Can you not see this ?
Really ?
A kitchen / car / yacht (name anything pleasurable) …..gives simultaneously “playful” family fun and function.
You’d have to have a rather “geeky” sense to get “pleasure” from owning PV. Does your wife know what it cost ? Your children?
I simply think, many of you “PV fans” are “ a tad naive” about investing! I’m especially baffled that many of you live somewhere it’s cloudy most of the time and pisses down with rain.
You all have a “fiduciary” type obligation not to waste your families budget.
Do please let me know when the price of PV reduces to the point where it’s worth considering
.
It will, I’m sure. But for me, the maths doesn’t support it.
Sorry to go back to an old(er) post, but I'm still convinced something in your calcs must be wrong. My ROI graphs are in the thread here:
Solar Panels UK - is it worth it? and where you are you should be able to invest in less panels for better return. You also should have lower heating load which will help in the off times (tho I guess you may have some cooling needs in the summer depending on your house construction, but that is actually better suited to solar).
In my link above I consider 4 scenarios of varying size of array and size of battery to accompany them. At current UK power prices and in Scotland solar only breaks even in ~5.5 years and offers solid returns for ever more. Adding a battery extends your breakeven to more like 7 years, but the profit from that point on is at a higher rate. At some point there will likely be some maintenance costs which I've not factored in, but the battery is warranted to 13 years with my usage pattern.
Assuming power costs stays the same as it is, that's £40k up in 25 years. If power goes up to 50p/KWh then you are at £80k 'profit'. You are very subject to power price fluctuations, but any 'investment' is subject to go up or down, previous returns are not indicative of future etc., This should render somewhere between 2x and 6x return.
With my array, if everything goes pete tong on us I still have power, heat and transport. I'm no prepper but that's quite a lot of security. And if there is a powercut, the wine won't get warm. On top of that there is cutting our carbon footprint. We buy electricity from one of the 'green' suppliers, but that still isn't carbon free, so buying less it better.
If I take that £13k and put it in something that we are confident of making 10% annually for 25 years, yep, I make what looks like a fortune - £150k. But in that time I'm also paying more for electric (so still subject to its fluctuations) and inflation will take the edge off the spending power of that profit (calculating that is beyond my skills). If I want to use that investment to lower my electric bills, I can only take £93.50 a month out of my bill. With solar its £154 a month at todays prices, and at £50p/kwh its £240.
You could probably man math this either way TBH, but there is also a fiduciary duty to do 'the right thing' for us, our kids and the planet we are currently stuck on. You can price that in yourself, or you can wait for the gov to twist your arm and re-align the market.
