The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Smallholding => Renewables => Topic started by: northfifeduckling on October 31, 2011, 01:49:36 pm
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for all in the process of getting their PV systems done - hurry,hurry,hurry!
FIT form has to be completed by the 8th of December to be eligible for the higher rate! B@~+%&"£ for changing it at such short notice, aren't they? >:(
http://www.fwi.co.uk/Articles/28/10/2011/129781/Consumer-FIT-could-be-slashed-by-December.htm (http://www.fwi.co.uk/Articles/28/10/2011/129781/Consumer-FIT-could-be-slashed-by-December.htm)
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we knew changes were coming as they are running short on cash to fund it
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suppose it will be cheaper paying benefits to all those unemployed installers ??? ??? ??? :&>
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https://submissions.epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/20912
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It's still a fantastic deal, even with the reduced tariffs. We installed our 4kW array just over a year ago and the cost of installation has dropped by 30% since then - someone around here had a £10k quote last month for a similar system.
Over the 25 year contract, on the reduced tariff, you'd expect to get between £750 and £1k per year back from a 4kW system, and you get to use the electricity you generate for free.
Yes, early adopters got an almighty good tariff, but it's still one of the best investments you can make even at 21p per unit.
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our scaffolding goes up tomorrow, our installer doesnt know whats hit them with the changes the government has brought in, everyone wants theirs installed asap.
kn
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Have just been to a exhibition and apparently next year all the panels will be coming down in price as of course the manufacturers need to keep selling them, and you still get about 21p after this tariff runs out.
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I've just been on a training course so that I can carry out surveys for the installers, and yes the prices are coming down, however it's more complicated than that. As with all technologies, as the products improved and new ones are brought out the price of the current one falls. Added to this is that the majority of panels are manufactured in Europe so the price of the Euro has to be brought into the equation. The company I work for gives an accurate quote on the day that the quote is sent out, however this can change in either direction within a matter of hours. It's fairly minimal, though, and it's still the right thing to do even with the feed in tariff lowering. Ours are due to go up on the garage roof next week, and as our heating and water is all geothermal we'll be in a very happy position indeed. I can't wait!
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Wrote to my MP about this (in disgust, of course ;D) and he wrote back immediately asking us to put our comments to the energy minister in consultation which we have also done. Already paid loads of money up front for planning officer etc and fuming that our application is still with our localplanning department (although someone is coming over tomorrow). Our installer was busy beforehand, now he's stupidly busy as he's the man of the moment! Still going ahead come what may, but it seems there has been so much complaint about the timing, that it may be re thought. Fingers crossed.
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I went on a 'Green deal' seminar yesterday and looks like the current deal is still to finish on the 6 Dec. Which means we can't get ours done in time as we want to renew our roof and can't do that until next year. It will still be a good deal even at 9p better than you can get in a bank or building Soc.
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There is a humungous glut of PV panels worldwide with yet more manufacturing capacity still coming on stream. So despite this outrageous betrayal installation will continue to get cheaper and the lower tarifff is likely still to be a good deal, just not quite as sweet as it was.
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and not only that (feed in tariff halved) but also there are plans to only approve installations on rooves on 'energy efficient' buildings.
Scuppers our plan of solar panels on the roof of the old byre to supply heat and light to the farm sheds... >:(
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and not only that (feed in tariff halved) but also there are plans to only approve installations on rooves on 'energy efficient' buildings.
Scuppers our plan of solar panels on the roof of the old byre to supply heat and light to the farm sheds... >:(
Yes there is talk that the property must be at least in band C efficiency to qualify.
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just to add, our installation was completed on thursday 1 dec, in time for the old tariff rate, the company had problems getting solar panels and the inverter because of the (were going to be the greenest) government, changing the goal posts.
we ended up with 15 panels 3.75kw, the installers said thats all they could get on the roof, doesnt seem right, but we were rushed so we went with that option.
kn
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We're still going ahead with our 8kW plan as we were never doing it for the money anyway.
The nice thing is that the PVs and installation will be much cheaper now so what we loose on the lower FIT we gain on the cheaper costs of hardware and installation.
This is the perfect time to install as there is a glut of PVs and installers at present which won't last as the installers find other jobs (or not) to go to and the world supply of indium that is needed to make PVs and solar panels will run out in 10 years time
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:wave: :wave: just heard it in the news - the short-notice cut has been illegal, thanks Friends of the Earth :bouquet:
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Hold the celebrations a mo.
The bringing forward of the already planned cut has been ruled illegal, yes. But now there isn't time for anyone (or at least not very many people) to get a scheme designed and priced, installed and the grant claimed before the old deadline - which I think was the end of March 2012? Maybe some who were on the point of starting, or already in mid-install, can recover, but others - likes us - had had plans to do one by the end of March but can't now, having abandoned the idea, achieve that date.
I can be a bit of a cynic, but it does occur to me that they could have realised that the worst that could happen, if they illegally brought forward the cut-off, was that they would have to reinstate the original date - and they would still have significantly reduced the number of schemes they would have to support.
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I know, it's mainly a matter of principle. Don't we have grants here in Scotland on a first come first served basis - when they're gone they're gone? But this one was dated - tough. At least the people who had signed up and bought just before the bad news came can now feel better . ;) :&>
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Can't understand why everyone is so surprised, the Germans scrapped their 25 year deal 5 years into it, last year. All the venture capitalists have taken the cash meant for householders because the deal wasn't written properly -too busy trying to meet renewable targets that they will miss by a whopping 80% I am told.
Botton line is PV panels consume more energy in their production and installation than they will yield in their lifetime. So I can't understand why 'Friends of the Earth' are supporting this programme, I thought it was nothing more than a cash making carrot to fudge the Country's renewables equation ?
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Can't understand why everyone is so surprised, the Germans scrapped their 25 year deal 5 years into it, last year. All the venture capitalists have taken the cash meant for householders because the deal wasn't written properly -too busy trying to meet renewable targets that they will miss by a whopping 80% I am told.
Botton line is PV panels consume more energy in their production and installation than they will yield in their lifetime. So I can't understand why 'Friends of the Earth' are supporting this programme, I thought it was nothing more than a cash making carrot to fudge the Country's renewables equation ?
I don't disagree with anything you say - but as to why the Green Party would support the scheme, I think as much or more good is done by the awareness of the issues, of the availability of renewable, harnessable energy, and of the consumption of energy within the home, as it is by the reduction in need for fossil fuels. No education and awareness scheme the government - or anyone else - could have come up with could have achieved so much across such a wide cross-section of the public in such a short space of time. Money bloomin' well spent, say I.
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Yes I agree with you Sally, it has done a tremendous amount to raise awareness. I suppose the reason I am miffed about the whole renewables thing is I tried to get a very small and fully sustainable house with a very expensive and efficient wind turbine erected and in the initial discussions the Council poo-poo'd the whole idea, refusing to support it despite the fact that the turbine would produce more energy than it consumed in manufacture, albeit 10 years to break even with a life of 20 years and would be a net exporter. The reality is the Planning departments need overhauling, because to build level 3 and above Code for Sustainability housing (2013 compulsory) you need a lot of space to get uninterrupted light to the solar collectors in Winter and for ground source heat pumps. Sufficient space is only available on current 'Green Belt' land which our Council will not allow any building on at the moment.
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A friend of mine works in the solar industry. He told me that while the cut in 'per unit' income is unfortunate the longer term effect of this will be that the up front cost of a solar project will fall so that the effect of the lower income will be offset.
Apparently there is plenty of profit for the installers at the moment. In addition it is generally accepted that the cost of maufacturing the panels is falling so this will also help.
So while I agree that the cut in the per unit rate is disappointing these projects still remain good value.
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to be honest, our experience with wind has not been the best, as our neighbours have been granted planning for a few turbines without any problems - so far only the first is up and running - but I have to suffer the noise and they are a bloody eyesore. Never mind that, it has to be done. I happily accepted the carrot offered by the government for the solar panels - time they did something, being behind the rest of Europe 10 years plus....And any plans that go wrong can be rubbished later on - learning by doing, isn't that it ?? :&>
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Botton line is PV panels consume more energy in their production and installation than they will yield in their lifetime.
That's a myth as far as domestic PV panels are concerned, dispelled long ago. Well respected research* has shown that:
Energy payback estimates for rooftop PV systems are 4, 3, 2, and 1 years: 4 years for systems using current multicrystalline-silicon PV modules, 3 years for current thin-film modules, 2 years for anticipated multicrystalline modules, and 1 year for anticipated thin-film modules.
Since the lifetime of even the poorest panels is over 10 years, and most panels will continue to function at 70% capacity for over 20 years, solar returns many times the input energy (comparable with other sources according to the research).
* US Dept of Energy research (http://www.solarbus.org/documents/pvfaqs.pdf)
* Energy & Environmental Economics (http://www.solarbus.org/documents/pvpayback.pdf)
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Thanks Dan. I appear to have been labouring under a misconception with regard to energy payback on PV. However at a recent renewables seminar the manufacturers representatives were unable to provide figures to demonstrate either way. Nobody seemed to know about cleaning them either. Do they need cleaning to maintain output?
To answer Nortfifeduckling's point about wind turbines, they are a bit of a blot on the landscape, but can be much smaller than electricity pylons. The less efficient and significantly cheaper ones are noisy. In the 5 metre diameter group, efficiencies range from 6 to 30% and prices from £6 -25K. I worked on the basis that if you are going to install one on a limited site it should be the most efficient you can get and it turned out to be the quietest as well, completely drowned out by the nearby A38 traffic noise.
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well, I did look at the planning application for the first one - none of us was supposed to see it (we all do) as it is either higher than planned or has moved form the planned spot and the sound was to be minimal....The first had to be taken down and replaced due to malfuntioning (hence the constant noise), but even the second I can hear, it does sound more like the actual motor rather than the wind. More technical details here, OH looked at it from many angles in several posts.
http://north-fife.blogspot.com/2011/07/wind-turbine-flisk-north-fife.html (http://north-fife.blogspot.com/2011/07/wind-turbine-flisk-north-fife.html)
our neighbour is a professional environmental consultant, so if even he can't get it completely right it's not that encouraging - but I spent the kids' college fund on the PV anyway and I'll just garden with earplugs on some days ;D
We all do our research and make our choices and hope they are the right ones for us, the environment and our neighbours. If you live in a noisy area and have lots of land - go for it. :&>
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Nobody seemed to know about cleaning them either. Do they need cleaning to maintain output?
PV panels will only operate at optimum performance if they are kept clean - dust, leaves, bird droppings and other air or rain-borne stuff will form a residue that will reduce the penetration of sunlight. I read somewhere (will try to dig out a link) that this can reduce efficiency by up to 5% depending on how severe it is and how often it rains.
Cleaning is as simple as rinsing with clean water apparently, and there are automatic cleaning systems on the market for larger installations. Good discussion here: http://www.wind-sun.com/ForumVB/showthread.php?8470-Cleaning-PV-panels (http://www.wind-sun.com/ForumVB/showthread.php?8470-Cleaning-PV-panels)
We haven't cleaned ours yet, one year in, but I will give them a hose down in the spring.
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Masdar in Abu dhabi ran a comparison trial of a large number of different manufacturers panels a couple of years ago. I don't think they ever published the results but they said at the time that some panels were withdrawn because they were performing very badly. The Gulf is very dusty and the panels were cleaned daily: it was said that the drop-off in output was very significant.
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Either side of the A38 are sand and gravel extraction works. A new one is opening up just 200 yards from us. The dust is very bad at the moment with the house windows dirty after a few days; the rain brings the dust down and it sticks to the vertical glass. It is going to get much worse obviously in Summer. Quite a few South facing roofs in the area now have PV panels, but cleaning them could be quite difficult with the height. I can see them as I drive through the village and they still all look clean, so do they have a dirt repellant coating on them?
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do they have a dirt repellant coating on them?
yes, they do, so we were told :&>
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Just been going through some old papers and found an extract from 'The Engineer' dated 1987. It says " It is expected in the next few months, when the future of nucear power has been debated, the government will embrace wind generation" and goes on to say "by 1990 we could see the first large scale wind farms in production and the rest of the world rushing to buy the technology from Britain". Seems its taken the Government a bit longer than expected, 20 years longer!!
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I see that the Government have lost their appeal! Hurrah!
sadly, myplanning was refused, so now going with plan 2 - due date 28th February, so its getting a bit tight!
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Have a look see at the news it seems the govt lost the appeal to stopping the feed in tariff for this year. just remember that the tariff changes in April. so if you can afford the panels go ahead and do it. :thumbsup:
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The tariff will change again in march, all installations need to be fitted by 3rd March to qualify. Be quick as they are going to take it to the supreme court of appeal http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/9038906/Huhne-pursues-Supreme-Court-appeal-over-solar-subsidy-cut.html (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/9038906/Huhne-pursues-Supreme-Court-appeal-over-solar-subsidy-cut.html)
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Woo hoo! Very excited as I finally got my planning - installer said he can do it this weekend as its his last spot. Preparing the site today - complete chaos! (but in a good way). Come on sunshine! ;D
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I see the Supreme Court have turned down the governments appeal! Hurrah! I got me 44p! Better than a tax cut in the budget! :thumbsup:
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We are going ahead with an installation in May/June as the decrease in the price of panels still makes this a good financial decision, especially since electricity prices are likely to increase in years to come. HOWEVER, our installer tells us that the FIT is going down again at the end of June. The government hasn't announced the new rate yet, but it makes sense to start generating before the next change.
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Although the Goverment lost the appeal they did really win.......lots of installations where cancelled that has saved them alot of cash over the next 25 years!!! Be warned, under the new rules the houses have to be quite well insulated to get the FIT's.......if you are in an old farmhouse you will probably fail to meet the energy rating!!!