CarbonBasedLifeform

Basically everyone is saying house prices are too high and compared to salary multiples i completely agree, the premise of my argument is so what! What we fail to see us that we are becoming poor as a nation. Just like the welfare state/nhs will fail because we can no longer afford to pay for it we as a nation are going to be unable to afford good quality housing with all the mod cons! Just because we are used to being able to afford something in the past does not mean we will be able to do so in the future. If wage arbitration and globalisation mean that we can only have average salaries of 25k, then we can only really afford say 65k houses, i think even 3x multiples will soon be unaffordable due to inflation of essential items. We are a poor nation with a bloated financial sector that will collapse and not a large enough productive economy to sustain the standard of living inc housing that we are used to so the future will be kit houses on small plots! Get over it nobody owes us a high standard if living it has to be earn't and we ain't doing that.

The free ones are a bad idea! for the following reasons; 1.) you only get the power and not the fit payments, a 4kw system south facing at 30 degrees will produce an average of 3150kw hrs per year in the UK (upto 20 % more if you live on the south coast but this is the UK average). As most of the power is produced during the day and in good conditions , most people will be either at work or outside during these periods. For FIT calculations the assumption is that you will use 50% of the power produced so what are you getting? 1575kwh * 14p =£220.50 per year saving on your bill. This is the only positive. 2.) roof develops leaks after 10 years do you believe that the company who put them on for free is going to pay for a de-install and re-install (think scaffold electrician/roofer on 2 occassions) so that the roof can be re done/repaired? If so i suggest you read the small print. 3.) A 4kw system is roughly a 10k investment for this company but the returns over 25yrs are around 65k, so they basically put a charge on your home for the investment that they have made (and no it's not the 10k cost !) so lets say after 6 years you decide to move and a young couple want to buy your house with a mortgage, then the mortgage provider finds out that the solar company has a 25year contract to use the roof for power generation that if broken leads to financial penalties (could be tens of thousands) do you think they will be keen to lend to said ftb's with a 10% deposit? Only a good idea if your roof is in good shape and you don't intend to move for 25years (STILL INTERESTED????).

Can't take credit for this unfortunatley as it was a comment from a teleraph article but i think it sums up very niceley where we are at (uk,europe and us). "There is no money left for another round of bank bailouts by any government, Unless they borrow the money from the banks that the governments intends to bail out. You know this makes sense - Don't you? because i'm losing the plot here."

What was it about what i have written makes you think i don't know this? Power companies are happy to have FIT's forced upon them, do you not think that the government and ofgem etc have agreed to let them increase bills to pay for them (and some) whilst turning a blind eye? citing investent in ifrastructure/new tech and rising gas/oil prices as the many culprits for thes rises (true but PV plays a part too) I don't need to read the posts again This is my industry I KNOW It's a rigged game.

As always if you are capital rich you can leave it in the bank earning sweet fa or you can get 13% tax free from solar PV. If you are struggling to get along and pay your bills GUESS WHAT? your bills will get even higher to pay the guy mentioned above!!!!!! twas always so. Did'nt say it was right! not here to defend it ! just here to inform a few people as to how it really works.

I'm not arguing that they can change the feed in tariff's ie CUT /ABOLISH them IN THE FUTURE they can decide to pay whatever they want for future entrants and effectivley close the scheme by offering to pay uneconomic rates to make investment in PV unnattractive. But as i understand the scheme anyone who enters at the moment is contractually garanteed 43.3p and 46.3p index linked to rpi for 25 years. Can contrats be broken? yes! but it's difficult to see how the power companies can do this without going bankrupt (unlikley imo).

wtf? lol i never suggested they would! i was simply putting to bed the myth that these feed in payments are payed for by govt and will be cut/axed when the govt decides they are no longer affordable. Once again the power companies pay them and like i said once a certain percentage of their customers are on the scheme it will either close to new entrants or the levels of payments dropped to such a level that nobody would invest in a pv system anyway (effectivley the same thing). So unless the power utility companies go out of business i don't think the cuts argument stands.

Yet again someone who knows sweet fa about this! ********* THE GOVERNMENT DOES NOT PAY THE FEED IN TARIFF SUBSIDY! THE POWER COMPANIES PAY IT (via billpayes obviously) ************ we signed up to kyoto thereby agreeing to cut CO2 or we have to pay fines. we need to build more power stations to replace old ones due to be decommissioned. this will take 8-10 years. solution the govt ENFORCES A LEGAL OBLIGATION UPON THE POWER COMPANIES to buy PV power generated by their consumers at rates fixed for 25 years linked to RPI. making PV systems an attractive investment. RESULT. govt achieves c02 cuts and taken some of the strain of the national grid allowing more time for infrastructure upgrades also a high tech industry is formed creating thousands of jobs ALL PAYED FOR BY YOU THE ENERGY CONSUMER! IF YOU DON'T HAVE A SOLAR PV SYSTEM INSTALLED YOU ARE SUBSIDISING THE FEED IN TARIFF OF THOSE THAT DO THROUGH INCREASES TO YOUR BILL'S FACT! obviously this system is only sustainable when the majority of customers don't have PV systems as they have to pay for the customers that do, when this happens the scheme will close to new entrants THIS IS WHAT IS HAPPENING IN GERMANY it's not that they have decided solar pv is not valid as a technology. so now they have reduced the feed in tariffs to make it unnatractive to new entrants as they need them to susidise the existing customers feed in tariff payments. This is what will happen here after the tipping point of sustanability is reached.

Why should you get any more than some free leccy? they are paying for the system and any maintenance so they get the feed in tariff, if you want the feed in tariff pay for the system yourself SIMPLES! or do you believe in fairies too? They know how mutch power the system generates as they install a generation meter and this will be plainly visible within the property for you to see , this will usually contain a sim card that sends this information to a monitoring service. An assumption is made that most people will probably use 50% of the power the system generates with the rest going into the grid until smart metering is installed they have no way to know how mutch you use and how mutch you export , they do know how mutch the system generates though.

you are all talking crap returns on a 3.96 kw system costing avg £13k are around £1730-1950 year we are seeing typical returns of 13% tax free linked to RPI for 25yrs on systems sized over 3kw. here in the sw systems are outperforming govt figures (SAP calculations) by around 15%. current top of the range hybrid sanyo modules have cell efficiencies of 20% run of the mill modules are aroud 14-16% efficient.

At Last somebody who knows what they are talking about! I too run a solar company in the SW and find that the biggest mistake people make is thinking that a grid tied solar pv system will provide all their power . IT WON'T I'm often asked "what size system do i need to install so that i won't get any bills?". This is the wrong question as in jan feb etc there is no way a residential PV system will provide all your power needs and as it has no storage (being grid tied) it will not produce anything at night. The question to ask is "what size pv system do i need to install so that the income from the FIT payments will cover my electricity bills?" For an average property the answer is around 1.4kw peak but many people choose to install a 4kw system as this covers their bills and gives them a tax free yearly income linked to RPI. As confounded says the assumption is that you will only use 50% of the power that you produce (you may be at work during most of the summer with just the fridge and alarm system running) so any unused power is "exported" to the grid, however there is nothing to stop you charging batteries using this pv power if you were so minded these could then be used to run normal household items (via an inverter) so it would be possible to use all the power your system produces while also being paid for it.

with no respect you don't at least not in the context of what increses in oil prices will do to the global economy. look at what happened when oil hit $180 barrel. in terms of oil all the low hanging fuit has been picked. cheap energy will be a thing of the poast within 5-10 years.

EROEI same thing. western economies based on CHEAP OIL. end of thread. epic fail.

op either epic fail or epic trolling cant decide

I believe that if we compared your IQ to that of the general populus of the UK it would'nt matter if we compared it to the mean,median or mode for this data as your IQ would always be on the lower side of the best fit function. ie below average.

agree 100% the "outlaw" system employed in the states was very effective as a means of crime cotrol but there are no fees for lawyers in this system so it ain't gonna happen without a total collapse.

Saw a post on the scummers thread that made me think you are a moron, this post just confirmed it. Do you believe that the state out of generosity has been taxing us at a less than optimum level for returns for the last few decades? and that now they can increase taxation to get more revenue? I do not as the state likes to interfere with our lives as much as possible but to do this it needs to raise revenue, they are already taxing us at the optimum level for returns and any increases in taxes will actually see a decrease in tax revenue, cannot be bothered to explain why but its pretty obvious to anyone who takes the time to think about it. The game is over, the growth needed to get us out of this mess is just not going to materialise, the spending review is just a joke as it only addresses structual defecit and even then over the next 4 years, it assumes future growth willl take care of the rest LOL. Two words PEAK OIL. The debts cannot be repaid so they won't its just a question of who is going to take the haircut and who is going to die.

posto 9 ipenema beach or LIVERPOOL....................

no shit sherlock one of the weakest topics for a long time imo.

nope except maybe in her own head.

she aint achieved shit

i'm 100% sure she has no idea what a £trillion is, not even sure she knows what a billion is, a million maybe, just maybe but apparently its them new coalition wot done it if i'd said thats over 3 times gdp i'm sure i'd have got another blank look so i decided not to waste my breath.

Sister and BIL came to visit me the other day. She has some ******** degree in evironmental studies and field biology and i know it must be ******** as she could not do maths at even a quite basic level at secondary school but is good at writing essays and making neat diagrams but thats about it etc . Anyways she works for the council looking after an area of outstanding natural beuty she just blurted out "dont think much of this new govt the economy is in a mess and we can,t sell our house" i handed her a newspaper with the "britains real debt is 5trillion story" and said "do'nt think that happened in the last 120 days do you" all i got was "dunno" and a blank look, i started to talk about how labour had built schools and hospitals with pfi "mortgages" etc and got some more blank looks. she has just put house on market for £235k (the highest of the valuations) it was valued at £215k in 2007 and she is wondering why nobody is viewing it "ive put it on at £235k as everyone is looking for a bit of a bargain at the moment so we went with the highest valuation to allow us room to knock a few £k off for any hagglers" she said. pure ******ing genius. If an apparently educated woman can be so ******ing stupid i,m sure labour will be back in in a few years, country full of morons impo.

Nail on head, thread over