What's in your diary

[sedgy34]

So who's busy

 

[Gavin A]

erm sort of maybe.

we have 42kWp on 2 projects that's waiting on loan money actually being paid into accounts, and tbh it's getting to the point where it ain't going to happen for at least one of them before the deadline.

I've had half my team on holiday most of this month as well as they all booked it when the deadline was meant to have been last month... cheers greg.

 

[SolarCity]

Two more domestic installs - one in Cornwall - to finish before the deadline. We'll be done by Friday afternoon.

 

[sedgy34]

Two more domestic installs - one in Cornwall - to finish before the deadline. We'll be done by Friday afternoon.

Cornwall? You goin on you jollies too

 

[SolarCity]

We've done a lot in Cornwall and Devon - friends and family followed by the usual word-of-mouth recommendations. Unsurprisingly, the yield figures we have been getting down there are incredible.

 

[Somecamel]

2 more this week to finish then nothing

 

[JulianC]

For sale: 1 diary. 2012 edition. Hardly used. £5 ono.

Thinking of getting into dairy farming at the moment. Looks like there's more money in it.

 

[Gavin A]

we've just had confirmation on a 12kW job, then had to postpone it to august because the scaf company we use in the area are on holiday.

we had been telling the customer for weeks that they needed to get this confirmed asap or we couldn't guarantee an install before the deadline, so I've no sympathy. Secretly I'm pretty happy about getting an install for August, as long as it still happens.

 

[sedgy34]

We have finished a farm 25kw power one are going out to one of the inverters as we did 2 barns the one is set for Germany not uk
also finished a domestic install today
and doin 4 x4kw jobs on some flats, have done 3 but we have a jobs worth at DNO saying your application is in the pile and we will get to it when others have been seen to (we need permission for the 4th).

 

[Eco Deal]

How may enquires you guys getting in ?

not much here !!!! one or two but turned out to be time wasters looking for free panels

 

[SRE]

One - but I'm grateful for that! How sad are we???

 

[sedgy34]

none lol
had a good run this month 10 domestics a 25kw farm

 

[SolarCity]

Zero enquiries, as expected.

 

[SRE]

That's it - last job submitted to Good Energy. Survey tomorrow and MCS visit next week. Enough to keep me going for a few days.

 

[sedgy34]

We put out 20,000 flyers and had 1 call nothing as yet in the diary now we had a steady run in June/ July

 

[SolarCity]

20,000 flyers? How did you distribute them?

 

[sedgy34]

20,000 flyers? How did you distribute them?

We had them put in papers that get distributed the cost was the same as paying a team to deliver by hand

 

[SolarCity]

You'll have to let us know how you get on with them. We've had very little luck from our leaflet drops.

 

[Gavin A]

we did about a thousand hand delivered in a quiet period in June, and got nowt back from it that I know about.

 

[Eco Deal]

Leaflets are very low hit rate , plus they have alreday had three or four about solar panels already.

Ad words used to work for me but nothing happing right now with that.

 

[sedgy34]

so far we have had 1 call from it (thats ridiculous)



ad words are good but expensive

 

[sambotc]

How much are you paying for adwords in your areas? I used them in July and each click was costing me about £7! Got a load of marketing nonsense from them and no solid enquiries...

I have found in the past that you get a better response just bumping into people or stopping to chat whilst out delivering leaflets than them actually going though people letter boxes.

 

[Somecamel]

How much are you paying for adwords in your areas? I used them in July and each click was costing me about £7! Got a load of marketing nonsense from them and no solid enquiries...

I have found in the past that you get a better response just bumping into people or stopping to chat whilst out delivering leaflets than them actually going though people letter boxes.

The amount I spend on Adwords is obscene, to be fair i have got lax with it recently- just checked- cost me £500 so far this month and **** from it, trouble is, all it takes is that one job and you have made your money ish.

 

[cbw]

Me too, obscene amounts on adwords, very similar to camels...

That said I have had a few conversions from it so seems to work for me????

 

[Gavin A]

I've just cancelled all our adwords.

we're now top of the natural listings for most of the search terms for Leeds, and first page for most places around us, so I don't see the point. Also we'd fallen for allowing another company to run them for us, which basically meant we had no control over them at all, which pretty much defeats the object of them.

 

[SRE]

I've never found that leaflets, television, radio or adwords worked for us. I can't afford adword prices and leaflets have always been a complete waste of time unless it's a sunny Sunday and people are in the garden willing to have a chat.

Face to face events always work better for us but we were at a country show yesterday with 6 other installers, 2 cheaper than us and had maybe 25 - 30 really solid conversations about solar but no booked surveys, which is a first for us. We're cutting prices for the next show and keeping our fingers crossed for surveys from the show yesterday.

There's a lot of interest but no urgency - I suspect this will be the case until mid Feb.

 

[sedgy34]

Don't think many will be in business to wait till then

 

[TedM]

There will be no urgency until mid-January. Everyone knows (or should) that the rate is set at 16p until the end of October and then 15.4p until the end of January. People will wait with the expectation that prices will fall lower while knowing that the rates are going to more or less stay the same.

The latest figures from DECC show 0-10 kW systems installed in the May-July quarter to be 147.5 MW and just 45 MW for 10-50 kW systems.

 

[Gavin A]

does that mean no cut for the 10-50 kW range? assuming those figures aren't revised upwards?

 

[TedM]

The lowest threshold for 10-50 kW systems in 50 MW so it is still just under that limit, meaning a 0% degression.

 

[Worcester]

The DECC rules are that no higher capacity band can pay more than a lower one, although they can be on the same rate, so it is theoritically feasible that you could have a flat rate from 0 - 250kW as they kill off the investment. It's good from an installer point of view as it removes the artificial 4. 10 and 50kWp system sizing, and customers can choose as size based on budget / need rather than greed Just the DNO's to keep happy now as big houses start installing 5 and 6 kWp systems..

 

[TedM]

Latest figures from DECC suggest that installations in the 10-50 kW band may have just crept over the 50 MW threshold (53.3 MW) so there would be a 3.5% degression for that band as well from 1st November. It's not possible to tell precisely as the figures for week ending 5th August obviously includes 2 days of July. I've assumed that the figure for that week is all in July.

In the second week of August registrations for 0-4 kW systems have dropped back to the same level they were 2 years ago in July 2010 (ignoring low Christmas weeks) - only 403 systems.

DECC should release their official figures next week.

 

[Gavin A]

arse. I was really hoping the 10-50 band would stay under the limit for no degression.

It's ridiculous that the first degression rate is set at a lower level than is actually sustainable for the industry as a whole to work to at current levels.