Solar payments not as promised:(

[tony sayer]

[Chris Hogg]

Yes, I saw it mentioned on BBC Red Button (hooray, got it right this time - no longer Ceefax!). A sad byproduct of the global warming scare, the rush to renewable energy and unscrupulous business. The same thing happens on a much bigger scale, when local councils give planning permission for the installation of solar farms and wind turbines. But I bet a post-installation analysis and comparison with predictions is never done.

[Tim Streater]

Gosh, I'm astonished. Anyone else astonished?

[alan_m]

I suspect the same is going on with air sourced heat pumps for domestic heating and hot water.

[John Rumm]

In this sun soaked country of ours? Yup astonishing! :-)

[Chris J Dixon]

Sadly, there will always be those whose business model is based on deception.

The various firms I approached for quotes for my installation all appeared to play by the rules, and used PVGIS figures for their calculations. The only problems were those who tried to quote for more panels than would actually fit on the roof.

Looking at my spreadsheets, the estimated output calculated forward to current date was 25.11 MWh, and the actual performance has been 31.65 MWh, already having paid back the initial investment.

I gather that the official predictions have since been updated, appearing to be more optimistic. When I have a moment, I may well compare the results.

Chris

[The Natural Philosopher]

ROFLMAO!

My exes late dad bought some water heating panels on thee basis they would 'halve the cost of heating'.

When I pointed out to him that the brochure said 'halve the cost of heating his hot water' and never mentioned the house heating at all, he refused to believe me.

[The Natural Philosopher]

No. Of all the green shit I have analysefd a few things made sense.

Ground and to an extent air sourced heat pumps would, if run off nukes, be cheaper than oil and comparable with gas.

More pumped storage would be worth building at a few sites in scotland,

LED bulbs were actually worth having.

[Andrew]

Man is offered 'free' money, and believed the sales patter without any DYOR, and now wants 'Compo' from Barclays banks shareholders.

I'm sure the PPI outfits will be on the case any time soon.

[Andrew]

[Andrew]

It's the £10K for just 6 panels that astonished me, (unless there are another 6 on the other flank and the house is east/west aspect).

[Andrew]

And these people can vote. Frightening.

[Brian Gaff]

I think anything that can save usage of power or can, on site mean you get some heating or power directly is all you can hope for, as anything that relies on some external company to play fair is doomed to failure before the end of life of the product. Brian

[The Natural Philosopher]

It is not clear either that that house was being heated by an air source heat pump (they talkked abiut heat recivery ventilation) or that it was correctly installed. Normally on new builds there is massive insulation, and underfloor heating - you need extremely large areas of 'radiator' to utilise the rather low grade heat from a heat pump.

If that famiy had an inadequate heat pump output or inadequate radiator area so they had to use immersion heating to get te temeperiures up, teh coist will treble. Alreday hot water needs to be boosted to 60C as that is generally outside the limits of an air sourced pump

I repeat. done *properly* heat pumps should be similar in cost to gas.

I nearly put in ground source here but I would have needed far more pipes in the UFH downstairs and it would have been impossible to utilise teh existing upstairs heating at all.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Well no he can't. He is dead now.

[John Rumm]

From the article it sounded like the chancer who sold the kit in the first place, has now jumped ship to do some ambulance chasing himself!

Still I suppose he has nice start list of customers, especially if he can somehow make it the bank's fault.

[harry]

None of these stories says how big the array is so it's hard to comment. The picture looks like around 2Kw, When they are installed the owner is provided with an assessment of expected Kwh/year generated.

My first 4Kw array cost £14,000 and generates £2000/year so it's paid for itself recently. My newer array was £6000 but only generates £500/year.

I have near perfect orientation. Someone who hasn't might get a lot less.

[Tim Streater]

Yes, he gets them coming and going. Priceless!

[Tim Streater]

Presumably those figures are based on the theft-price you're getting, not on the market rate.

[Tim Lamb]

Ha. They got my non technical sister to sign up for solar panels... on a North South aligned double pitch roof.

They repaid her deposit when I got her to cancel!