Quote:
Originally Posted by specialone
Cool, you should be able to sell some back to the leccy board 
Bet them cost a small fortune didn't they? |
Yep, the way it works is under a government scheme that includes a 'Feed In Tarrif'. This is what makes it financially viable, its aim being to encourage adoption and help to reduce the cost of the technology over time. If you dont have a smart meter (which I dont) then the assumption is that you will supply 50% of what you generate back to the grid, wether or not that is really the case. So, cool thing is that you can be paid for supplying it, actually use that same energy yourself and in addition not have to buy what you would have done previously from the grid.
Quote:
Originally Posted by skeetly
How much did they cost?
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Totally depends on the size of an installation but for 21 panels, all the accessories and installation cost me just under £14K. Pay back time is calculated at around 8 or 9 years, after that its pure profit. The feed in tarrif is index linked and guaranteed for 25 years.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Amplimator
+1
Theres a lot of these being fitted locally just lately and ive been considering this myself. Do they require any maintenance?
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No real maintenance no, unless something fails of course. One point that got raised by Which was over the inverter, its a box that sits in your loft and inverts the incoming DC to useable AC. If these fail then they cost about a grand to replace, they have fairly long warranties though at around 10 years, the panels even longer.
For my system, over its 25 year predicted life span it should earn around £55K profit and save me a cr@p load of electricity purchase.