Following the introduction of a penalty tax for Chinese solar panel imports in the the United States, the European Commission has now launched an investigation into state subsidies of Chinese firms. This follows an earlier investigation into the alleged “dumping” of solar panels into the EU market. This could result in an increase in solar panel prices in the next year. Continue reading
It’s time to plan for a warmer world. According to a PwC report the world is heading for an unbelievable six degree Celcius increase in temperature in this century. And in order to limit it to two degrees the world has to increase efforts fivefold to reduce carbon compared to what has been achieved the last ten years. Our children could be in for a century dominated by climate change.. Continue reading
Solar panel prices continued their price drop in October and have dropped nearly two-thirds in price since early 2011. A 4kWp system (16 solar panels) that used to cost £15.000 is currently available from £5.400. On a South-facing roof in these panels will pay back about £1.000 per year, which is a return of 19%. Due to these price drops, solar panels still provide an excellent return despite the Feed-in-Tariff subsidy cuts. Continue reading
The price of electricity in the UK currently averages around 15-16 pence per kWp according to analysis of CompareMySolar. After looking at the standard tariff rates for low, medium and high users of the big six energy companies in the UK the average price is 15.1 pence for direct debit payment and 16.3 pence for standard credit payment. Over the last three years these prices have increased by more than 20% Continue reading
From the 1st of November the solar panel feed-in-tariff (FiT) will be cut by 3.5%. This means the FiT will drop by half a penny from 16 pence to 15.44 pence for systems up to 4kWp. For larger systems the drop will be from 14.5 pence towards 13.99 pence. The impact on the financial return of solar panels is very small, with the yearly subsidy for a 4kWp system declining by about 15-20 pounds.. Continue reading
How much carbon emissions come from a large city like New York? The answer is 54 Million Metric tons a year or 2 tons every second based on 2010 data. But that doesn’t mean anything, since I can’t possibly imagine how much that is. But the following movie does a great job to visualise the vast scale of these carbon emissions: Continue reading
Following Feed-in-Tariff cuts in the UK from 43 pence towards 21 pence (March 2012) and 16 pence (August 2012) the UK solar market is showing signs of recovery. After each cut the demand for solar panels has dropped by about 90-95%, since it makes more sense to install just before, rather than in the month just after a cut has been made. However, the number of installations of solar panels has been picking up significantly since the August cuts, with more people realizing it still makes financial sense to go solar.. Continue reading
The USA is going to charge a penalty tax of 18% to 250% on Chinese solar companies accused of “dumping” solar panels in the United States. This tax is meant to protect the home-grown solar panel industry. In reality it will only mean higher pricing for consumers who already pay double compared to solar panel systems in Europe – and hence hurt renewable industry growth in the country that seems to turn against solar. Continue reading
Today the first Thin Film solar panels have been added to CompareMySolar. It regards the brand ‘Solar Frontier’ and has been added by Devon based solar installer Sol Electrical. Surprisingly the price-point is very competitive at £6.900 for a 4kWp system. Let’s look a bit more into what makes thin film panels different Continue reading
Solar panel prices continued their drop in August and September and have dropped now nearly two-thirds since early 2011. A 4kWp system (16 solar panels) that used to cost £15.000 is currently available from £5.700. On a South-facing roof in these panels will pay back about £1.000 per year, which is a return of 18%. Due to these price drops, solar panels still provide an excellent return despite the Feed-in-Tariff subsidy cuts. 
Our price index for solar panels (incl. VAT and installation) is currently 62% lower than early 2011. Our expectation is that prices will drop towards £5.500 due to lower consumer demand after the Feed-in-tariff cut of August. Only a few installers are currently offering these low prices (lowest prices are even at £5.000), but the experience learns that once a lower price point is set, the rest of the market will follow. Some actual examples of low prices are:
Scotland solar panels: £5.850 for 4kWp (Energy & Management UK)
Manchester solar panels: £5.490 for 4kWp (CTS Renewables)
Kent solar panels: £5.700 for 4kWp (South Eastern Solar)
Bristol solar panels: £5.000 for 4kWp (Your Power UK)
On a South-facing roof in e.g. Exeter a 4kWp system will produce around 4.000 kWh per year. This will provide a year one return of around £1.000, which is around 18% on the best available solar panel prices (around £5.700), as shown in the second graph. Surprisingly, the financial return is better than many months that were on higher Feed-in-Tariff rates due to the strong price drops of solar panels. We expect the solar panel return to rise slowly in the next few months due to further prices cuts from solar installers.