Positive story on Business Green

[SolarRoofSols]

Been out of the office for a few days so have just come across this nice piece of news which I thought I would share if you have not already seen it - at last, someone is banging the same drum as many of us!

Report: Returns from solar soar as panel costs fall - 07 Nov 2012 - News from BusinessGreen

 

[Ian-LS]

Been out of the office for a few days so have just come across this nice piece of news which I thought I would share if you have not already seen it - at last, someone is banging the same drum as many of us!

Report: Returns from solar soar as panel costs fall - 07 Nov 2012 - News from BusinessGreen

In May FIT rate was 21p. It is 15.44p now. So a drop of 28%. I'm not sure how the annual inome and savings has risen by £100 from May? Somebody needs to do their sums again.

Has somebody put two and two together and got 5?

 

[SolarRoofSols]

I read it that they are attributing it to rise in electricity costs

"Speaking to BusinessGreen, the EST's Ian Cuthbert said the increased returns were the result of the recent hikes in energy bills..."

 

[Ian-LS]

I read it that they are attributing it to rise in electricity costs

"Speaking to BusinessGreen, the EST's Ian Cuthbert said the increased returns were the result of the recent hikes in energy bills..."

But the highest rise has been EDF at 10.8% compared to a FIT rate drop of 28%. It doesnt take a genius to work out the sums don't work out. Any news is good news but I hate to be pikcy but the data they ae using is flawed

 

[Gavin A]

It looks like a lot of that rise is down to a rise in the average size of the installations

"We are seeing that people are installing bigger systems," he said. "Solar panels are becoming cheaper and where £7,500 used to buy you a 2kW panel it now gets you a 3.5kW installation."

IME customers have almost always gone for the biggest installation possible anyway, so all this really indicates is that the smaller installations are no longer viable so people are only installing the bigger systems.

There probably is a bit of an increase due to the overall increase in average panel efficiencies as well, but that's probably only worth 5% max of increased system sizes since May.

Now, if the EST had done their research properly they could have actually produced figures that showed that the percentage returns are now higher than previously once you also factor in the reduced costs since May, but as EST's figures on costs are always miles out, it's not surprising they've not done this.

 

[John Allen]

My understanding is that they are referring to cutomers with existing installs not any new customers after the drop in FIT rates. So with the increase in energy costs the "savings" will have increased.