How Solar Panels Lower Your Electricity Costs

Is your electric bill higher than you like? It’s a rare person who’d say no to that question – nearly everyone believes that their electricity supplier gets far too much of their cash each month. If you’re looking for a way to reduce your monthly electricity costs, look no further than your rooftop. According to the Department of Energy and Climate Change, at least 85% of the rooftops in the UK are capable of generating up to 50% of a household’s needs for electricity through solar panels. If you’ve been thinking about installing a solar PV system on your property, the reduced cost of electricity should be a major factor in your consideration.

Why Pay for Electricity?

Right now, most households in the UK buy all of their electricity from a supplier. While the costs vary greatly depending on your supplier, your plan and the discounts you can squeak in there, the average UK household is spending between £25 and £100 per month for electricity. If you’re heating with electricity, it may be even more and if you’re at home during the day, still more. Imagine if you could cut that expense in half? What could you do with an extra £100 per month, or even an extra £300 per year? With solar panels, you could keep that extra in your bank account rather than watching it go out to your electrical supplier each month.

Sunlight is Free – Solar Electricity is Even Cheaper

Of course, you have to pay for the solar PV system, but the electricity your solar panels generate is better than free. The government is keen to decrease the UK’s dependence on carbon fuels and increase the percentage of electricity generated by clean, green energy sources. To help convince more people to get some of their power needs from green sources like solar panels, they’ve created the Feed-in Tariff scheme, which pays you for the electricity your solar PV system generates whether you use it or feed it into the electrical grid for others to use it. The exact amount you’ll be paid for each unit of electricity depends on the size of your solar PV system, and the FiTs amount you’re assigned when you register your solar generation system is guaranteed for 25 years. Even if the government reduces the amount it will pay to people who install solar panels in the future, you’re guaranteed to receive the amount they state when you join the program.

To learn more about how solar panels can save you money on your electricity every single month, schedule a consultation with a solar power installer in your region. They’ll be happy to answer your questions and evaluate your rooftop for suitability for a solar PV system.

UK Installs More Solar Panels than Expected

How successful has the government’s incentive program for solar panels been? According to Bloomberg Business Week, almost embarrassingly successful. Based on systems registered for FiTs by the end of December, the UK’s solar energy capacity surged tenfold in 2011. That’s right. The UK increased their capacity to generate electricity through solar PV systems by a factor of 10 in just one year.

In 2010, the UK’s solar energy capacity was 76.8 megawatts. At the end of 2011, the solar energy capacity of the country had increased to 761.9 megawatts – and may even be considerably higher than that, because the registration for FiTs is lagging behind real-time installations. DECC estimates that the UK may actually be closer to 1.1 gigawatts – a capacity that wasn’t even on the radar when the programme began. At that point, the targets were 284 megawatts capacity from solar panels by 2013 and 832 megawatts installed solar PV capacity by 2015. That puts the UK nearly 4 years ahead of schedule in its adoption of electricity from alternative energy systems like solar PV.

Even more interesting is the composition of those numbers. According to DECC’s statistics, more than 230,000 solar plants have been installed since 2008, and about 90% of those have been small solar PV systems installed on residences. About half of the existing solar capacity was registered for FiTs in the last two months of the year, the data shows.

What sparked the enormous surge in solar PV installations? First, the cost of producing solar panels dropped significantly between 2008 and 2010, making the solar PV systems far more affordable to more people. The FiTs, which pays people for the electricity generated by their solar panels and other microgeneration systems, was also obviously a powerful incentive. The scheme gave those who were inclined toward solar panels but not fervent about clean energy an investment impetus to install solar panels with payments that could reduce the payback time of the equipment to about five years.

The biggest impetus for the sudden surge in solar PV installations, though, was most likely the government’s decision to reduce the tariff amount for future installations of solar panels – a decision which is, at this writing, blocked by the courts. The government is appealing that court decision. If the court stands by the original order, property owners who register new solar PV systems before the next scheduled decrease in April will qualify for the higher tariffs, while those who register after will receive a lower amount per kilowatt hour.

The reduction, which won’t affect any solar PV systems registered before December 12 and may not affect those registered before April depending on the courts, still leaves a fairly healthy incentive for property owners to install solar panels. The payments are guaranteed to continue for 25 years, and once a solar PV system is registered, the rate of payment will not be reduced. Those who register their solar panels while the rate is 43.3p per kilowatt hour will receive 43.3p per kWh for the entire 25 years. Those who wait and install at the reduced 21.1p rate will receive that rate for 25 years.

If you’ve been considering a solar PV system for your home, it makes sense to get your panels now, before further reductions take effect and reduce your incentives even further.

Benefits and Costs of Solar Panels

Are you considering solar panels for your home? Solar PV systems are one of the most popular alternative energy systems in the world, especially when it comes to residential electricity systems. There’s a lot of misinformation and confusion about the benefits and costs of installing solar panels. Here’s a quick cheat sheet to help you sort out the real facts from the myths.

Benefits of Solar Panels

Cut your electricity bills. Every unit of electricity your solar panels generate is a unit of electricity you don’t have to pay the electric company to deliver. Sunlight is free, so once you’ve paid for your solar PV system, you’ll be reducing your energy costs by as much as 50% a year.

Get paid for the electricity you use. The government’s Feed-in Tariffs pay you for every unit of electricity you generate, even the electricity you use. Not only are you getting electricity from the sun for free, you’ll be paid to generate it.

Sell electricity back to the grid. In most cases, your solar PV system will produce electricity that you can’t use. When that happens, your system will automatically send that electricity back into the grid to supplement electricity made in other ways. You’ll get paid an additional amount on top of the tariff rate for any electricity you feed back to the grid.

Cut your carbon footprint. Since solar electricity generation doesn’t release any harmful carbon dioxide into the air, you’ll cut your carbon footprint – by as much as a tonne per year.

Generate income from your solar panels. If you participate in the FiTs, your solar PV system could generate income and savings of about £670 per year for 25 years.

Costs of Solar Panels

The cost of solar panels and installing a solar PV system vary from one installer to the next, so it’s important to shop around and compare prices. In most cases, a domestic solar PV system will cost about £3,000 to £3,500 per kWp installed. An average domestic solar system will cost around £10,000, including VAT.

The more electricity your solar panels can generate, the more it will cost and the more you’ll save. Larger systems are usually more efficient and more cost effective than smaller systems, up to about 4 kWp.

Solar panels cost less than solar tiles.  Solar panels should last at least 25 years. There are some systems installed in the 1980s that are still operating. The only maintenance most solar PV systems will need is cleaning, but you will probably need to replace the inverter that converts solar electricity into AC current that your appliances can use at least once during the system’s lifetime. That will probably cost you about £1,000 at today’s prices.

Learn more about the benefits of installing solar panels by talking to a solar system installer in your area.

The Latest News on Solar Panels

It’s Sunbelievable! That’s what a group of researchers at the University of Notre Dame are calling their newest breakthrough solar product – paint-on solar cells. According to Prashant Kamat, a professor of nanotechnology at Notre Dame, the new technology is a long way from being a replacement for solar panels, but it may eventually make it much cheaper to deploy solar PV systems across the world.

According to Kamat, the new paint contains “quantum dots” – power-producing nanoparticles – that can be spread on any conducting surface without special equipment. Right now, the Sunbelievable paint only achieves 1 percent light to energy conversion, which lags far behind traditional silicon based solar panels with their 10 to 15 percent light to energy conversion ratios. It could be years before the solar paint is ready for the market.

Traditional solar panels, on the other hand, have come down significantly in price. A U.S. university announced last year that it had broken the Holy Grail of solar production – solar panels that cost less than $1 per kWh capability to produce. That’s several years ahead of schedule, and it means that the price of solar PV systems for electrical generation is going to just keep tumbling down. Until that happens, though, the UK government intends to remain involved in prodding and nudging the general population toward more economical and environmentally friendly means of electricity generation like solar PV.

While the Feed-in Transfer scheme has taken a hit in the past year, the government will continue to subsidize the installation of solar panels and solar PV systems and to pay consumers for generating their own electricity. The FiTs currently pays property owners a set amount for each kWh of electricity generated by solar panels installed on their property. The rate varies according to the size of the solar PV system and its generating capability – smaller systems pay higher rates per kWh – and are based on a set amount determined by the government. That rate can change over time for new people coming into the system, but once you’ve been registered in the FiTs at a specific rate, the government guarantees that they’ll pay you at that rate for the next 25 years.

Currently, the FiTs pays out 43.3p for every kWh of electricity generated by solar PV systems rated at less than 400 kWh, a classification that includes most home solar PV systems. The Department of Energy and Climate Change has already announced a drop in the tariff to take effect sometime in the near future – it was meant to take effect on December 12 but has been successfully challenged in court. The new rate, when it takes effect, will be just over 21p per kWh – significantly less, but still enough to pay most property owners back the entire cost of installing solar panels within 10 years, leaving 15 years of payments as pure profits for anyone installing a solar PV system on their roofs.

While solar paint may be some years in the distant future, solar panels are here and better than ever. The typical solar PV system can generate up to 50 percent of the electricity needed by most households.

Three Reasons that Solar Panels Make Sense Now

Are you considering installing an alternative energy source for your home? Thanks to the Feed-In Tariff scheme instituted by the government recently, alternative energy systems like solar panels and wind generators are getting a serious look from many people who would never have considered them previously. If you’re one of those who are trying to decide whether or not to install solar panels to generate your own electricity, there are some excellent reasons to do it – and do it now.

Solar Panels Are More Affordable Than Ever

In 2008, solar industry experts believed that the cost to manufacture solar panels would fall to $1 per watt by 2012. In August, 2009, an Arizona manufacturer announced that they’d hit that milestone 3 years ahead of schedule. Today, those same experts estimate that solar panel installation costs will fall to $1 per watt for solar PV systems by 2015 – but those who watch the industry carefully suggest that we could hit that point in six months rather than five years. Thanks to the rapid pace of technological advances – and the growing number of manufacturers who are scaling up production – the cost of installing solar panels have dropped precipitously over the past few years.

Solar PV Systems Save You Money on Your Electricity

When you install a solar PV system, you’re likely to see as much as a 50% decrease in your monthly electricity costs. That’s because the electricity generated by your solar panels is free – and every watt that you generate for your own use is a watt that you don’t have to buy from your electricity provider. If you use most of your electricity during the day when your solar panels are generating electricity, you’ll see an even more significant drop in your monthly energy costs.

Solar Panels Are More Efficient Than Ever

Today’s solar panels produce more electricity per inch than solar panels produced just a few years ago. That means that your roof real estate can be used more effectively to generate more electricity. In fact, the Department of Energy and Climate Change estimates that the typical UK family can produce up to 50 percent of the electricity it uses from a solar PV installation.

In addition to the money you’ll save on your electric bill when you install solar panels, you can profit from the Feed-in Tariff scheme, which will pay you for every kilowatt of electricity your solar PV system produces.

Myths About Solar Panels

The push to increase the proportion of electricity and power generated by green methods such as solar panels – not to mention the lure of steady income provided to homeowners by the Feed-in Tariff to property owners who install solar PV systems – has raised a lot of questions for people who may have never considered installing solar panels before. A lot of myths are circulating about solar panels. Some of them have never been true. Others used to be true but consist of outdated information that’s been made obsolete by technological advances in manufacturing solar panels. If you’re considering solar panels for your property but have reservations because you believe one or more of these myths, the truth may help you make your decision.

Solar Panels Only Work In Areas With A Lot Of Sunny Days

While solar panels do require direct sunlight to generate electricity, they don’t need full sun to operate efficiently. In fact, in typical UK climate conditions, a solar PV system can easily generate up to 50% of the electricity used by a typical family. The reason is that solar panels generate electricity using  the same UV sun rays that can cause sunburn – and if you’ve ever been sunburned on an overcast day, you know that those rays reach the earth even through a cloudy sky.

If You Install Solar Panels, You Won’t Have Enough Electricity For Your Nighttime Use.

There is some truth to this myth – solar panels can only generate electricity directly during the daylight hours. However, that doesn’t mean you’ll have no electricity at night. There are two different ways to ensure that you’ll have power even after dark. The first is to install a solar PV system that has a storage battery. The battery will continuously store any electricity that is not used immediately and automatically draw from the battery when you need more electricity than the panels produce. The other – and more common – way is to install a grid-tied solar PV system. In fact, only grid-tied systems are eligible to participate in the FITs. With a grid-tied system, your home remains connected to the electrical grid, but you only draw electricity from it when you need more electricity than your solar panels are generating at the moment. Depending on your electricity usage, your solar PV system may provide enough electricity for your use during the day and you’ll only draw on grid power at night. The excess electricity your panels generate during the day don’t go to waste, though. Your solar PV system will feed any electricity you don’t use back into the grid and you’ll be paid for it through the FITs.

Very Few Homes Will Benefit from Solar Panels

In fact, according to the Department of Energy and Climate Change, about 85% of all buildings in the UK offer suitable sites to install a solar PV system. To find out if your home is one of them, and to learn how much you can benefit from installing solar panels, contact a local company that installs solar PV systems on homes in your region.

Net Metering for Solar panels -- How It Works

One of the most intriguing aspects of solar PV systems these days is the opportunity to take advantage of the FITs – the Feed-in Tariff scheme provided by the government. FITs provides an additional benefit for people who install certain types of solar panels on their property and tie them to the grid. Essentially, the government will pay you to generate your own electricity, and pay you a little extra if your solar panels generate enough electricity that you feed some back to the power grid.

Net metering is the way that your electric supplier keeps track of the amount of electricity your solar panels generate. The company that installs your solar panels will also install a meter that measures the amount of electricity that your solar panels generate. In the future, the meter will also measure the exact amount of electricity that your system feeds back to the grid, though that capability is in its infant stages at this time. It still helps to understand how net metering and the FITs work together to help you generate income as well as electricity from your solar panels.

First Things First – Your Solar PV System

The exact amount of your FITs is determined by the capacity of your solar PV system and by the amount the government is offering per kilowatt hour (kWh) at the time your solar system is registered. In order to qualify, your solar energy system must meet certain requirements, which most residential solar PV systems will easily meet. Once your system is registered, the government guarantees you that the price they’ll pay you per kilowatt hour for the next 25 years. Considering that the payback time for most solar systems is 7 to 12 years, you could ostensibly expect to realize two to three times in income as you spent to install your system.

The Importance of Net Metering

For the time being, most utility companies will use estimates to decide on the amount you’re owed for the electricity generated by your solar panels. Essentially, when your home uses electricity from the solar PV system, your meter will “run backwards.” When you’re drawing energy from the grid, it will measure your electricity use as usual. Any excess energy generated will be fed into the grid, and you’ll receive the base FITs as well as a small premium of a few pence for each kilowatt hour for that energy as well.

Where the Excess Energy Comes From

Your solar panels will generate electricity during the day. On most days, your solar panels are likely to generate more electricity than you can use immediately. On systems with a battery backup, the excess energy would be stored in a battery for use during the night or when you need additional electricity. Since only grid-tied systems qualify for the FITs, that’s not an option for most people. In that case, any electricity that you don’t use as it’s generated will be fed into the grid and become part of the “energy pool” from which everyone draws their electricity.

That’s a greatly simplified explanation of how net metering will work with your solar panels to generate income for you. For more information on installing solar panels on your property, contact a local solar installation company and schedule a consultation.