In our newsletter, we like to keep customers updated with useful information relating to our business, for example, the West Cornwall Community Renewables event, and our customers Bosinver winning Gold in the national tourism awards. We also love to hear how our customers are getting on with their chosen technologies. Last week we had this enthusiastic response from one of our Solar PV customers. We’re keen for everyone to know why solar PV investment is such a great choice right now, so it’s great to hear our customers agree.
Good to hear from you.
So you wanted to know how it’s going? Well, now that the inverter’s settled & reliable the solar has really become a “fit & forget” investment, apart from marking my calendar 4 times a year so I submit a reading & get some money. Maybe it might be worth investing in the sort of meter that can be read remotely by the power company in future….
Having an east-west roof means I won’t do as well as my neighbour who has a south facing installation, probably my maximum generation on a 4 kw system is around 3kw at the middle of the day in summer, but still well worth it. As an investment, its returning around 9%, several times better than the returns on investment offered by the financial services & investment industry. In fact, I’d recommend borrowing extra on a mortgage to install solar panels as a 9% return is going to cover the cost of borrowing with some to spare, plus the income is tax-free!
One of my neighbours has recently followed my lead with an east-west system, others I know are trying to increase their generation, for example my brother-in-law is upgrading from12kw on a 3 phase set up on his farm, to 16 kw, though this does need the permission of the power distributor. At present there’s no other small guaranteed investment to match solar power, plus there’s an environmental benefit too.
Probably in a few years it may be possible to upgrade things further. I’m wondering about a wattstor so we would benefit from even more free electricity, but we use very little off the mains anyway. Maybe in a few years if electric car technology & range advances? But for now I’m just dreaming. Meantime it’s good to see that others are catching on. From where I’m writing looking across a valley I can see 9 houses with solar panels, but that’s probably less than 1 in 50 of the number of people who could benefit, so there’s still masses of untapped potential.
Jerry
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