So Near, Yet Solar.

Do any of you wonderful blog readers know anything about solar panels? The fellow on the corner of my road has had a spanking array of shiny new panels fitted to his roof. Since then I have been approached by no less than three separate companies all claiming to have fitted them. I'm no green warrior but anything that could save me money must be worth looking into.

 I had done a little research on the net but it still wasn't clear what the benefits of solar energy were and it seemed there were several ways to skin this particular cat. When a company rang out of the blue asking if they could send a sacrificial lamb, sorry salesperson, round to give me a free estimate about how much I could save, I agreed. I was hoping to fill in the gaps in my knowledge and see what all the fuss was about. 

Their saleswoman turned up at the appointed time, I quizzed her for an hour and ten minutes and I still failed to see the benefits. It seems to me the system works as follows. I cough up £6,600; the company take the cash and fit 10 solar panels. The government pay me an amount per kilowatt hour plus a small export tariff on 50% of what I generate on the assumption that it is going back into the grid (although it isn't because the company don't fit the export box). In eight years I'll get my money back. Meanwhile the energy I make is fed into my meter reducing the amount I need to buy off the electricity company. She confidently predicts that in 20 years I will make a guaranteed 8% return on my investment. Spot the quantum leap there.


She suggests I could cut my electricity bill by 80% by using all the energy I produce. However, there is no storage battery so this would only be possible if the entire family are home all day. In the summer when it's producing the energy in copious quantities the family and I are at work and it would be wasted. You tend to use more energy in the evenings when the light is failing and everyone is home or in the winter when its dark at 4PM. Granted it would power your fridge and freezer during the day but would it be worth paying the interest on a six grand loan? I think not. Alternatively, if you have the cash, there are other safer and much shorter term investments that would make more sense and for a lot less risk.

 I don't regard myself as the sharpest knife in the draw, in fact to plagiarise Terry Pratchett who possibly stole it from someone else, I'm probably a spoon but I am failing to see a serious benefit here. Perhaps one of you kind blog readers can see what I'm missing. I expect it would suit people who have heavy electric usage and are home all day. And another thing, were does the energy you don't use go, into the ground? Am I going to end up with electrified flower borders? The general consensus it that the price of solar panels is dropping rapidly, I think I'll hang on another couple of years and the government will probably be giving them away free to meet its EU targets.