Free solar panel installation?

[mattikake]

or scam?

http://www.fundedsolar.org.uk/about-us/

Seems viable business. As I see it, you get a free install and once it's paid for itself from the providers takings of the Feed In Tariff, you get those takings too.

[JimbobVFR]

Its not explained particularly well which gets my BS detector twitching. It sounds like essentially a loan you pay off with the return from the panels, almost certainly at an inflated cost or interest rate. That's not a fact just a guess on my part.

[Justayellowbadge]

JimbobVFR said:

Its not explained particularly well which gets my BS detector twitching. It sounds like essentially a loan you pay off with the return from the panels, almost certainly at an inflated cost or interest rate. That's not a fact just a guess on my part.

Sounds like a good guess.

Also, avoid businesses using a.org domain.

[herewego]

You could look up Which magazine who did a write up on these. The main recommendation is to buy your own. I don't think you get much control over the installation if you're not paying for it and to maximise returns the free panels people tend to put too many panels up.

[roofer]

You get nowt for owt. The End.

[Chrisgr31]

It appears to effectively be a loan to install the solar panels. Once the loan is paid off you get the feed in tariff, however up to that time the supplier of the panels gets it.

Chances are you could get a cheaper solar system and loan elsewhere and therefore save even more. For what ts worth are solar panels are paying for themselves and repaying the loan taken out to install them.

[dazwalsh]

Got one of these companies in to do one of my rentals and no scam involved, they put panels up and maintain them, whatever isn't used by the tenant during the day gets sold back to the grid but the company gets the tarrif. After 20/25 years they are wholely yours and you get the profit from them.

[gazapc]

Chrisgr31 said:

Chances are you could get a cheaper solar system and loan elsewhere and therefore save even more.

This, I would be taking what this type of installer says with a 5kg bag of salt. They will probably supply hugely optimistic energy saving values and say you can easily cover the loan cost with FIT payments and then charge you £8-9k for a 4 kW system.

If you are intersted in solar then using cash is by far the best way, a standard 4 kW system can be had for not much over £5k these days. Doesn't have to be directly south facing and there are ways around dealing with small roof spaces and reducing shading effects.

If you need finance then try and sort out a cheaper loan deal.

I work in solar (well large scale stuff) so fire away any questions. I would also recommend The Green & Ethical forum on moneysavingexpert for lots of upto date information and quotes on solar.

[Jasandjules]

dazwalsh said:

Got one of these companies in to do one of my rentals and no scam involved, they put panels up and maintain them, whatever isn't used by the tenant during the day gets sold back to the grid but the company gets the tarrif. After 20/25 years they are wholely yours and you get the profit from them.

Was the mortgage company ok with it?

[mattikake]

dazwalsh said:

Got one of these companies in to do one of my rentals and no scam involved, they put panels up and maintain them, whatever isn't used by the tenant during the day gets sold back to the grid but the company gets the tarrif. After 20/25 years they are wholely yours and you get the profit from them.

This is what I imagined. Except they claim you'd pay in back in 10 years, but that would surely depend on your usage v's production. In the meantime you get cheaper electricity bills, which would sell me regardless.

Btw the consultant who rang me about 30 seconds after I made a web enquiry, said the panels installation was funded by Barclays Bank.

gazapc said:

If you are intersted in solar then using cash is by far the best way, a standard 4 kW system can be had for not much over £5k these days. Doesn't have to be directly south facing and there are ways around dealing with small roof spaces and reducing shading effects.

So what could you expect to generate out of an unshaded, south-facing, roughly 4m x 4m roof space?

[Paul Drawmer]

I don't know what kWp system you will get on your roof space; but for comparison, my 3.88kWp system generated 4218kWh in the last 12 months. South facing unshaded in Oxfordshire.

[Foppo]

roofer said:

You get nowt for owt. The End.

You give up your roof space that is how you pay.No money is handed over.

[DrDoofenshmirtz]

It's a bit of a scam.
Basically it goes something like this...
Annoying salesman comes round and checks your roof.
Assuming roof all OK - he'll then blast you with amazing figures. These are the feed-in tariff (hence the 'government assisted' bit in the sales blurb) + an assumed 2.5% inflation rise year on year!
The feed-in tariff plus the assumed inflation will help pay off the loan which you signed up to in order to pay for the panels.
The panels+scaffolding+installation will come to an eye watering minimum of £8500.

In summary - you'd be a complete idiot and/or fooled by the assumed returns to sign up to anything like this. The salesmen are extremely pushy (think hidden camera on Watchdog types) and difficult to get rid of once in your pad.

You can do it all for around £5k.
If your panels are in shade, they won't produce anything like full rated power, despite the bks the salesman will come out with.
They need to be in full south facing sun all day, at an ideal elevation of around 35 degrees for maximum returns.

[DrDoofenshmirtz]

mattikake said:

So what could you expect to generate out of an unshaded, south-facing, roughly 4m x 4m roof space?

The panels are aprox 1640cm long x 990cm wide
On a 4 x 4m roof - you should be able to fix 8 panels. So 8 x 250watts(per panel) = 2000watts
The inverter won't be 100% efficient, so you may see up to 1900watts max, give or take.

[DrDoofenshmirtz]

Foppo said:

roofer said:

You get nowt for owt. The End.

You give up your roof space that is how you pay.No money is handed over.

No, you're thinking of 'A Shade Greener' where they install the panels for free, you get all the leccy generated for free, and they get the FiT payments (to eventually pay for the panels...but I do wonder how long these schemes will be viable for?).

[gazapc]

DrDoofenshmirtz said:

The panels are aprox 1640cm long x 990cm wide
On a 4 x 4m roof - you should be able to fix 8 panels. So 8 x 250watts(per panel) = 2000watts
The inverter won't be 100% efficient, so you may see up to 1900watts max, give or take.

Or use much better quality and more efficient panels which are rated at 320 watts per panel and get nearly 2.6 kW on. Loads of options so do the maths but your fixed costs are the same (scaffolding etc), slightly increased panel/inverter costs and much higher income from generation.

OP, have a play on here to see what you could generate: http://re.jrc.ec.europa.eu/pvgis/apps4/pvest.php
Peak output is pretty meaningless as you get it for such a short period of time per year.

DrDoofenshmirtz said:

They need to be in full south facing sun all day, at an ideal elevation of around 35 degrees for maximum returns.

To be fair being even 45 degrees off south reduces generation by only ~5-6% over a year. The elevation has even less of an impact, hence why the vast majority of big solar farms use a ~20 degree pitch angle.

Shading is a no though, If it's modest then you can mitigate it with microinverters or 'smart' modules but it's not great.

[Chrisgr31]

Ah system was funded by Barclays Bank and possibly was expensive, it was significantly cheaper though than the first time we looked at it. It has proved self funding though, although the panels were erected without scaffolding which led tot he installer getting a letter of complaint from me!

[dazwalsh]

Jasandjules said:

Was the mortgage company ok with it?

This house was a cash purchase but it wouldn't pose a problem when selling or remortgaging apart from a handful of very small mortgage companies. I think a total of 7 I think.

Anyways tenants electric bill has reduced 30 percent so its proving successful. The back of the house has the panels on too so its not an eye sore. The installation fellas cleaned my guttering and slotted a loose tile back into place whilst they were up there.

You keep track via a website login how much electric is being produced per day/month etc.

I have a few houses with no mains gas so they will be next in line to receive these panels