Buying A Solar Panel Part 2

In part 1 I explained why I wanted to have a solar panel on our roof and how I worked out what size system we could get.

This time round I'll be looking into the things I needed to think about/organize before I made the final decision; How I managed to figure out which installers to come round and give me a quote; and what questions to ask them.

Things To Keep In Mind

Fitting solar panels sounds simple enough but there are some things you've got to think about or chase. For example, do you need planning permission? There are various consumer guides (Which? having amassed quite a library of them), and this is the one I used. It explains how FITs (Feed-in Tariffs) work, who you can trust, how free solar panels work, and what you should be considering before you take the plunge, plus what to ask the installation companies.

And, talking of Which?, I found this list of things that a good surveyor should do when they visit in one of their excellent guides (Sorry, I can't find the original link):

• Make written notes of all the measurements, in particular the orientation of the roof.
• Look at the roof – from both inside and outside.
• Use access equipment for closer inspection where roof quality is uncertain.
• Record any possible risk of shade on the roof from trees, neighbouring houses and chimneys.
• Examine the loft and measure the tilt angle of the roof.
• Look in detail at your consumer unit (fuse box) and metering.
• Identify your main electrical appliances and when you use them.
• Look around your house and discuss where to locate cables and equipment.
• Provide an in-depth quote including scaffolding costs, panel/module information, details of warranties, details of the inverter, the company’s terms and conditions, and information on how it has calculated the payback, rate of return and savings.

Which? warn that, despite industry regulation, some solar panel companies are still attempting the high pressure sales tactics so beloved of double glazing and kitchen unit salesmen (e.g. large discounts, today only offers etc.). If they start doing that, then I'll be getting very suspicious.

Looking for an Installer
So, I've got all my questions prepared, I know what to watch out, and I've found out I don't need planning permission, next I need to get a list of 3 installers to bring in to give me a quote.

Normally, I like to go by recommendation from people I know when getting work done on the house. However, I don't know anyone locally who's had panels fitted. That leaves me looking for reviews on the web.

Fortunately I've found 2 useful sites: Here and here. Ignoring companies with very few reviews (Because they might have been left by employees), and choosing from the ones with the best scores, I was able to find my short-list.

And that's as far as I've got.

Next: Getting the quotes.

Buying a Solar Panel Part 1

I've decided to try and get a solar panel fitted to our roof.

As you might expect, I like the fact that it'll cut our carbon footprint (about a tonne for a 2 kWp system), but I've also discovered it's a good investment: It should pay for itself in less than 9 years and, after that, it'll all be money in the bank.

And it'll give us some protection against fuel price hikes.

Trouble is, how on Earth do we go about getting one? How do we find a good installer? How do we work out if our roof is suitable? What size system? What questions do we ask the providers? How long will the system last? And so on.

FITs etc.

One of the things I've been looking into is what sort of income solar panels provide in the UK. It turns out that the return is made up of 3 elements: A Feed-In Tariff (FIT) from the government (currently about 43p per kWh); a payment from an energy supplier for the electric we export to the grid (3.1p per kWh); plus the value of electric we save when using the energy we're generating (maybe 14p per kWh). This might not sound like a lot but this could all add up to over £1000 a year tax-free and inflation proofed, for 25 years. More detail here.

Calculating What We Could Get

According to various sources, solar panels would give us around 9% return on our investment, a better return than any ISA account. This is why there are companies out there who offer to fit and maintain solar panels for free in return for getting all the FIT payments. In fact, if we couldn't afford to buy our own system then these free systems (aka "Roof for Rent schemes") would have been worth considering because they'd still cut our electric bills and carbon footprint.

Anyway, the point is, if it makes sense for companies to give away systems to get these FITs, it would also makes sense for us to own the solar panels ourselves (As long as we don't intend moving house too soon). As big as we can afford or, at least, as big as we can fit on our roof.

So I wanted to know what size system we could get.

For a while I couldn't figure out how to measure the available roof space. Then I realised I was looking at it the wrong way: Why not measure it from within the loft! Duh! I could even get the pitch angle of the roof. The result was at least 2.5 metres by 5, or 12.5 square metres with a pitch of 40 degrees.

I plugged these figures into this handy calculator and found out we could get a 1.5 kWp system that would give us a starting annual income of about £650, and pay for itself in 8 years and 10 months.

Next: So much for what we can get, but how do we get it? How do we find a reliable installer and what do we ask them? I'll be going into that in a few days.

A North Pole Without Ice?

This summer, Arctic sea ice reached it's second lowest extent (i.e. Area covered) since satellite records began in 1979. Throughout this 32 year period the area of ice has been falling, losing, on average, nearly 33000 square miles per year. More here.

As a result of all this, Arctic sea routes like the North-west Passage were ice free yet again. This has only been happening in recent years. This time, the routes have been wide enough for tankers to make it through. Shipping companies are rubbing their hands with glee at the prospect of faster and cheaper trips over the coming decades. More here.

Oil companies are similarly excited about the opportunity to develop oil and gas fields in the Artic Sea that were previously uneconomic because of the hostility of the environment. I find it ironic that an industry that has supposedly invested so much in encouraging climate denial blogs, pressure groups, and politicians, is now set to reap rewards from the effects of climate change on the Arctic.

A graphic illustration of the sheer scale of Arctic ice loss is the fact that a rowing expedition has managed to reach the 1996 location of the magnetic North Pole this year!

Still think global warming isn't happening?

On The Buses

Reg Varney

One of the things we're told to do if we want to cut our carbon footprint is use public transport more instead of the car.

That's okay if you live in a city or big town. The buses/trains are usually regular and you can make use of cheap deals like season tickets. Having lived most of my life in London, I know this for a fact.

Now that I've moved away from the capital, I've discovered just how rubbish public transport can be. So I rarely use it anymore. Or, at least, until I changed jobs a month ago. Now, thanks to there being almost no parking at my new company, I'm forced to use that "rubbish public transport". Oh, the irony.

Still, my experiences so far have been fairly positive.

• Bus frequency: Good actually. Every 15 minutes. Probably because the journey's between 2 sizeable towns. The door-to-door time is reasonable too. Mostly a 50 minute journey compared to 30 to 40 minutes by car.

• Cost: Good. If I compare the costs of driving my Prius to work with taking the bus (using an annual season ticket), they're pretty much the same. That was surprising.

• Comfort and Convenience: It's nice to be able to read a book on my way to work. However, the seats seem to have been designed by sadists, or aliens with no understanding of human anatomy, or someone who came really cheap.  And I'm not looking forward to the Winter - All that waiting around in the cold and rain. Urghh!

• Carbon Footprint: Ah. Here's the bad news. According to my friendly carbon footprint calculator, going to work by bus (7000 miles per year) adds 0.33 tonnes to my footprint (Compared to my car). This is despite the fact that I'm sharing the bus with some 50 others!

So my opinion of public transport in 'the sticks' is changing. As long as you live in a decent size town, the buses are regular. Smaller towns and villages are less well served.

Costwise, you've got a good chance of saving money on your daily commute. But you need to work out the costs quite carefully, I don't think season tickets will work out cheaper for everyone.

As for cutting your carbon footprint, I guess if you have a standard family car that does something less than say, 45 mpg then it may be worth considering. If I'd been driving my previous car, a Nissan Primera (30 mpg), I'd be saving around 0.6 tonnes a year.

Yeah, buses, worth a look. And the trains? I looked into that too: Almost double the cost of the bus!

Climate Engineering Tests Put On Hold

More commonly known as geoengineering, climate engineering is the 'science' of trying to manipulate the climate to reverse global warming. In an earlier blog, I said that I was against it. And I still am.

One of the many geoengineering ideas put forward is to cool the planet down by injecting sulphates into the stratosphere. It's thought that this would have a similar effect to large volcanic eruptions, which are known to have a temporary cooling effect on the world. You can read more about the theory here.

The reason I mention it is that, until a few days ago, a UK project was about to start testing the feasibility of this so-called stratospheric particle injection. This month they wanted to send a balloon up to a height of 1000 metres with a hose attached to it and spray water into the atmosphere. Sounds a bit basic but that's the appeal of this technique: It's low tech, cheap, and quick.

How about that? All our climate change problems solved for next to nothing. Almost too good to be true.

In fact, the project has been put on hold whilst they "consult stakeholders". Presumably because objections have been raised about the wisdom of the technique.

You see, there are a number of problems with it:

a) It does nothing about the underlying problem of carbon emissions. In fact, once they've started putting sulphates into the stratosphere, interest in cutting CO2 is likely to wither away. Which will mean that we will be forced to continue with sulphates for centuries because, as soon we stop, the climate will start warming again. Cooling the planet only solves one of the problems of CO2. For example, with CO2 still in our atmosphere ocean acidification will continue killing off our seas.

b) Once you put the sulphates up there, you have no control of where they go and what effect they will have. They may cause climatic disruption e.g. They may cause monsoons to fail in Africa and Asia. They could also contribute to ozone depletion. And, exactly how much do you put up there? How much, for example, will lower the average world temperature by 0.5C? The Earth's atmosphere is a complex, dynamic system that we're still struggling to understand, so it'll have to be guesswork. Do you feel comfortable with that?

c) Nobody knows what the long term effects of sulphate injection will be. It may mess with ecosystems, it may have unknown effects on plant-life, on us even. It's just one big experiment.

More here.