Solar Panel Megathread

Hello

I'm looking to replace my very old boiler in the near future and was also interested in alternative energy options. Does anyone have experience of this and know of a good company that is competent and reliable. Also, any advice on grants would be much appreciated.

Cheers

There's a factsheet on Solar Water Heating available from South Yorkshire Energy Centre which might be useful to you.

Thanks Maggie. Do you have any experience of this? I'm looking for reputable installers.

does any one know if you are able to get free solar panels.i have heard of a company that is doing this but cant find the web site thanks

i doubt its free maybe get a part grant

This company apparently do it:

http://www.ashadegreener.co.uk

I applied and asked for more info and this is the response I got:

Thank you for your application for the use of free solar panels from A Shade Greener. Our surveyors have now looked at your roof on Google Earth and unfortunately they don’t think that it would suit any of our standard systems at the moment. This does not mean that there is anything wrong with your roof, neither does it mean that Solar PV would not work on your roof, neither does it mean that your roof is too small, it simply means that we cannot fit one of our standard systems. If we were selling Solar PV it wouldn't be an issue - we would be able to customise our systems and sell to anyone who would buy, but instead we are deriving our income from the electricity that our panels generate. Accordingly, our system has to be a certain size and must generate a minimum yield that will make them financially viable for us.

There are a number of issues that could have had an impact on their decision, which is never taken lightly as we don't like turning roofs down - your roof could either be too far a degree east or west from south (we will not fit if the azimuth is outside the range of +30 or -30 degree off due South), it could be that the roof is split level, has dormer or velux windows that interrupt the space, has a chimney or gas flue causing shading or reducing the available space for our standard portrait or landscape arrays (and we do not do 'customised' installations). The dimensions could be unsuitable (for example we could not fit on a roof that is 15m x 2.2m, but we could fit on a roof that is 4.97m x 4.74m), or there could be shading issues from trees or other structures. We are sorry that we cannot give specific reasons, unfortunately there are so many applications we have to turn down each day we simply haven't the manpower to write a personal email to each applicant. To re-iterate once again - we do not like turning roofs down but as we don't charge for our systems we can only fit on roofs that we know will be financially viable and as we will be deriving our income from the electricity that these panels generate we need to ensure that they will produce at least 2800kw hours of electricity per annum.

If you're still interested in other forms of renewable energy for your property you can contact The Energy Saving Trust, which is a Government backed, free, impartial and expert advice service with local advisors who can;

- answer your questions on which technology may be suitable for your home,

- tell you how to access grants, and,

- put you in touch with local installers.

Kind Regards

The A Shade Greener Team

http://www.ashadegreener.co.uk

enquiries@ashadegreener.co.uk

0845 519 1598

A Shade Greener Ltd

Sterling House

Maple Court

Maple Road

Tankersley

S75 3DP

I got the same replay as above - looked at roof on Google, not suitable, etc.

Anyone actually been accepted?

I doubt it

I have seen several installation going on around sheffield by this company but the roofs look absolutely massive.

We,ve been accepted and this evening have had a visit from one of "a shade greener's" home visit team. He went through everything thoroughly with us and answered any questions that we had.

We are just awaiting installation dates now which won't be too far off and then it will be all systems go.