The government kills the UK's retrofit solar panel sector

Stuart Wright

Amber Rudd, the energy secretary, is pushing ahead with fracking in the UK
Government makes ‘outrageous’ U-turn over fracking in precious wildlife sites  and is cutting the Feed-in-tariff for Solar panels to Zero as of January 1 2016.
Solar panels are expensive and are a long term investment which rely on the FIT to make economic sense despite large drops in costs over the last few years.
Death of 'green' handouts? How to grab a £15,150 return on solar panels
In effect, there will be lots fewer people installing solar panels and companies supplying them will be shutting shop.
Effectively the death of the UK solar PV industry.
Ideally a PV installation would be a wise investment without the government subsidy, but that's not the case at the moment.
Whether or not you agree with the government's policy, this is going to be bad news for a lot of people either thinking about getting domestic solar panels or working for companies selling and installing them.
Ultimately I think the decision will be bad for the environment.

John

Whilst not good. If its relying on Govt handouts to survive, then its not a viable business anyway.
Things may change if Elon Musks Powerwall thingymagig reaches maturity allowing home generated leccy to be used into the evening and night. But even then you are probably looking at a 10year payback

Trollslayer

Have to agree John.
It takes a lot of resources  to make photovoltaic cells and I doubt those would be cancelled out out by the electricity generated.
At some point it will be viable in the UK but not yet.

Stuart Wright

The 7Kw Tesla Powerwall looks to be coming in at something like £2k   installation.

Trollslayer

That is just the battery, doesn't include the panels etc.

Stuart Wright

Right.  I'm looking at a 12 panel, 4kw install on our roof for about £6k

Trollslayer

A 6-9 year return on the investment (at a guess)?

johntheexpat

UN scientist Jacquie McGlade raps UK over renewables - BBC News

Seems the UN agree.



"The UK government says it will meet its targets on carbon emissions in the most cost-effective way.

A spokesman said it was "absolutely committed to getting a global deal in Paris"."

I wonder if thats the same "absolute commitment" that they have to renegotiating  a deal with Europe?  
ie a lot of blether.

PSM1

I have my panels already and now just waiting for a cost effective home battery. In the US there are companies offering them on an installment approach. So they install them and you pay £30 a month which is close to what they save you on electricity. So a cost neutral option and then once paid off you start to save.

IronGiant

We have so little feedback into the grid that wouldn't be cost effective for us.  I guess I should turn a few computers off during the day