Before December the feed-in tariff was one of the best reasons for most homeowners to consider solar panel energy for their home. It was a government scheme, borrowed from a German idea, in which the energy companies were made to pay premium rates for all excess electricity generated by people with PV cells on their home. The idea was sound, in that it encouraged people to go green while they, or a free-installation company, took on the installation costs in order to reap the potential profits.
Sadly the government decided to retract its previous stance on this late last year. The benefits to solar customers meant that energy companies using conventional power were harassing the government with a need to raise their prices for regular users in order to cover costs. As such, it was decided to cut the feed-in rate by half, meaning you get 21p/kW instead of 43/kW. This makes it a much less lucrative option for the homeowner, and for the free installation companies.
Exactly what this means in the long term is hard to tell exactly. The good news for existing PV users is that they get to keep the higher rate of pay until 2025. The bad news is that the free installation companies may have to chance tack, or disappear completely in the face of lost profits. Also, for new users you may be required to prove your house is energy efficient to qualify for the reduced feed-in tariff, meaning not all PV users will stand to make money on their investment.
But this needs to be put in perspective. Solar power is a great option even without free installation. The potential benefits as a long-term investment can see you saving more than a hundred pounds a year on energy bills, and that's with the current price of energy: things are likely to go up with the instability of fuel sources in the future.
You can still save a lot of money with solar power, and just because you've missed the first wave of incentives doesn't mean that the option itself is unsound - it's just less of gift than it used to be.
Sadly the government decided to retract its previous stance on this late last year. The benefits to solar customers meant that energy companies using conventional power were harassing the government with a need to raise their prices for regular users in order to cover costs. As such, it was decided to cut the feed-in rate by half, meaning you get 21p/kW instead of 43/kW. This makes it a much less lucrative option for the homeowner, and for the free installation companies.
Exactly what this means in the long term is hard to tell exactly. The good news for existing PV users is that they get to keep the higher rate of pay until 2025. The bad news is that the free installation companies may have to chance tack, or disappear completely in the face of lost profits. Also, for new users you may be required to prove your house is energy efficient to qualify for the reduced feed-in tariff, meaning not all PV users will stand to make money on their investment.
But this needs to be put in perspective. Solar power is a great option even without free installation. The potential benefits as a long-term investment can see you saving more than a hundred pounds a year on energy bills, and that's with the current price of energy: things are likely to go up with the instability of fuel sources in the future.
You can still save a lot of money with solar power, and just because you've missed the first wave of incentives doesn't mean that the option itself is unsound - it's just less of gift than it used to be.
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