Solar Panel scheme?

[Groupie]

About this 25 year contract scheme to have panels fitted to your roof and sell the not used electricity back to the grid. Am i right in thinking that you sell your roof and if you decide to sell your house within the contract time the buyer will have to honour the contract wether they want too or not.

[redcrx]

yes, i believe thats right. Which did a good piece about solar panels recently, you may be able to read up on it on their website if you are a member or sign up for free trial.

[buildersmate]

This is precisely why it is a dumb idea unless you intend to stay put for an awfully long time. It is very likely to put buyers off and hence may well devalue the property.

[enfable]

There are 2 options to the scheme.
1) Rent a roof - this is where a company keeps ownership of the panels and you get free day time electricity. They then get the Feed In Tariff payment for themselves.
2) You purchase the panels yourself (two options here). i) You can then either opt to get free daytime (daylight) electricity and pay for non-daylight electric or 2) you can opt for a deemed rate which will pay you the FIT for 50% of the electricity you harvest.
The FIT's is pretty generous £0.43 for every kw you send to the grid and £0.03 for every kw you harvest (so you get £0.46 for every kw you send to the grid & £0.03 for every kw you use yourself).
The return is that good that companies will pay for the panels to be fitted on your house but reap the real rewards themselves (personally I would not go for the rent a roof option). Also if someone else owns the panels it could make if difficult for you to sell the property, if you own the panels the sales is straight forward and the purchaser would not have to sign any contract with the solar company. In my opinon if you intend staying where you are longterm and have the cash to buy the panels go for it. However, if you need to borrow the money this may negate any return you would get. Get as many quotes as you can I had a 4kw system and had quotes ranging from £12k - £30k. Also research the panels you will find that some are more efficient than others and merit the additional cost. This may help: http://sroeco.com/sol...fficient-solar-panels

[Ash_678]

Yes that is true you are essentially renting your roof to the solar panel company for 25 years so if you move house then the next owners will have to take up the lease.

Some companies do allow you to buy the solar panels from them during that 25 years at the market rate and then you would own them and start benefiting from the feed-in-tariff and you could move them if you wanted.

Engensa offer this option check out: http://www.engensa.com/faqs-sunroof.html

[Old_Geezer]

As I understand it, the purchase rate is only as high as it is because the government insists the company pays more than the going rate. Which means that to keep the company's bottom line where they want it, the rate charged to the rest of us must go up to cover the effective subsidy. It seems to me if you get into these schemes then what you are doing is effectively grabbing money from your fellow citizens who have little choice but to pay the demanded rate. Making the house of those willing to jump on the bandwagon, harder to sell, is a small price for that I'd guess.