6 ms·

> I tell them they will break even in a few years Then why don't more companies offer to become your electricity provider and install the solar panels for free

> I tell them they will break even in a few years Then why don't more companies offer to become your electricity provider and install the solar panels for free? They could say "We promise that your energy bills will be cheaper this year than last year (as long as you don't use more energy), and within a few years you'll own the panels and can switch to a different electricity provider."

eightysixfour 6y ago
Pretty sure there are companies that do this. My parents received an offer like this, structured like a lease with a small buyout at the end.
- shaklee3 6y ago
  Solarcity does this
artificialLimbs 6y ago
This would be more palatable than "We're going to install these panels after you buy then and provide x warranty". I've had 3 solar companies come give us prices on our house. If the company folds/disappears then the warranty doesn't mean squat and if there is any breakage after that happens, we're likely to end up in the red.
xavriley 6y ago
One reason is issues with property ownership. In the U.K. a company could do this but if the original customers were to see the house, they’d have no legal means of compelling the new owners to take up the arrangement. At least that’s what I understand.
- bostik 6y ago
  The plural of anecdote is not data, but I can provide some figures. There is currently a push in London to get households install solar panels, and I expressed interest in getting a set installed to our house. Sadly, the finances don't add up. Our house is not exactly small, and optimistically you could fit 10 PV panels on the roof. At least according to the quote I received, but having scouted installations in the nearby places, 8 might be more realistic. (Shape of the roof is a factor.) Assuming energy prices overall grow as they have over the past decade, it would take 12-15 years to break even on the installation cost. That's with 10 panels. With 8, add a couple of years. And assume there will be no additional maintenance or replacement costs to consider. So, at least in the UK: unless you are wealthy enough to have a large house with a sufficiently large roof, PV installations are not yet financially viable. It should be better in the rural regions where houses tend to be larger. With more installation surface area available, the marginal cost of each PV panel goes down and the marginal benefit of its energy production goes up. Hence, in the UK, for a single-family dwelling, a roof with space for 14 panels should be enough to make the installation viable. A house with that much roof surface, at least near us, starts from approximately £700k.
  - TomGullen 6y ago
    Also applied for local authority buy together scheme, have a south facing roof but math came out the same, around 10y payback. Was a shame as I recall number being similar years ago. Would love to get solar but need to see it down in the 5y range to pull trigger I think.
  - pjc50 6y ago
    I had mine installed seven years ago and have nearly broken even just on the feed-in-tariff subsidies alone. There have been no additional maintenance or repair costs. The unaffordability of UK property is a separate question.
  - CodeGlitch 6y ago
    I too looked into this a few years ago and was quoted 11 years to get my money back... Which didn't make financial sense at the time. Perhaps if it was more like 4 years I might consider it. The UK has a lot of cloud cover so I do wonder if we should stick with wind power which is doing really well with the off shore installations. Plus nuclear... For the rare times the wind doesn't blow.
    - bostik 6y ago
      I suspect it's not just the cloud cover. Looking at the map, it's quite depressing to note just how high up north even London really is. Berlin, Warsaw and Amsterdam are all similarly positioned. If we pan west along the 50° north parallel, the first reasonably large city in the American continent is ... Winnipeg. We just don't get that much sunlight throughout the year to start with.
    - slyall 6y ago
      11 years payback is pretty good when you are lucky to get 1% interest on savings at your local bank.
  - spockz 6y ago
    That is a long time to wait for break even. I paid €3700 for 4500Wp and I expect to earn them back in 3-4years. I’m facing almost directly south without any shade from trees.
- pjc50 6y ago
  It's possible to attach all sorts of third-party obligations onto property ownership; this is called "burdens" in Scottish property law, I forget the equivalent English term, possibly "lien" in American? A special historical example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chancel_repair_liability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chancel_repair_liability
GlennS 6y ago
In Australia, Commonwealth Bank (the largest bank here) is offering a $20000 "Green loan" at 1%. That does more or less what you're asking for I think?
neltnerb 6y ago
At first, I don't think the business model was there yet. I haven't read a recent report so I know it is out of date, but on the order of half the costs were installation. If the company maintaining a contract on your roof goes out of business? Who owns the panels? Who funds a company where if it goes bankrupt they have contacts that give away their remaining assets? Now that property owners understand it better I think there's less hesitation and I have seen it more. We're even getting some on our building before long. But there's also the issue of trust, which is coupled with ownership. If your friend convinces you to borrow $5k as a homeowner line of credit, install panels (and own them) and that you will make it back in lower bills in a few years that's a lot easier to swallow than someone that makes money from you saying yes. I wouldn't want strangers owning stuff that might get passed along to different strangers as a major structural component in my house, cost to maintain, and especially if I don't even own the power produced. I can't fix my roof, I can't replace the panels, it seems like a very tough sell without a track record. I don't think anyplace had that track record five years ago.
sagarm 6y ago
Utility scale solar is cheaper than rooftop solar.
Ma8ee 6y ago
Because if you want to do it at scale it’s cheaper to install some GW on a field somewhere than bothering with roofs of privately owned residential buildings.
- dzhiurgis 6y ago
  I totally agree, but my partner says - fields for forests, not for stock or solar. We can totally pull it off using roofs, but I agree it costs more and is not possible for some. Lithuania has this solar share that you can buy - the only option for most people as they live in apartments, but you do get dicked by monthly maintenance fee.
  - AtlasBarfed 6y ago
    Yes, it's cheaper for utility scale solar because the environmental cost of dedicating land to an industrial purpose is ignored. In the case of solar it is still preferable to do fields of solar to replace carbon-emitting power generation though. But I do think governments should subsidize rooftop solar to within shouting distance of "utility" solar. Heck I think they should be subsidizing solar and storage regardless of location. Once tech curves make existing utility installations obsolete in a few decades, then maybe move them back to rooftop.
    - pfdietz 6y ago
      Or because that environmental cost isn't actually large (if it were large, what would that do to the cost of agriculture and food?)
itronitron 6y ago
They should start with large parking lots in the southwest. The installation will be predictable and it would provide valuable shade for parked cars.
spockz 6y ago
In the Netherlands at least there are several suppliers that will lease your roof to put solar panels on it and then either give you a monthly fee or you use them as supplier and you get discount on the bill.

eightysixfour 6y ago

Pretty sure there are companies that do this. My parents received an offer like this, structured like a lease with a small buyout at the end.

shaklee3 6y ago
Solarcity does this

artificialLimbs 6y ago

This would be more palatable than "We're going to install these panels after you buy then and provide x warranty". I've had 3 solar companies come give us prices on our house. If the company folds/disappears then the warranty doesn't mean squat and if there is any breakage after that happens, we're likely to end up in the red.

xavriley 6y ago

One reason is issues with property ownership. In the U.K. a company could do this but if the original customers were to see the house, they’d have no legal means of compelling the new owners to take up the arrangement. At least that’s what I understand.

bostik 6y ago
The plural of anecdote is not data, but I can provide some figures. There is currently a push in London to get households install solar panels, and I expressed interest in getting a set installed to our house. Sadly, the finances don't add up. Our house is not exactly small, and optimistically you could fit 10 PV panels on the roof. At least according to the quote I received, but having scouted installations in the nearby places, 8 might be more realistic. (Shape of the roof is a factor.) Assuming energy prices overall grow as they have over the past decade, it would take 12-15 years to break even on the installation cost. That's with 10 panels. With 8, add a couple of years. And assume there will be no additional maintenance or replacement costs to consider. So, at least in the UK: unless you are wealthy enough to have a large house with a sufficiently large roof, PV installations are not yet financially viable. It should be better in the rural regions where houses tend to be larger. With more installation surface area available, the marginal cost of each PV panel goes down and the marginal benefit of its energy production goes up. Hence, in the UK, for a single-family dwelling, a roof with space for 14 panels should be enough to make the installation viable. A house with that much roof surface, at least near us, starts from approximately £700k.
- TomGullen 6y ago
  Also applied for local authority buy together scheme, have a south facing roof but math came out the same, around 10y payback. Was a shame as I recall number being similar years ago. Would love to get solar but need to see it down in the 5y range to pull trigger I think.
- pjc50 6y ago
  I had mine installed seven years ago and have nearly broken even just on the feed-in-tariff subsidies alone. There have been no additional maintenance or repair costs. The unaffordability of UK property is a separate question.
- CodeGlitch 6y ago
  I too looked into this a few years ago and was quoted 11 years to get my money back... Which didn't make financial sense at the time. Perhaps if it was more like 4 years I might consider it. The UK has a lot of cloud cover so I do wonder if we should stick with wind power which is doing really well with the off shore installations. Plus nuclear... For the rare times the wind doesn't blow.
  - bostik 6y ago
    I suspect it's not just the cloud cover. Looking at the map, it's quite depressing to note just how high up north even London really is. Berlin, Warsaw and Amsterdam are all similarly positioned. If we pan west along the 50° north parallel, the first reasonably large city in the American continent is ... Winnipeg. We just don't get that much sunlight throughout the year to start with.
  - slyall 6y ago
    11 years payback is pretty good when you are lucky to get 1% interest on savings at your local bank.
- spockz 6y ago
  That is a long time to wait for break even. I paid €3700 for 4500Wp and I expect to earn them back in 3-4years. I’m facing almost directly south without any shade from trees.
pjc50 6y ago
It's possible to attach all sorts of third-party obligations onto property ownership; this is called "burdens" in Scottish property law, I forget the equivalent English term, possibly "lien" in American? A special historical example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chancel_repair_liability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chancel_repair_liability

GlennS 6y ago

In Australia, Commonwealth Bank (the largest bank here) is offering a $20000 "Green loan" at 1%. That does more or less what you're asking for I think?

neltnerb 6y ago

At first, I don't think the business model was there yet. I haven't read a recent report so I know it is out of date, but on the order of half the costs were installation. If the company maintaining a contract on your roof goes out of business? Who owns the panels? Who funds a company where if it goes bankrupt they have contacts that give away their remaining assets? Now that property owners understand it better I think there's less hesitation and I have seen it more. We're even getting some on our building before long. But there's also the issue of trust, which is coupled with ownership. If your friend convinces you to borrow $5k as a homeowner line of credit, install panels (and own them) and that you will make it back in lower bills in a few years that's a lot easier to swallow than someone that makes money from you saying yes. I wouldn't want strangers owning stuff that might get passed along to different strangers as a major structural component in my house, cost to maintain, and especially if I don't even own the power produced. I can't fix my roof, I can't replace the panels, it seems like a very tough sell without a track record. I don't think anyplace had that track record five years ago.

sagarm 6y ago

Utility scale solar is cheaper than rooftop solar.

Ma8ee 6y ago

Because if you want to do it at scale it’s cheaper to install some GW on a field somewhere than bothering with roofs of privately owned residential buildings.

dzhiurgis 6y ago
I totally agree, but my partner says - fields for forests, not for stock or solar. We can totally pull it off using roofs, but I agree it costs more and is not possible for some. Lithuania has this solar share that you can buy - the only option for most people as they live in apartments, but you do get dicked by monthly maintenance fee.
- AtlasBarfed 6y ago
  Yes, it's cheaper for utility scale solar because the environmental cost of dedicating land to an industrial purpose is ignored. In the case of solar it is still preferable to do fields of solar to replace carbon-emitting power generation though. But I do think governments should subsidize rooftop solar to within shouting distance of "utility" solar. Heck I think they should be subsidizing solar and storage regardless of location. Once tech curves make existing utility installations obsolete in a few decades, then maybe move them back to rooftop.
  - pfdietz 6y ago
    Or because that environmental cost isn't actually large (if it were large, what would that do to the cost of agriculture and food?)

itronitron 6y ago

They should start with large parking lots in the southwest. The installation will be predictable and it would provide valuable shade for parked cars.

spockz 6y ago

In the Netherlands at least there are several suppliers that will lease your roof to put solar panels on it and then either give you a monthly fee or you use them as supplier and you get discount on the bill.