The Day of the Electric car is nigh

[reohn2]

Also to take the strain off the national grid think how manyout of town warehouses and warehouse sized stores whose roofs could be filled with solar panels

Just thinking of this thread the other day cycling in St Stephens, Saltash.

Row upon row of council bungalows and every single one covered on the southern roof-slopes with solar panels.
Just here, but the streetview is a bit out of date.
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@50.40587 ... 312!8i6656

Further along with private housing, not a one.

When we priced up our house up for solar panels a couple of years ago it came to £10k.
We're currently paying £50 per month for gas and electric so it'd take a few years to recoup the outlay,especially if we were to take out a loan to pay for it,even at today's low interest rates.

When prices of solar panels come down and gas and electric goes up more private householders will have them fitted IMO

[Mick F]

I have a feeling - though I don't actually know - that much of the cost of installation is due to the roof.
Unless you have a good roof, it's a waste of money to fit them because once fitted, roof maintenance is rather hampered. Therefore the roof needs strengthening and/or renewing. Our roof is about 50years old and has had zero work done on it as far as I can tell, so the cost of roof improvements need to be factored in to the total price.

Some years ago, a mate fitted a metre square solar panel on the fencing on his patio and it was connected via its control panel to a very large leisure battery. This in turn was connected to an inverter and then to a dedicated three-pin power socket in his living room.
He could plug just about anything (within reason) into this socket. Sort of "free" electricity.

I recently bought a fold-up solar panel and a large capacity power bank.
I know it's not much, but since buying it, both our mobile phones have been supplied by it. I charge both my Garmins on it sometimes too. The panel is only about A4 in size, and it will charge even when the sun isn't shining.

[reohn2]

Mick
This seems the way to go:- https://www.tesla.com/en_GB/solarroof?redirect=no
They replace the existing roof tiles and connect to the Tesla power wall.

[kwackers]

When we priced up our house up for solar panels a couple of years ago it came to £10k.

You can pick up 4Kw of panels for around £2k, throw in a few hundred quid for an inverter, wiring, hardware etc and all the bits should come in well under £3k.
You can spend more if you buy well known branded panels or find a guy in an spotless ironed boiler suit to fit them (and obviously if your roof requires specialist work).

[kwackers]

Mick
This seems the way to go:- https://www.tesla.com/en_GB/solarroof?redirect=no
They replace the existing roof tiles and connect to the Tesla power wall.

I priced the Tesla tiles for my roof - £70k!

The Ikea system looks like a decent compromise? They remove tiles and fit panels flush to the roof. Less support needed, looks better than raised panels (although not as nice as the Tesla tiles).

[reohn2]

Mick
This seems the way to go:- https://www.tesla.com/en_GB/solarroof?redirect=no
They replace the existing roof tiles and connect to the Tesla power wall.

I priced the Tesla tiles for my roof - £70k!

EEK!

The Ikea system looks like a decent compromise? They remove tiles and fit panels flush to the roof. Less support needed, looks better than raised panels (although not as nice as the Tesla tiles).

I've not seen those TBH I didnt know they did anything like that.

[reohn2]

When we priced up our house up for solar panels a couple of years ago it came to £10k.

You can pick up 4Kw of panels for around £2k, throw in a few hundred quid for an inverter, wiring, hardware etc and all the bits should come in well under £3k.
You can spend more if you buy well known branded panels or find a guy in an spotless ironed boiler suit to fit them (and obviously if your roof requires specialist work).

That's more like it.

[old_windbag]

One of the ironic aspects of pv panels is that they are susceptible to dust build up and heat. So in their ideal locations they can suffer reduced output due to fine dust added to high temperatures. I had to review a paper that was modelling the effect of dust, the outcome was simply regular cleaning of the panels( possibly in water scarce areas ). In the uk those aspects aren't a major issue as we have a lot of rain, but the trade off being our insolation changing from winter to summer and hours of light.

Tracking arrays would help but we should really have fixed rooves and tracking homes like windmills of old, rotating on their base . House design a whole new area but an important one as we should be encouraging new outlooks on home design for modern estates. We still seem to put up unimaginative expensive estates even with our access to many renewable systems and sustainable building methods.

Would it not be better for some people on here to look at small wind turbine rather than solar, considering their location or garden size etc. The benefits and cost may have advantages for some over solar( again storing energy into battery storage system ). Some locations, i.e. hillside or generally windy spots may have advantages in this respect. Horses for courses but the subject of renewables is an interesting one.

[[XAP]Bob]

They are obviously best on a new build, where you can simply specify them as the roofing surface (either by using Tesla slates or by using embedded panels).

[Mick F]

We own two acres of woodland here - sort of SE facing.
Cut all the damned trees down, and install a solar farm.

[pete75]

Also to take the strain off the national grid think how manyout of town warehouses and warehouse sized stores whose roofs could be filled with solar panels

Just thinking of this thread the other day cycling in St Stephens, Saltash.

Row upon row of council bungalows and every single one covered on the southern roof-slopes with solar panels.
Just here, but the streetview is a bit out of date.
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@50.40587 ... 312!8i6656

Further along with private housing, not a one.

When we priced up our house up for solar panels a couple of years ago it came to £10k.
We're currently paying £50 per month for gas and electric so it'd take a few years to recoup the outlay,especially if we were to take out a loan to pay for it,even at today's low interest rates.

When prices of solar panels come down and gas and electric goes up more private householders will have them fitted IMO

We had them fitted back in Feb 2012. £9,300 for 4kw worth. It's not the saving in electricity that persuaded us to install it but the subsidy. It's almost 51 pence per kwh - this is paid for 25 years and is index linked as well as being tax free.The cheques we've received since installation have more than covered the cost so the next 20 years worth is all profit. We also receive about 5p per kwh for electricity "exported" to the grid. It's assumed half is.

[JohnW]

"Electric Cars"....................reminds me of an episode of "Last of The Summer Wine", long ago now. Foggy Dewhirst was looking for a book on "Silent Killing".

[hjd10]

Best they start to build those Nuclear power stations.....

[irc]

We had them fitted back in Feb 2012. £9,300 for 4kw worth. It's not the saving in electricity that persuaded us to install it but the subsidy. It's almost 51 pence per kwh - this is paid for 25 years and is index linked as well as being tax free.The cheques we've received since installation have more than covered the cost so the next 20 years worth is all profit. We also receive about 5p per kwh for electricity "exported" to the grid. It's assumed half is.

Pete nails it. It's the subsidy from other consumers through their bills that make solar panels worthwhile.

[irc]

I recently bought a fold-up solar panel and a large capacity power bank.
I know it's not much, but since buying it, both our mobile phones have been supplied by it. I charge both my Garmins on it sometimes too. The panel is only about A4 in size, and it will charge even when the sun isn't shining.

A mobile phone charged daily uses about £0.28p of electricity per year. It may take a while to recoup the cost of the solar panel and power bank.

http://metro.co.uk/2016/01/19/this-is-h ... y-5631997/