Boost your solar panel savings by £60 a year
A new product is designed to increase the effectiveness of home solar panels to reduce your energy bills by another £60 per year.
Considering all the companies that promise to save us money, it's a wonder that we don't end up with more money than we started with. One company is now plugging a way to boost the effectiveness of the solar panels on our roofs. Let's see how much it can help us cut our gas and electricity bills.
Increase the savings from your solar panels
Solar24 is a product from a company called engensa, which has dispensed with the opening capital letter in its logo, which tells us it's a new-tech company with brilliant ideas, a bit like lovemoney.com!
Solar24 automatically diverts excess energy produced by your panels to your immersion heater for later use, cutting the cost of heating your water with gas by around 10%.
You will now use almost all of the energy from your solar panels, which might be double what you were using before. engensa estimates the technology will create additional savings of £50 to £60 per year. These savings will rise with energy prices and you should expect to save more if you use oil or electricity for water heating.
The feed-in tariff for generating power will still be paid, whether it is you or your installer who benefits from it. However, if you paid for the panels instead of getting free ones, and you're taking the benefits of the feed-in tariff yourself, you'll get a little less from Solar24, because you are no longer getting an extra payment for exporting energy to the grid. However, the device should still be worth it in the long run.
Solar24 is free if you install it with the solar panels. Otherwise, it'll cost at least £250. Still, at that price you could make your money back inside five years and start profiting afterwards.
What do we know about engensa?
The energy saving trust has previously warned about rogue solar panel traders – and I note the trust also excludes capital letters from its logo.
Independent renewable energy website YouGen – which uses capitals but we shall forgive them for it – warned recently about “cowboy” solar panel traders, too.
However, engensa is one of the good guys. I've looked into engensa's background and it seems to be capable, serious, and honestly run, offering free solar panels, paid-for solar panels, and the Solar24 technology.
More importantly, the feedback from engensa customers on the YouGen website is outstanding, just like its major competitors. If you want to find top suppliers in your area, you can use YouGen's search tool.
engensa's sales pitch is worth reading, since it designs systems for all sorts of roofs and aesthetic requirements.
Avoiding the cowboys and rogues
Apart from searching YouGen, there are other ways to avoid the bad guys. YouGen has drawn up a check list. The main points in short are:
- Check the installer is accredited under the Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS).
- Establish how long they've been in the business and whether they're going to subcontract the work out. If they do, check who will take overall responsibility.
- Ask whether the system they recommend is sized specifically for your roof.
- Be suspicious if they don't estimate how much power it will generate for you.
- Get at least three detailed written quotations. (Some people get as many as six.)
- Ask your installer for local case studies or to speak to previous customers.
- Never sign up on the day. Be wary of any salespeople who ask you to, especially if they offer discounts that depend on it. This is against the MCS installers' code of conduct.
- If you're installing more than one technology, check that each installer understands the other technology and how they work together. Check whether they have done a similar installation before, and ask for references.
- Once your system is installed ask your installer to show you how to use it and how it works with your existing plumbing or heating.
- Check the warranties provided by the installer. “This is another area where poor installers fudge their answers,” says YouGen. Most installers offer a 10-year warranty and a 10-year insurance-backed warranty.
More: compare gas and electricity prices | Government wants to keep cutting solar feed-in tariffs | Free solar panels: The small print exposed
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Just to put the record straight. The 3.1p that (mikecuncliffe) says is payable on 50% of the generation is not quite true. The figure is 0.031p on 50% of generation, on top of the .433p per unit. That said, I have had my system in place for 10 months and have already received £850 in cash to my bank account, this is in addition to reduced bills (£21 month reduction). I guess for me the figures stack up good maybe its because I live in sunny Devon.
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mikecunliffe - I think you're agreeing with me. In my previous post I said this: 'The majority of domestic PV installations have no export meter and the consumer receives the export tariff for the assumed export of 50% of the electricity generated, no matter how much or how little electricity is in fact exported.' My point was that the original article's author, Neil Faulkner, was mistaken in his assertion that use of a device such as Solar24 would result in no longer receiving the export tariff. However, he hasn't seen fit to post a comment acknowledging his error, or to amend the original article, which other lovemoney authors have been known to do when readers have drawn attention to inaccuracies.
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nice one alandbailey. The return on investment at between 8-12% depending upon your location and the position of your array together with the installation costs, naturally, is better than you'd get from an annuity these days. The income is both tax-free and inflation proofed and supposed to last for 25 years from date of installation. Spinningtop, my massive assumption that most installers of p.v. arrays would have combi boilers is based on the technology availability over the past 20 years. When we needed to change our boiler to accommodate a conservatory extension (the old boiler vented out through the kitchen into what is now the conservatory) it made sense to install a combi-condensing type. 10 years back p.v. arrays were not available with the feed-in tariff schemes offered today. I believe that to qualify for the feed-in tariff you need to ensure your house meets minimum efficiency standards which kind of makes sense if public money is being doled-out for p.v. arrays. Edward50 - my old rotary dial type single-phase electric meter was recently changed. The replacement is not smart - I'd asked for one given these are meant to be rolled-out over the next few years. The change was dictated because the old style rotating dial meter would go into reverse when it was very sunny - something the electricity companies tend to keep quiet. The guess that you "export" 50% is just that.....a guess. If you use all the electric you consume you'll STILL get 3.1p per kwh for HALF the units generated. I ensure dishwasher, washing machine, hoover are run in sequence rather than parallel and (to the annoyance of my missus) when it's bright rather than dull.
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05 April 2012