Solar Panels not a hasty solution to becoming Green

Felix the Cat said :

Jordo said :

I checked it out for my business and it worked out to take 23 years to pay for itself, but then when I checked again including interest it would take 50+ years to break even!

Would the system even have a life of 23 years, let alone 50? I’ve heard solar panels need upgrading/replacing after 10 years or so.

Yeah – what is the life of these things? If its 10 years, what’s the “greenness” in that – you have to take them off your roof and to the tip as landfill.

My girlfriend has tried to encourage me to participate in this subsidy program, but I rather my taxpayer funds go into a larger scale solar power station, perhaps trialling it on a new Canberra suburb, rather than this ‘flotsam and jetsam’ approach to environmental sustainability.

I had two solar companies come out and do their calculations and they basically told me if I went ahead it would be mostly for environmental reasons, hey I love to hug a tree as much as the next bloke but I’d prefer to feed my family.

Jordo said :

I checked it out for my business and it worked out to take 23 years to pay for itself, but then when I checked again including interest it would take 50+ years to break even!

Then I found out if there’s a blackout my solar system would be shut down (one reason for getting it as I run a lot of refrigeration) and I’d still be without power.

It seems like the the govt are “serious” about renewable energy.

If you want to run things during a blackout then you need a stand alone system, not one that connects to the grid. So you would need to also invest in a battery bank plus inverter.

I would not go near AGL energy shop after the bodgy job their installer did with our reverse cycle air-conditioning. Substandard, could not give a stuff and left us without air con in a house three days before Christmas after the contract said it would be a single day install. This was several years ago and I have not gone near them since. Nor would I.

I’ve heard plenty of good things about The Solar Shop – arriving about when they said they would, installing the system cleanly and having it all wired up just right.

Jordo said :

I checked it out for my business and it worked out to take 23 years to pay for itself, but then when I checked again including interest it would take 50+ years to break even!

Would the system even have a life of 23 years, let alone 50? I’ve heard solar panels need upgrading/replacing after 10 years or so.

Jordo said :

I checked it out for my business and it worked out to take 23 years to pay for itself, but then when I checked again including interest it would take 50+ years to break even!

Then I found out if there’s a blackout my solar system would be shut down (one reason for getting it as I run a lot of refrigeration) and I’d still be without power.

It seems like the the govt are “serious” about renewable energy.

What kind of a system are you trying to install?

Most of the smaller systems are around a 5year payback, if they had payback periods of 10yrs+ then no one would install them. How did you do your calculations?

Buzz2600, I don’t think future electricity prices enter into the calculation. Your feed-in tariff rate is fixed for 20 years. It doesn’t change with the prevailing cost of electricity, there’s no indexation or adjustment. All the other costs are known at installation time. The main variables for the pay-back period calculation are the interest rate and how much electricity is actually generated.

My own calcs are just like Jordo’s – there’s no compelling _financial_ reason to install solar.

“The Premium Price is set annually. However, when you enter into an arrangement with your electricity supplier you are guaranteed payment of the Premium Price prevailing at that time for the full 20 years of your agreement.” — See page 2 of http://www.environment.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/144608/FiTFactSheet.pdf

Jordo said :

I checked it out for my business and it worked out to take 23 years to pay for itself, but then when I checked again including interest it would take 50+ years to break even!

Then I found out if there’s a blackout my solar system would be shut down (one reason for getting it as I run a lot of refrigeration) and I’d still be without power.

It seems like the the govt are “serious” about renewable energy.

Jordo, I’d be interested to see how you calculated the time it will take to pay itself off. Did you include the subsidy provisions for business? How did you calculate future electricity prices given the speculation?

I checked it out for my business and it worked out to take 23 years to pay for itself, but then when I checked again including interest it would take 50+ years to break even!

Then I found out if there’s a blackout my solar system would be shut down (one reason for getting it as I run a lot of refrigeration) and I’d still be without power.

It seems like the the govt are “serious” about renewable energy.