Home—Blog—More reasons to steer clear of 'rent a roof' solar electricity deals
Mar 27, 2012, 02:34
Posted byMerryn Somerset Webb
Comments (30)
We’ve long been wary of the idea that having solar panels put on top of your house is a good idea.
When the huge subsidy payments were first introduced we could see how putting in panels might make sense if you paid for them yourself. If you did, you would see a fall in your energy bills and you would get to sell energy you couldn’t use back to the grid. The whole thing would have made you a tax-free and inflation-linked return of about 10% a year.
However, we really couldn’t see how it would make much sense if you used one of the rent-a-roof companies to put a panel up for you.
Sure, you’d save something in the region of £70 a year on your bills. But in return for that, you’d have to put up with the hassle of having the panels fitted and having equipment owned by someone else on your roof for as long as 25 years, which could reduce the resale value of your house and irritate your neighbours. Not worth it at all.
But it turns out that when we said we thought it might affect the resale value of a home, we hadn’t even begun to realise the extent of the potential problem.
Having panels on your roof that are owned by an investment company might not just hit the value of your home: it might mean you can’t sell it at all. A story on the front of the Guardian Money section this week points to the sad story of John and Rebecca Welton.
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The couple had panels installed on their roof in December 2011 by a firm called My Energy Station. MES was to pay for the panels and harvest the astonishingly generous feed-in tariffs they would provide. The Weltons were promised free electricity from the panels during daylight hours (apparently around £150 worth). I wouldn’t have thought that much of a deal, but it clearly made some sense to them – they were even conscientious enough to check with their mortgage provider (RBS) to make sure it was OK. RBS said it was, and so did their mortgage adviser. Then they tried to remortgage on to a cheaper deal with the Skipton Building Society. No go. Skipton told their broker it won’t offer mortgages on houses with a solar lease in place. They tried the Nationwide. Same story there. And it seems everywhere else.
They can, of course, stay with RBS, but that means taking their chances on the bank’s standard variable rate, something that is bound to cost them more than £150 a year as interest rates start to rise.
The whole thing, says John Welton, “has turned out to be a nightmare.” And a very expensive one at that: according to a representative of My Energy Station, the couple can buy out the scheme for £15,000, something which would solve the problem. Perhaps it would, but I can’t help but think that if the Weltons had had £15,000 to spare in the first place, they would have been unlikely to hand over the rights to their roof and the sun above it for 25 years for a mere £150.
Last Thursday, I got two phone calls in a row from a very aggressive solar sales person. I hung up on him in the end. I suspect everyone else should do the same.
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(27 March 2012, 09:48PM) Complain about this comment
Why do you miss out some very important points from the Guardian article you got this information from? The bit from the Council of Mortgage Lenders -- that it has guidance for mortgage lenders on this, that it hasn't yet seen that this is a major problem, and that we shouldn't read too much into one-off cases?It could be that this will be a major problem, but more research is needed before you can say all competition for leased solar PV mortgages will disappear
(28 March 2012, 01:00PM) Complain about this comment
Here is what the CML say on all of thishttp://www.cml.org.uk/cml/publications/newsandviews/110/412
(28 March 2012, 07:54PM) Complain about this comment
Aside from the economic arguments about waiting 20 years to possibly get your money back, solar panels are very ugly. People have rushed headlong into a mass uglification of Britain without a thought to the need for maintenance , potential damage to one's roof, cleaning off the seagull poo etc. To some well meaning types they fulfil the function of advertising their green sympathies in bold type on the top of their houses, but it also says " i am desperate ,easily led and unable to do simple maths".
(29 March 2012, 09:22AM) Complain about this comment
" i am desperate ,easily led and unable to do simple maths" I love that sentence, it neatly summarises 99 percent of the UK's population.
(29 March 2012, 05:33PM) Complain about this comment
#4 alex. Funnily enough I have noticed how many Church groups and christians generally have embraced the solar panel. is it to do with guilt/sin over damage to the world? Or is it to do with abstention and denial. Either way it is a clear signal to everyone else that you give a damn and are making sacrifices.Better than a fish on the back of your car eh?
(29 March 2012, 06:37PM) Complain about this comment
The irony about the church etc. embracing solar is that they are relatively 'rich' and can afford to have them installed and receive the subsidy - paid for by everyone else - i.e. people who either do not have a suitable roof or poorer people who cannot afford the 10k for the installation.It's clearly a case of the poor subsidising the rich - very charitable / Christian??
(29 March 2012, 06:43PM) Complain about this comment
There is nothing really green about solar panels - I'm sure 99% of people have them installed for financial reasons alone. A 10k system may generate about £200 worth of electricity (without the subsidy) - they generate power during the day when most people are at work and as you cannot rely on how much they will generate you need conventional generation anyway and have to deal with grid instability issues solar and wind can cause.It's the wrong solution for the UK - we are fairly Northern and cloudy - all negatives for solar. Without the subsidy it would be a complete non-starter as the £200 is a 2% yield on your 10k investment and the life of the system is just 20-25 years (and generates less as it ages). Plus factor in maintenance and repairs and the 'ugly' factor...
(29 March 2012, 06:47PM) Complain about this comment
#6&7 Barkingmad. Nicely put. It is just down to "unable to do simple maths " then.
(29 March 2012, 07:15PM) Complain about this comment
The simple fact is solar is very, very expensive - at the moment relatively few people have it but it is subsidised by higher energy costs for everyone else. Imagine the cost of electricity if far more people had it - we need cheap, reliable electricity (24x7) - not expensive and unreliable solar (only gives peak output for a very limited part of the year and nothing for about half the year when it's dark).Sorry for stating the absolute obvious but unfortunately some people do not get the fact that you need to still run / pay for conventional generation for when the sun don't shine. What actually happens with solar and wind is that they cause peaks and troughs (instability) on the grid and in the case of wind some get paid NOT to generate.
Installing solar panels on your roof is basically selfish - you install something for your benefit that everyone else pays for. It's unfair as not everyone can afford solar and even if you can you may not have a suitable South facing roof.As this article shows - rent your roof at your peril and even if you pay for the installation yourself I bet the solar company did not include a full 25 year guarantee on all parts and labour. Probably more like 2-5 years on most items (assuming the company is still around?) and some parts like the solar inverter can cost well over £1000 to replace. Get a fault with a panel (and 25 years is a long time) - to replace one is likely to be very expensive by the time you factor in scaffolding etc.So the maintenance and repairs could quickly eat into any 'profit' - but you didn't do it for the money did you?
(30 March 2012, 09:26PM) Complain about this comment
Maybe the Building Society likes to collect booking fees then find any reason possible not to lend? Easy money. Money for nothing
(31 March 2012, 02:25PM) Complain about this comment
All this is true, but there's something even more important. Throwing huge subsidies at it has fossilised the industry in an early stage of development with massive arrays of costly (real and carbon) metal and glass with low output. Left to itself it would rapidly develop efficient collection systems with little or no visual impact. These houses are soon going to look really, really silly, and go on getting sillier - and who is going to buy a silly house even if they can get a mortgage?
I always thought a solar installation should me made a condition of planning permission (subject to having a south facing roof, latitude...)Then the builder would be buying and installing the panels etc (and designing them in from the start rather than as a retrofit). It would eliminate the commission driven door to door salespeople, the installation would be done to a proper standard subject to inspection, the design would be better, the cost would come down by, what, 70%?, and we would as a nation achieve critical mass much quicker.Why anyone thinks they are uglier than a slate roof, I pass. Reminds me of when satellite dishes were springing up and the world was similarly coming to an end.
(31 March 2012, 05:47PM) Complain about this comment
"barkingmad" (#6, 7, 9 & 10) is barking up the wrong tree in one respect.Solar PV panels don't need full sunlight to work. All they need is daylight, and they will generate a reasonable amount of electricity even on cloudy days. And latitude is a red herring. Everywhere on earth gets the same amount of daylight annually - the sun is above the horizon to exactly 50% of the time, assuming no obstructions, which are a requirement for the subsidy.As for "selfishness", are not all investments driven by self-interest?And no, I do not have solar panels on my roof. I might have done, but my better half thinks they are ugly. I do have misgivings about maintenance and guarantees, and whether the financial return will be as promised for all those years.
As a village Anglican Church treasurer, I can assure readers that the Church is not rich. It has some historic capital that yields nowhere near enough income to maintain all its listed buildings, let alone pay clergy stipends. That is why so many churches have closed in recent years, and it is why the number of paid clergy is declining every year. No wonder Churches like St. Denys at Sleaford, Lincs. has jumped at the opportunity to install solar PV panels. See lincoln.ourchurchweb.org.uk/sleafordstdenys/docstore/18.pdf
(31 March 2012, 05:50PM) Complain about this comment
Correction, #15: I meant to write that a lack of obstructions is a requirement for the subsidy. Sorry.
(01 April 2012, 09:10AM) Complain about this comment
I am building a penthouse on top of a 5 storey 10 flats residential building. The roofing tiles etc will cost about £10 - 15k. However, I can cover the entire roof with 5 x 4 kw PV panels for about £25k. ie it will cost about £10 - 15k net for 5 systems that theoretically should generate at least £500 pa each. Total return = £2.5k pa tax free. That equates to near enough 20% return pa for the next 25 years. I think that is pretty 'not bad'.The entire roof is made up of PV panels which seems to look 'not too ugly' to me - in fact, more modern than ugly. Besides, hardly visible from anywhere.Any comments anybody ?
(01 April 2012, 02:58PM) Complain about this comment
#17 exportlink. "theoretically...should....at least...near enough". Like I said, desperate and can't do simple maths. Just because something has been invented does not mean you must have it. Also are the PV panels as robustly waterproof as traditional tiles?Once they are filthy they will not work as well, a window cleaner will want a fair bit to clamber onto a roof and wipe seagull droppings and lichen from your clever technology, maybe £200 a year. You uglify your house for a possible return of 83p a day.
(01 April 2012, 09:29PM) Complain about this comment
#17 exportlink, I think that is a great idea, the downside being the maintenance. 10 flats will roughly consume 100kW at peak, and if the PV power is stored in a battery bank, and the distribution through the inverters is balanced, this might be 75% replacement of the grid power for the whole lot at all times.I think, there is some level of miscalculation of the output to the grid, but that's when you want to make money out of it.
(02 April 2012, 09:51AM) Complain about this comment
At some time repairs are needed to the roof of a house or say a church. Solar panels are attached to the rafters by brackets and this means removing slates or drilling through the slates/tiles. If you need to repair slates or tiles then the solar panel has to be removed. This is the responsibility of the houseowner and the solar panel has to be refitted immediately or the 'rent a roof' company can sue for compensation.This task would involve not only a roof repair but disconnection of the solar panel and careful handling of the panel. This will almost certainly involve scaffolding and be costly.As yet we do not have enough information on the effect of additional weight on the roof structure, how high winds may affect the panels and large snowfalls that may lodge above the panels and cause additional stress to the roof.Certainly be very wary of any attempt to put panels on a flat roof where it is proposed to anchor the panels using large weights.
(02 April 2012, 10:45AM) Complain about this comment
@4caster"Solar PV panels don't need full sunlight to work. All they need is daylight, and they will generate a reasonable amount of electricity even on cloudy days."They are rated at their maximum output which assumes full sunlight - on a very cloudy day (of which we get many) - they will still generate 'something' but it will be greatly reduced - certainly not what most people would regard as a 'reasonable amount'.
(02 April 2012, 10:46AM) Complain about this comment
@4caster"And latitude is a red herring. Everywhere on earth gets the same amount of daylight annually"Except that is clearly untrue - at higher latitudes the sun has to travel through a lot more atmosphere so even on a clear day the amount of sunlight hitting panels in the UK will be far less than the same installation would receive at the equator. Ask a solar installation company and they will admit the same installation on the South coast will yield more than one in Scotland.
(02 April 2012, 11:06AM) Complain about this comment
"As for "selfishness", are not all investments driven by self-interest?Again no - some people would choose a (genuinely) green investment even if it may yield less than a non-green one.The point is (and an nasty 'irony' for a Church especially ) is that the generous subsidy you enjoy is paid for by other people - typically poorer people who could not afford an installation themselves or people who would not qualify as they do not have a suitable roof, willing landlord / mortgage company / insurer etc.
(02 April 2012, 11:20AM) Complain about this comment
"As a village Anglican Church treasurer, I can assure readers that the Church is not rich."I read the PDF you linked to - so the £57k installation cost was paid for with the help of grants and the lottery. I would prefer that to have benefitted more poor people (not paid for by them with the lottery tickets or extra costs on their electricity bills) or at least gone towards subsidising something like nuclear power - where at least it generates 24x7 and we can all use the electricity it generates.
(02 April 2012, 11:27AM) Complain about this comment
@4caster - also - forgot to ask - who is paying for the maintenance of those panels / the installation - assume they did not give you a 25 year 'insurance backed' guarantee on the installation, all the equipment and panels. Those solar inverters can cost thousands - not sure about that installation but a single, standard household one can be well over £1000 and may need replacing several times over 25 years. Also the panels - they degrade from new and can fail completely and be expensive to replace (perhaps not as bad for you if you don't need scaffold but you would on a normal house).I don't think it's unreasonable to factor in 2-3%+ of the system cost for maintenance - or to put it another way how many insurance companies do you think would give a full warranty for just 2-3% of the system cost?
(02 April 2012, 11:38AM) Complain about this comment
@4caster - from the PDF again - it generated 227kWh in a week in July - so even at standard retail cost that is worth about £23 (of course the wholesale value is much less). So for the whole month (and this is July) let's call it £100 - how much do you expect for the whole year - I bet maybe £600-1000.I doubt that will even cover your maintenance costs - so there is no hope in ever recovering the £57k+ installation cost - even if it came from grants / lottery (which effectively we all paid for). I'm sure that money could have been better spent.I would have looked at how the energy is consumed - you may have been able to make better 'efficiencies' rather than a wildly expensive PV solar system.
(18 April 2012, 08:16AM) Complain about this comment
I agree that if not all then certainly most day-to-day investments (just "a product or service funded by someone in return for a reward" is inevitably selfish - hey life is selfish, get used to it. welcome to capitalism - I didn't ask for it, but there it is. Any of you guys vote for communism recently - I doubt it.If you feel that no one should subsidies anyone else's "investments" stop having kids for example. I don't have any but I pay for yours - I pay for their schooling, I pay for eveyone's family allowance, family tax credits etc, etc.What do I get in return for that? The average child won't put much back in to society until they're well into their 20s that's about the same time as a the full term of a solar panel investment. At my age I'm unlikely to be around by then, so in what way is parents expecting me to subsidies their kids (investments) anything other than selfish?It's just one example of so many. Glass houses and stones...
(24 April 2012, 02:52PM) Complain about this comment
"If you feel that no one should subsidies anyone else's "investments" stop having kids for example. I don't have any but I pay for yours - I pay for their schooling, I pay for eveyone's family allowance, family tax credits etc, etc."These kids pay for our pensions / future healthcare and remember someone else paid for your schooling!The difference is NOT having kids is generally a choice as much as having them is - with solar typically richer people (and companies) who can afford solar can get it which is turn is paid for by everyone else (including poorer people who could not get it).Plus of course a lot of people could not get solar even if they could afford it - not everyone has a suitable south facing roof, willing mortgage company / landlord etc. - so what you end up with is a small proportion of (generally richer) people who can get solar and being subsidised by every else.
(27 April 2012, 09:39AM) Complain about this comment
I sold my house with a free solar system installed and the buyer didn't have any problems with their mortgage company. I then got another free system on my new property from the same company! All our street has free solar, just about, and three houses have been sold this year. So where is the problem. The company I used I have checked with them and they say their lease complies with the Council of Mortgage Lenders guidelines and as long as it does there won't be a problem. My mortgage company doesn't have an issue with it. I think this a huge amount of scaremongering from people who were just dying to say "I told you so" and it is a none story!
(10 May 2013, 01:02PM) Complain about this comment
Average yearly spend on electricity is £5-600. Average saving with PV system is 37%. That's up to £222 per year. So at today's prices, that's a saving of £5550 over a 25 year period. FOR FREE. Barking mad, I fear you are missing some elementary logic and maths skills, and may require some remedial tuition. Any received free insulation? Where do you think the money came for that? It was the same funding from the same utility companies. 2-5 year guarantee? NO! 25 year guarantee. Insurance backed. Covers any and all problems that may affect the system. Customers responsibility to remove system to fix/replace roof? NO! Installer's concession to remove and reinstall system free of charge at least once in 25 years. None of you seem to know much about PVC, it's industry, or the details of the free systems. BAH!!
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