I'd appreciate any help on this subject -
i'd love to install solar panels on my roof as I have a south facing garden which gets sun on it all day long, however being completely new to this area I have no idea which would be best for me.
This morning I recieved a leaflet from my gas and electricity supplier npower who say that if I take out installation with them for solar panels that any excess energy I generate will be bought back by them! If I went with this option would I be likely to ever actually make excess energy, the package they are offering is for solar PV panels? could any excess energy I generate not just be stored somehow for future use in the winter months?
Like I said i'm new to this so advise away!

Thanks Bowman I thought the offer sounded to good to be true, I've never heard of solar hot water sounds like it could be a better option i'll definately look into it!
I used to think my house was pretty energy effecient and well insulated with my only problem being my conservatory (boiling in summer/freezing in winter!) until I started reading on here now I realise that I live in a detatched house with a conservatory and am in desperate need of some insulation upgrading! but i'm well on the case! I think lol!

There's an article in the latest edition of Clean Slate (a CAT publication), where someone has had their PV system monitored by the University of Northumbria. Basically, it is a 1kWp system that provides an average of 0.1kW, cost 7k, and will take 90 years to pay for itself. That is about as good as PV gets in central England.

Fortunately for the owner he will not have to wait the full 90 years to recoup the costs because the beleaguered taxpayer has foot half the bill. In reality it is extremely unlikely that such a system will even repay the energy cost of manufacture and installation.

To regard PV as a saviour technology is wishful thinking in the extreme. The average UK domestic power consumption is close to 3kW. To supply that in central England would require a 30kWp system costing 200k and occupying 250m2 - probably more land than the average house occupies.

By all means have PV installed, but be realistic in your expectations. It is neither financially or environmentally beneficial.

T

Lynsey, keep doing the homework, but it can be pretty mind boggling at times. Once you get into it it can get pretty obsessive, you have been warned, back off now be forever green!

Keith, no I don't have PV, I do solar HW. A few points just to reinforce Keith (I think), the overriding adage to ANY green philosophy is reduce, reuse, recycle; if you you don't do this you don't stand a cats chance of meeting any manufacturers claims. We've gone to great lengths to reduce our hot water usage, and to conserve what we do use. From double lagged and all foil taped (all by hand) pipes, 100mm insulated boxes for all valves and stop cocks, to 22mm pipes so that the water saving shower head can work at the designed pressure; ripping out the window trims, spray foam cavity closures where we could see daylight before and making good. The devil as they say is in the detail.

Keith, my point really is that for a fixed budget for any particular property the first thing on the list of "to do's" is to to reduce, we've taken a pretty standard 1970's bungalow 100m2 from a heat requirement of 10kW down to 3kW. It's cost us about £10k to bring up to or close or beyond current building regs, thats about 2-4% of the property value. Whatever we do from now on renewable or not, that is a far bigger saving than altering our energy source. I'm not against PV it just isn't financially viable for most us.

For most people like myself "off-grid" is just a dream, but Keith your log store is bigger than my house! There is a very definite law of diminishing returns at play here, and without the upfront investment I and most people need to be looking for bangs per buck.

All the while the "green establishment" tell us that unless we are off-grid, eating locally sourced 100% organic produce; and HMG tells us all we need to do is change a couple of light bulbs; and B&Q tell us that a poxy little wind turbine with a life expectancy of five years that will pay for itself after ten are the only way forward; we're screwed. I get really frustrated by this all or nothing attitude.

For 99% of us these are just not sustainable options, but there is a middle way.