Today I have had a visit from the man most likely to install my solar panel arrays. I will be attempting to log the process in this BLOG.
I had thought about photo-voltaic panels in the past but only for the green considerations. In the past it would've taken almost the full life of the panels to make it pay.
It has all come to a head recently, when I heard about the Gov't Feed-In-Tariff. Up to 4kW systems are considered as a micro-generations and are eligible for the scheme. For each kWh generated the user gets 41.3p. This is paid regardless of where the power goes. If the user exports the power they get an extra 3p per kWh. With these incentives the system could actually pay for itself in under 7 years. As the panel are guaranteed to still be 85% efficient after 20years this looks like a bargain.
This morning I visited a gentleman who had already had a system installed in June 2010. After talking with him I was much more happy about employing the person I had in mind. The installation looked very tidy. The owner was very pleased with his installation.
Andy Metcalf from New Generation Energy came around this afternoon to do some checking. He had a look in the attic space to check on where the inverter would be sited and then how we would get the power from there to my meter.
After measuring the interior roof (5.05 by 5m) Andy will go away and check the layout possibilities for using 235 Watt panels as well as 215 Watt panels.
It now looks like the project will go ahead quite quickly from this point on.
I will include numbers for cost etc as the project goes ahead.
