyes half open - no doubt its not as hard as it was to get MCS - i got mine when MCS was something to be proud of -its not now - but if you enjoyed the Olympics then you will enjoy MCS and all the hoop jumping.

Then you got the patronising REAL code to abide by, you'll **** when we say you ****, you'll sleep when we say you sleep - idiots the lot of them.

We get a CV a week from ex solar installers so that gives you an idea of the state of things, even for the experienced guys trying to win new work is tough, very tough - having said that its a nice sideline, it makes a change - if i was you i would be looking into home automation and LED lighting and energy saving devices (excluding PV) intelligent controls etc for boilers and the like.

PV will stablise - so unless you want hours of arse ache and hoop jumping i would leave it alone for a little while - only my view ;-)

 

[HandySparks]

if only i could devise a machine to produce electrickery from rain, i'd be a millionaire.

Miniature water turbine/generators in the downpipes! Got to be good for a few watts (but only a few).

 

[Eco-Deal]

I am not MCS registered but a good friend once told me his first solar pv job was his hardest to get as there was no referances to give out now that was back in 2010 so good luck getting your first job now !!! 4000 installs per week on average right now with 5000 installers

hmmmmm thanks greg barker at the DECC

 

[Gavin A]

4000?

pretty sure it's a lot lower than that unfortunately.

 

[Eco Deal]

what is the install rate right now

 

[SolarCity]

It's actually around 1000 a week. When you consider that a lot of them are rent-a-roofs, then the picture is bleak.

 

[cbw]

Doing my first quote of September tomorrow!!!!!

 

[axel132132]

cbw did u start as a electrical company then got into solar? Maybe i shud leave this alone lol!

 

[sedgy34]

You need to forget that idea and concentrate on the next big thing people will uptake, not sure what that's going to be though. Could be wig making lol

 

[PEG]

Not that i would condone it,but say the government legalised the propagation of cannabis,can you imagine the work sparkies would have? All those lamps,fans and controllers with henleys everywhere.Assessors queuing up to come and view your scheme entry first install...Anyone think of another expanding industry?

 

[moggy1968]

buy a Porsche? I don't think so!!

Rates are now worse than general electrical rates as companies quote ridiculously cheap on rubbish gear just to try and keep in business, while a price obscessed, quality ignorant public drive prices lower and lower.

You do have a couple of other options.
1. sit at home burning £20 notes
2. pee in your own breakfast cereal every morning.

either or both of these options will be more rewarding than getting into solar now.
The good times are long gone.

 

[PengEF]

As a consumer I think dansk is onto something. Home automation or at the very least systems that allow you to monitor your home that you don't need to be a millionaire to install will only become more desirable the more the energy costs go up. Not talking about the somewhat half-assed products out now but true built in monitoring and control of every plug socket, lighting circuit, power circuit and heating systems. I am looking for this now and the products just don't seem to be there or if they are they cost so much they are the domain of millionaires and are just painful to use as they are all proprietary and want to lock you in so that if they don't work they have you by the proverbials until they dane to fix them.

I know there is the enthusiast market if you are prepared to cobble together something but a decent retail expandable and adaptable system just isn't there yet. First company to make one and to be truly quick to adapt to customer needs along with the electricians to fit them will probably clean up.

A bit like the immersun. It's getting there but it's just one system and I get the feeling it's just not quite there yet. Maybe in another year. I also think there is an opportunity for a product that could replace the RCD/MCB's in consumer units that would still do the same job they do now AND report energy usage accurately with the ability to control the whole circuit as well.

Maybe I am just 2 or 3 years to early with what I want. Wish I was an electrical engineer instead of a programmer...

 

[Worcester]

I think you're spot on with what you want, we're playing around here with a system developed on Home | OpenEnergyMonitor and Raspberry Pi | An ARM GNU/Linux box for $25. Take a byte!

The concept of the intelligent RCBO is a good one, then with indiviual sockets and appliances with their own IP address (time for a new thread ...)

 

[FB.]

companies quote ridiculously cheap on rubbish gear just to try and keep in business

The problem is managing to get a reasonable payback period to compensate for there being no ability to get the money back other than from very-long-term FiT payments and bill savings.
I scrapped my plan to add a second PV array as at the prices being quoted by local companies, there was no margin of safety due to the greater unknowns the longer the projection into the future. If I ended up being unlucky and needing two new inverters during the 20yr FiT period, I would have been no better off than putting the money into a cash ISA.
All the risk and no reward.

As a consumer, I don't have the buying power and ability to get prices whch make the FiT attractive at 14p unless I want to cross my fingers and hope that my system never needs repairs. Solar PV now risks leaving ordinary homeowners behind and simply lining the pockets of the rent-a-roofers who can get better pricing for installations, and otherwise going back to being a middle-class tree-hugger's gimmick.


I appreciate you advocate a short FiT period (say 5yrs) with high FiT rates (say 50p) in order to make payback time reasonable and I generally agree that would be a better route - and it sounds as if 2013's RHI might be taking some steps in that direction.

 

[Kamikaze]

if only i could devise a machine to produce electrickery from rain, i'd be a millionaire.

14 year old Raymond Wang from British Columbia in Canada has been working on that and has a working prototype. Now rain into beer and you will be a legend! :biggrin:

 

[moggy1968]

FB - on my prices, with 3% inflation and 5% fuel inflation we're looking at less than ten years payback time, but still losing out to cheap tat. people need to stop looking at renewables as a way to make money, and instead as a responsible thing to do and a cost effective way to inflation proof their fuel bills, after all, over 30% rises in fuel bills since 2010 is quite a lot. Is there any ohter type of home improvement people actually expect to make money from? No. The trouble is, the level of tariffs have produce a culture of greed and pocket filling, not just from some installers, but also from the public at large. There is no justifiable reason why PV should be regarded as a financial investment. If you can make a bit from it, great, but that really shouldn't be the main deciding factor.

Home automation of the type your talking about will always be expensive, because it will require a complete rewire of the house. I amn working on one at the moment. Every room has it's own lighting circuit, sockets are divided up so, for example, the fridge is on it's own circuit, the washer on another. It's only a three bedroom house but even then it requires over 40ways on the distribution board and he wanted everyone with it's own RCBO, thats over £800 just on RCBOs! Usually this stuff goes in footballers houses, but he knows the guy that does the systems so is getting it on the cheap, while I sort out the electrics. Even so, it's going to be a hellish expensive rewire!!!

The best retro fit system I have seen is this
Welcome to jsjsdesign
it has can be controlled from a hand controller or smart phone. One of the things I liked about it is it just replaces standard faceplates, so you can fit as many or as few as you like and, if in years to come you can't get the parts or it's obsolete because it just replaced standard fitments you can just swap it back again.

 

[FB.]

Hi Moggy.


Local companies (Cambs/East Anglia) advertise 4kWp Chinese poly panels and Chinese inverter for £5-6k but when contacted the price is closer to £6.5-7k, with scaffold extra - "it's a printing/typing mistake, sir".
Companies offering "quality" charge £9-10k.
Everywhere else in the country, prices seem much more attractive. I even considered asking an installer to come long-distance and I pay for a hotel room.

So I can pay £6-7k for Chinese poly panels and Chinese inverter, but how long will the Chinese inverter last? Will I end up needing to replace it twice, effectively adding £1500 to my system cost over the 20yr FiT period? Will the inverter deliver the same efficiency as "Western" inverters or will my system struggle even to meet SAP2009 calcs?

With those prices, those concerns and the 14.5p soon reducing to 13.99p FiT for going into the 4-10kWp band, I feel that the only people making money out of it are the installers profit margins and Scottish Power who'd buy the electricity for 4.5p and sell it back for about three times that price.


I believe that to make any investment, it needs to have a fair rate of return relative to the risks involved and all the risks seem to be dumped on me (along with money unable to be recovered except through FiT payments and bill savings which will depend on the performance and reliability of the system). The installer and the utility company appear to be the ones laughing all the way to the bank.

 

[FB.]

editing......

 

[jason121]

4KW £6200.00 Suntech panels Steca inverter with 7years

 

[moggy1968]

That does seem steep FB, well above what we charge for decent kit.

I do think it's time we stopped trying to sell PV as an investment. It's a way of inflation proofing your fuel bills and producing electricity in a responsible way. No other home improvement is seen as an investment (although it may ultimately improve the value of your home) so why should PV be any different. IT should be viewed as something that enhances your enjoyment of your home, if you make a few quid then great, but that shouldn't be the greatest motivation.

Thats why I support a more generous FiT with a shorter payback time. The you are getting a subsidised installation to generate electricity, rather than making money out of it.

 

[solarsavings]

Prices in this part of East Anglia are much lower in yours FB. Perhaps it's the Cambridge effect?

 

[PengEF]

Thanks for the lightwave RF tip moggy, I have seen them before and they are part of the frustration. They do allow control and are where I think this tech needs to be applied but they only do half of what is needed i.e. control. There is no monitoring of energy usage so you can see if something needs a control plan.

Also your example of a whole house rewire is exactly what I mean about the expense. In this day and age we should be able to come up with a 21st century solution where the control and monitoring is in each plug socket, switch and light fitting. Hell all the tech exists the LightwaveRF stuff proves it as well as other products like those from plugwise and homeplugs. Just nobody has put it all together yet or if they have the leccy companies have probably paid them all to P***** ***f and not tell us all. Just think how much work there would be if it was affordable to replace wall sockets with something that was easy to use, plug and play and gave the home owner/business total visibility and control of their electrical devices? Ah well maybe in 10 years time when leccy costs a pound a kWh it might happen *sigh*

 

[FB.]

I do think it's time we stopped trying to sell PV as an investment. It's a way of inflation proofing your fuel bills and producing electricity in a responsible way.

Yes, but a margin of safety needs to be in place to ensure that it's not a loss-maker for those who put their hard-earned savings into it.

 

[FB.]

4KW £6200.00 Suntech panels Steca inverter with 7years

Not everyone is fortunate enough to have space for 4kWp, while 3kWp (medium) and 2kWp (small) systems only seem to knock a few hundred quid off, with a large increase in payback time.
I already have 3.75kWp, while a 3.25kWp second array would have been the ideal size, but had such a wafer-thin margin of safety for me taking on the risk compared to simply playing safe and putting the money in an ISA, where at least I could cash-out at any time.

 

[FB.]

Prices in this part of East Anglia are much lower in yours FB. Perhaps it's the Cambridge effect?

Yes, it could be the effect of sky-high property prices and rents near to Cambridge. Property prices here have largely ignored the recession and are among the most expensive in the country. Nationwide second-quarter figures report average UK house price as £165k, London average £344k and Cambridge average at £329k.

 

[FB.]

That does seem steep FB, well above what we charge for decent kit.

I find it frustrating that not many companies offer a guide price, while others won't mention the inverters used, while others have a lot of hidden extras or claim that adverts have misprints. Yet others I must register an interest using form on their website so that they can then pester me for weeks or months afterwards.
It's feeling more and more like the double-glazing salesmen, where prices are marked-up to see if the customer will buy and then bartered down (by phone and not in writing) every few days if the customer rejects an offer.

 

[moggy1968]

Yes, but a margin of safety needs to be in place to ensure that it's not a loss-maker for those who put their hard-earned savings into it.

do you get that with a conservatory or an extension?

Not the same I know, but really, how much margin do you need! Your already more than doubling the cost of your system in your returns.

- - - Updated - - -

Yes, it could be the effect of sky-high property prices and rents near to Cambridge. Property prices here have largely ignored the recession and are among the most expensive in the country. Nationwide second-quarter figures report average UK house price as £165k, London average £344k and Cambridge average at £329k.

shame I sold my flat in cambridge 14 years ago then:cry_smile:

 

[FB.]

do you get that with a conservatory or an extension?

Not the same I know, but really, how much margin do you need! Your already more than doubling the cost of your system in your returns.

Doubling my money in 20yrs is only about 3.5% annual average, which is roughly equal to long-term inflation (as per the 3.5% I mentioned in an earlier post). Simply matching long-term inflation isn't "growth"; it's simply preservation of buying power.
I could buy an inflation-linked bond and probably get an equal annual average return without the unknowns associated with solar such as component lifespan or other variables (such as precise levels of RPI inflation or energy price inflation) which could result in a very different rate of return than originally projected.
As we've both agreed before: a long payback period creates a wider range of possible outcomes and a greater amount of uncertainty.

 

[Gavin A]

I find it frustrating that not many companies offer a guide price, while others won't mention the inverters used, while others have a lot of hidden extras or claim that adverts have misprints. Yet others I must register an interest using form on their website so that they can then pester me for weeks or months afterwards.
It's feeling more and more like the double-glazing salesmen, where prices are marked-up to see if the customer will buy and then bartered down (by phone and not in writing) every few days if the customer rejects an offer.

I'd think that 90% of our installations have been at or below the prices on the website at the time of the installation fwiw, with any that are higher being due to legitimate additional costs such as complex scaffolding, longer distances etc.

 

[FB.]

any that are higher being due to legitimate additional costs such as complex scaffolding, longer distances etc.

Yes, there's nothing wrong with that where the vast majority (say three-quarters) of installations are relatively straightforward and will be at or below your guide price, with only a small minority (say one quarter) of installations not being straightfoward and incurring additional costs which were explained to the customer at an early stage.

A further concern I had with local companies was that I'd end up paying a deposit but not being able to agree on the detail of the system design/layout etc, resulting in me having to write-off my deposit or be forced to accept a design which I wasn't entirely happy with. In this tough period for solar installers, I can't see many wanting to easily let go of a deposit if subsequently the customer and the system designer could not reach an agreement.

 

[sedgy34]

Not everyone is fortunate enough to have space for 4kWp, while 3kWp (medium) and 2kWp (small) systems only seem to knock a few hundred quid off, with a large increase in payback time.
I already have 3.75kWp, while a 3.25kWp second array would have been the ideal size, but had such a wafer-thin margin of safety for me taking on the risk compared to simply playing safe and putting the money in an ISA, where at least I could cash-out at any time.

FB
your a long standing appreciated member to the forum, when other consumers come on here your input from customer to potential customer is vital. keep up the good work, We have had a recent customer cash in there ISA and invest in solar they didnt see the point in it as the ISA wasnt producing for them.

 

[FB.]

FB
your a long standing appreciated member to the forum, when other consumers come on here your input from customer to potential customer is vital. keep up the good work, We have had a recent customer cash in there ISA and invest in solar they didnt see the point in it as the ISA wasnt producing for them.

For an average customer, medium to large solar arrays can still make sense and is worth looking into.

Admittedly my lack of margin of safety was because I'd be on a 14.5p FiT for going into 4-10kW band. Most people would be on 16p FiT.
Since I have already cut my electricity bill almost by half, I definitely can't cut it by an equal amount again, so my potential bill savings would have been less too. Maybe half of the remaining half of my electricity bill - but I still need lights on after dark when the solar is not producing.

So with my FiT being about 10% less than <4kW installations, and my extra bill savings probably no more than 25% of electricity produced, I'm at a disadvantage to the average customer - especially given the apparently high prices charged by solar installers near Cambridge.

---------- edited to add the following -----------

I also prefer to work on assumptions of inflation at its historical average (about 3.5%) and electricity price rises at a similar level or perhaps slightly more - say 3.5-5%. These are much more conservative than many, but in our topsy-turvy world, who knows what the future will bring - therefore long-term projections can end up being for comedy value only and can be ridiculously wide of the mark. Remember in 1999 when the average stockmarket investor was expecting 15-20% annual average returns and planning retirement accordingly? Remember stocks and shares ISA's allowed to use 7-9% growth projections, which have more recently been reduced to half that in recognition of the way the world has changed.
Forecasting is difficult - and more so the longer the timeframe.

However, with governments in serious debt, we may eventually see them print their way out of debt (less offensive to print and devalue than to default), with excessive money printing resulting in a sharp drop in the value of money (i.e. dramatically rising prices). This happened in the late-1970's, with inflation well into double-digits.

On the other hand, Japan's post-1989 bubble burst has seem them with negligible inflation, and on-off mild deflation for two decades and counting.

So where do we go from here? What projections should we use? I suspect the answer goes back to moggy's suggestion of a high FiT rate for just a few years, in order to quickly reach payback and reduce the uncertainty which surrounds a long-term payback.

 

[sedgy34]

i would recommend looking at other things now ie change lights to led,immersun unit if you have an immersion heater, possibly solar thermal now as there is a fit of 17p kwh you have the roof space so go for it, also a log burner.

almost forgot the voltis unit ive fitted one at my house and its reduced to 224volts should be around a saving of 17% a year.

 

[jason121]

how many immersuns in a day do you have fit to make a good living
swithenbanks are selling them of cheap