If those numbers work out you could do well - e.g. 11K in a 3% account would be worth £23K over 25 years.If you had £1000 extra ready cash each year through the panels and put that in the same 3% account you would end up with £38K over the same period - so that's £15K profit, however you are taking a number of risks:
- the panels don't require significant maintainance - either through faults, damage due to wind, whatever
- sucessive governments (5-ish) keep all those benefits in place - this is the ideal type of scheme to be scrapped if there is not enough up-take
- if interest rates rise in the near-term the cash-saver would do better - the break even point currently is 9% - i.e. if you could get a 9% ROI on your cash today then the saver does better than the installer.If you could get 7% the profit drops from £15K to £10K etc.The later the interest rates rise, the less it matters, eventually swinging in the installer's favour.
I would be very wary they had a similar scheme here in Australia and all of a sudden the grants have disappeared and the energy companies have just cut the amount paid for energy back to the grid by 2/3rd's making it a complete waste of time for the majority of people data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7
I'm betting spending the same amount of money making your house more energy efficient would probably give you the same overall cost benefits.
I doubt that - that would mean reducing your energy bill by £1k per year - that's probably a typical entire bill.
Yes, the 25 year thing is the risk. This is the length of a mortgage and how many things in your house need replacing / repairing over time? This is new tech and if it fails after a few years, how much to fix?
The free fitting and maintenance doesn't sound so bad if the electric savings can seriously reduce your electric bill.
Took a quick snap of neighbour across the road's house/panels.
Or the 'dominos', as another neighbour has christened them.
They've caused a bit of a stir in the neighbourhood, interested parties can be seen taking a slow drive past every now and then.
A few things i would consider is will they really add any value to my house should i decide to move
Do they need regular cleaning i.e. once a year as that will probably wipe out the money made on the energy data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7
For me, whether or not they add value to a house hinges on whether the warranty and support transfers over to the new owner - anyone know?
Ugly things aren't they , clever use of the street light though data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7
I've heard of prospective buyers asking for solar panels to be removed before they'll buy a house.
I seriously doubt they'll add value to the house.
But they may make it more attractive to a buyer than the one down the street.
Then again, it may make people walk away.
Bit of a 'marmite' feature to have.
I'm of the opinion that if you're financing solar panels, you better be pretty sure you're staying in that house for a long time.