Blog – Green energy solutions for today’s world

Solar PV is not a new idea. True it’s new in the UK on a domestic basis but you shouldn’t think that we’re pioneers in some Solar revolution. Consider Germany say; over a decade of State-funded support for domestic solar panels for your home installations with tens of thousands of customers and still rising even though the consistently reduced support since it started. That is where the difference is – the German authorities have thought this through, looked at it’s objectives and adjusted its finances accordingly. The UK government hasn’t. Actually the government has just been found to have been unlawful with its recent and sudden change to the FIT payment from 43.3 pence to just 21p.

Not allowed to appeal the decision, shortly we will establish what the government are proposing to do. Nerves are jangling in the solar panels for your home industry as a result of the uncertainty and the taxpayer, are now encouraged to think again before making the choice to go ahead with solar panels. However why should we reconsider? Solar panel prices have indeed come down as expected, along with the price of inverters which alter the power generated by the solar panels into something suitable for household use. So, even though funding is being slashed, is the impact actually as disuasive as the press has intimated?

12 months ago a family in a south-facing home with a suitably sized roof could expect to see a 15% return on their investment annually – and it was tax free. that is an expenditure of around £12000 to return a profit of forty-five thousand pounds over the 25 year lifespan of the Feed-In-Tariff. Only some very wise investment gurus, undoubtably with some insider knowledge could have suggested something as profitable and secure as that.

But how do the proposed FIT rates of 21p look? An identical solar panels installation might now cost you about nine-and-a-half thousand pounds, will generate the same amount of electricity, go on for equally as long and still be supported by the government for 25 years at the revised rate. This means that your nine-and-a-half thousand pounds would still bring in about £36000. That means a profit of twenty-six thousand, five hundred pounds over the twenty-five years of the Feed-In-Tariff, or an eleven percent ROI – tax free.

Electricity prices have gone up in the last twelve months, in the same way that they did the year before and the year before that. In fact these prices don’t appear to ever be going backwards. Generating a proportion of your own power is an intelligent way of cutting down your reliance on the energy companies and gaining control of what you use. So, unless you know that investment expert, you have a south-facing roof and some money bringing you very little interest in the building society, Solar power is still very much worth considering. Perhaps there’s still a chance for that Solar revolution after all…..

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