I got a quote some 6 months ago for installing PV panels - it was about =A315k for 14(?) panels - ie around =A31k per panel.
This BBC article caught my eye as it is local to me
Rob
Well a friend of mine has gone ahead with a company I consider to be if not Cowboys, at least wearing spurs, so we shall see what comes out of it. Brian
See the "solar meadow" thread, since you're local, perhaps you can be our "ears" to see how much money it really saves/costs them?
That seems to be about par for the 4KW course to date. Much cheaper if you do it yourself but as with most d-i-y you won't get the subsidies which are reserved for those tradesmen who have coughed up a wedge to be registered installers and quite possibly the electricity company won't give you anything for your surplus electricity either.
Having said that, given the quantity of riders on this particular gravy train, I expect registration is neither that difficult or expensive. If there really is a vast profit margin being charged on the panels it could pay to join the scheme just to DIY!
I have been looking for the retail price of PV panels and the information seems extremely sparse. The one price I have found so far is £559 for a 260W panel. So 15 for a 3.9KW array would cost £8385 on that basis and with inverter and ancillary items the total cost for a DIY install would be at least £10,000. Scaffolding and possible labouring assistance would add to the cost and at the end of the day the lack of a scheme guarantee would mean that you would be carrying an increased risk for the first 5 or quite possibly 10 years of the expected 25 year time span. To make DIY viable the basic costs need to be much lower than this example.
You need to factor in an average of 2 additional inverter replacements during a 25 year period. Panels will also need periodic cleaning to keep efficiency, but the frequency will depend on lots of things.
Never heard of quantity discounts?
MBQ
I predict prices will plummet over the next 12 months.
MBQ
Which would also apply to commercial installations (which casts doubt on the alleged 10% return).
I am sure I have seen somewhere that the panels are self cleaning.
So even with the FIT starting at 43.3p is the now superseded set-up economic? Adverts are already appearing claiming that the reduced figure of 21p is viable but I can't see how if the installation is still going to cost over £10,000.
In article , Andrew Gabriel writes
why? it's solid state electronics, so should be reliable.
micro-generatio accreditation schemes seem to be day courses but I'm confused about costs - £990 for MCS which includes
- Marketing
- Sales Presentation & Survey
- System Design
- Roof Mounting Systems
- Complete personalised Quality Control Manual
- Full Quality Management System
- MCS Procedures Documentation
- Solar Calculation Tool (Based on SAP 2009) for project design
- Installation inspection checklist
- Step by Step guide through the MCS process
- Full support after the course
- Support from accreditation body
but £330 for solar which says it includes
- Sales
- Surveying
- Solar Calculation
- Feed In Tariff
- Basic Roofing Structure & Integrity Issues
- Hands on PV Panel Mounting
- Mechanical Installation of Roof Fixings
- Scaffolding
- G83/1 Grid Connection Requirements
- Paperwork & test forms
- Supply of PV Kits
cant really tel if these give you the accreditation or just the training for it :-)
cos its power and has electrolytic capacitors in it.
why is it baffling - none of the above is about the ability to install anything its about training for the accreditation its a capitalist economy so its about what the market will bear not about what it costs
held together with lead-free solder, so won't be.
And what is the life expectancy of your tv, your cd player, the electronics that control your washing machine or CH boiler ? Need I go on ? Using those household goods as examples would suggest that Adam's 3 units per 25 years is kinda generous. And in reality an MTBF of 70,000 hours for anything electronic and associated with power is fairly impressive, so I stick even more with suggesting that only 2 replacements over 25 years is pretty generous.
Anyone know what these inverters will retail at - =A31000 maybe a conservative guess.
Rob
Yes, but the installers will be obtaining some of those quantity discounts but not passing that element of the costs on. As said somewhere higher up the thread, it is what the market will bear.
If my =A315k had been =A310k I might well have gone ahead but the installers were making a killing while they could by taking advantage of the stupidly high FIT to convince the punters that they would make money regardless of however much they paid for the installation.
Rob
This is nothing to do with training. It's an opportunity for government-blessed organisations to make money. They need to pretend to do something for it, much as they'd probably prefer not to.
I'm surprised the kits required anything that skilled.
Design of invertors, like invertor MIG welders, is important.
All the components correctly orientated so as to optimise airflow over where it matters (ie, wind-tunnel) rather than miserably grabbing a little airflow cooling the screw over there but missing everything that really requires it.
Component quality is a huge variable, never mind the long history of dud capacitors.
I would feel pretty good if I got to replace one at Yr 12.5 and one at Yr 25, however I suspect there will be a repair & exchange market at some point. Probably "=A3250 for refurb with 2yr warranty or go buy =A31200 new with the same fault".
Oops, PV production is saturated right now with most companies making a loss due to China dumping them. This has trashed their stock prices... as well as Obama's backed PV maker going bust with a big handout for setup.
I could be cynical and say politicians are merely giving a life-line to such companies after relatives or charitable trust bought a shed load of common stock knowing profitability will improve markedly at some point due to gov't enforced demand. Sort of like Compact Flaming Lightbulbs magically got endorsed yet suddenly became very short live & slow turn on products (in the main).
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