This is certainly a good question given that the recession is still with us and possibly householders are investigating quick ways to saving money. It’s a shame but solar energy panels, like most other renewable energy choices do not give excellent short term payback, but instead are a long term payback choice. So it depends on the perspective of the customer as to whether the solar energy prices in the region of £12,000 for a typical domestic solar energy panels package, is something they can accept. The typical payback period for this solar energy panels package is in the region of 10 to 12 years, but with an estimated lifetime in the region of 45 years, once the solar energy prices have been earned, the customer is then delivering all free electricity. In fact the electricity that is delivered by the solar energy panels can be considered as free from the start, it just depends on how the solar energy prices are considered.
The package of solar energy panels could in fact be a spur to the customer to take a renewable energy viewpoint on their electricity requirement patterns and one aspect that can be looked for easily is that of domestic electrical equipment. The Energy Trust web site has reviews of high efficiency domestic electrical equipment, so possibly with these along with some electricity saving practices the customer could be able to save more money. Naturally this could well add more expense in addition to the solar energy prices already paid, but in the long run these electricity saving domestic electrical equipment should also be reliable and long lasting and so could well also be good long term investments.
The typical solar energy panels package is estimated to be able to provide in the region of 40% of the typical families’ electricity demands, but with the electricity saving domestic electrical equipment as well, this percentage must improve. This in itself could well give the customer some sense of achievement in cutting their electricity bills by around 40%, and then saving even more by cutting their electricity requirement. In addition, the customer will receive credits via the feed-in tariff for electricity delivered by their solar energy panels and also for any excess electricity that gets sent back to the grid via their utility supply business.
