Solar Panels?

[soupdragon1]

Zoon said:

theboss said:

My niece's boyfriend is in his early 20's, straight out of school into roofing type work and quickly got into solar. Left the firm he worked for to setup his own Ltd with his mate and now travels all over the country doing large-scale commercial PV fitting hundreds of panels at a time. No degree, no student debt, just a grafter who saw an opportunity and is doing brilliantly. I've got a lot of respect for the lad.

Surely he needs an electrical qualification to connect them to sign them off an connect them to the grid?

I know on my installation you have 1 electrician and a small team of roofers so I would imagine the connection bit is done/subcontracted to an accredited sparky.

[theboss]

soupdragon1 said:

Zoon said:

theboss said:

My niece's boyfriend is in his early 20's, straight out of school into roofing type work and quickly got into solar. Left the firm he worked for to setup his own Ltd with his mate and now travels all over the country doing large-scale commercial PV fitting hundreds of panels at a time. No degree, no student debt, just a grafter who saw an opportunity and is doing brilliantly. I've got a lot of respect for the lad.

Surely he needs an electrical qualification to connect them to sign them off an connect them to the grid?

I know on my installation you have 1 electrician and a small team of roofers so I would imagine the connection bit is done/subcontracted to an accredited sparky.

I'll ask him, but pretty sure he has no involvement with electrics besides probably physically connecting a DC connector into each panel. I know for certain he doesn't have anything to do with the inverter end of it.

[AW10]

pingu393 said:

You need to spend the money on something - eventually - or what is the point having it.

Why would you be saving £5k at 5%? To generate £250 per year. Will solar give you more than £250 per year of free leccy? Almost certainly.

Why would you be saving £8k at 5%. To generate £400 per year. Will a battery store more than £400 per year than you could export. Probably not.

The ultimate question is what do you want to spend that initial capital on? Whatever it is, it will be unlikely to return any sort of profit, but if you can get a £13k Porsche, who cares about profit?

If you put £5K in the bank at 5% at the end of the year you have £5.25K. If you put £5K on your roof in the form of solar panels you save £250 but the £5K is firmly stuck to your roof and is pretty much staying there. In the first scenario you retain your capital; in the 2nd your liquiidty is pretty much non-existent.

[Burrow01]

AW10 said:

pingu393 said:

You need to spend the money on something - eventually - or what is the point having it.

Why would you be saving £5k at 5%? To generate £250 per year. Will solar give you more than £250 per year of free leccy? Almost certainly.

Why would you be saving £8k at 5%. To generate £400 per year. Will a battery store more than £400 per year than you could export. Probably not.

The ultimate question is what do you want to spend that initial capital on? Whatever it is, it will be unlikely to return any sort of profit, but if you can get a £13k Porsche, who cares about profit?

If you put £5K in the bank at 5% at the end of the year you have £5.25K. If you put £5K on your roof in the form of solar panels you save £250 but the £5K is firmly stuck to your roof and is pretty much staying there. In the first scenario you retain your capital; in the 2nd your liquiidty is pretty much non-existent.

OK - but you have to spend it on something, at some point, otherwise noone would ever take any money out of the bank :-)

[PF62]

Burrow01 said:

OK - but you have to spend it on something, at some point, otherwise noone would ever take any money out of the bank :-)

But why spend it on electricity generation when equivalent electricity in quality and cost is available from the grid, and instead spend it on something more interesting!

[pingu393]

For info, I calculate my savings (versus Octopus Flexible) between 14/03/2023 and 13/03/2024 as...

Octopus Tracker only = £389
Octopus Tracker + Solar = £856
Octopus Tracker + Solar + Battery = £1234

Solar cost £4500, saving £467, ROI = 9.5 years
Battery cost £8500, saving £378, ROI = 22.5 years

[KTF]

What brand of battery do you have?

If it’s a givenergy have you considered intelligent flux instead?

[pingu393]

KTF said:

What brand of battery do you have?

If it’s a givenergy have you considered intelligent flux instead?

Tesla Powerwall 2

[KTF]

Ah. I did wonder when I saw the price on second reading.

Normal Flux may be worth running the numbers against then.

[pingu393]

More info...

Gas = 7571kWh
Electrictity = 3363kWh

All standing charges = £261.16

Total Energy Bill = £432 including Standing Charges.

I estimate gas at £434 including Standing Charge. It would be too much troub le to strip the actual number from the Octopus bills, and I have used my daily figures.

[MaxFromage]

PF62 said:

But why spend it on electricity generation when equivalent electricity in quality and cost is available from the grid, and instead spend it on something more interesting!

To be fair, I do enjoy my electricity from the sun more than the ground stuff After factoring in cost of capital, the 16kW system at the office will pay for itself in 6 years, so somewhat different.

[PF62]

pingu393 said:

For info, I calculate my savings (versus Octopus Flexible) between 14/03/2023 and 13/03/2024 as...

Octopus Tracker only = £389
Octopus Tracker + Solar = £856
Octopus Tracker + Solar + Battery = £1234

Solar cost £4500, saving £467, ROI = 9.5 years
Battery cost £8500, saving £378, ROI = 22.5 years

Or if you take account of the value of the cash, 18 years for solar and for the battery it is never as it is a negative saving of £47 a year.

[pingu393]

PF62 said:

Or if you take account of the value of the cash, 18 years for solar and for the battery it is never as it is a negative saving of £47 a year.

Do you ever spend your capital, or are you saving for a mausoleum?

[PF62]

pingu393 said:

PF62 said:

Or if you take account of the value of the cash, 18 years for solar and for the battery it is never as it is a negative saving of £47 a year.

Do you ever spend your capital, or are you saving for a mausoleum?

Of course I do, just on more interesting things than electricity which comes out of the sockets anyway!

But if you like the hobby of replacing utilities which you receive anyway, are you also planning on paying to dig a well to replace the water that comes out of the tap...

As before, I have no issue with people spending money on solar or batteries as a hobby, it is when dodgy repayment periods are quoted that I object.

[pingu393]

PF62 said:

Of course I do, just on more interesting things than electricity which comes out of the sockets anyway!

But if you like the hobby of replacing utilities which you receive anyway, are you also planning on paying to dig a well to replace the water that comes out of the tap...

As before, I have no issue with people spending money on solar or batteries as a hobby, it is when dodgy repayment periods are quoted that I object.

No, but if I were on a water meter, I'd invest in a water butt. As it is, I'm not, so I won't .

[soupdragon1]

PF62 said:

pingu393 said:

For info, I calculate my savings (versus Octopus Flexible) between 14/03/2023 and 13/03/2024 as...

Octopus Tracker only = £389
Octopus Tracker + Solar = £856
Octopus Tracker + Solar + Battery = £1234

Solar cost £4500, saving £467, ROI = 9.5 years
Battery cost £8500, saving £378, ROI = 22.5 years

Or if you take account of the value of the cash, 18 years for solar and for the battery it is never as it is a negative saving of £47 a year.

It doesn't work like that, cash savings. Not only are savings taxable, the growth in savings in real terms need adjusted back for inflation.

We went through a long time of low interest rates, then higher interest rates but even higher inflation. So cash savings in recent times may have shrunk, rather than grown, depending on the start/end date.

You can put cash to work at a long time fixed rate but for your example to be correct you would need to know inflation during that period (impossible to be sure) versus electric unit price movements (impossible to be sure) so all we're left with is guesswork.

The financially literate way to make the case for the investment is using zero interest and zero inflation. Which is what most of us do.

You are certain to be wrong using a method like this, but it's not about being correct, it's about being as close to correct as you can. The other method involves much more guesswork.

[Cheib]

AW10 said:

pingu393 said:

You need to spend the money on something - eventually - or what is the point having it.

Why would you be saving £5k at 5%? To generate £250 per year. Will solar give you more than £250 per year of free leccy? Almost certainly.

Why would you be saving £8k at 5%. To generate £400 per year. Will a battery store more than £400 per year than you could export. Probably not.

The ultimate question is what do you want to spend that initial capital on? Whatever it is, it will be unlikely to return any sort of profit, but if you can get a £13k Porsche, who cares about profit?

If you put £5K in the bank at 5% at the end of the year you have £5.25K. If you put £5K on your roof in the form of solar panels you save £250 but the £5K is firmly stuck to your roof and is pretty much staying there. In the first scenario you retain your capital; in the 2nd your liquiidty is pretty much non-existent.

The £250 of interest in the bank is subject to tax, the £250 the panels save you is saving you £250 of post tax income. Based on your example above if the panels costing £5k save me £250 it is the equivalent of an 8% return on your investment as a higher rate tax payer.

[OutInTheShed]

Cheib said:

The £250 of interest in the bank is subject to tax, the £250 the panels save you is saving you £250 of post tax income. Based on your example above if the panels costing £5k save me £250 it is the equivalent of an 8% return on your investment as a higher rate tax payer.

less 4% to write off the panels over their expected 25 year life?

[Cheib]

OutInTheShed said:

Cheib said:

The £250 of interest in the bank is subject to tax, the £250 the panels save you is saving you £250 of post tax income. Based on your example above if the panels costing £5k save me £250 it is the equivalent of an 8% return on your investment as a higher rate tax payer.

less 4% to write off the panels over their expected 25 year life?

Yes that’s a fair assumption. So 4% return…still better than money in the bank post tax for most people.

[Burrow01]

I am looking at solar installations, and a lot of the reasoning for me is that I cannot see electricity getting any cheaper.

It likely to get more expensive. UK power generation is still heavily dependent on gas power stations, wind is coming, but intermittent, Old nuclear is due for shut down, and new nuclear is still a long way off. Coal is done

Currently the UK imports 40% of its gas, and, as we found out a couple of years ago, this is very vulnerable to global events and significant swings in price.

A solar installation will give some cushion against future big swings in electricity prices. Our house also consumes a lot of electricity, and so the saving on our monthly outgoings will also be welcome.