Solar power, plan B
Posted on Feb 19, 2009 under Electricity, Solar power | 3 CommentsAfter having the first meeting with solar investors that are interested in renting our greenhouse roof space, I came up with another idea. What if we don’t rent out our roof, but instead get some financing to buy our own solar panels? The government issues special, low interest, loans for solar power installations. Combined with a 20 year guaranteed pay for the generated power, this could be an interesting alternative.
These special loans are subject to all kinds of rules and regulations. Looking into them I found some contradicting rules and lots of vague descriptions. A talk at the bank should clear things up. As soon as I know exactly which interest rate would apply to us, we can do the math and figure out if buying our own solar panels would be a feasible alternative.
February 25th, 2009 at 1:50 pm
I have heard of this practice, and I read that it is becoming more and more common, but I have never heard of someone actually doing it. I’ll be anxious to hear what you end up doing.
February 26th, 2009 at 5:18 pm
This is something I would really like to do but the cost is just too prohibitive for us. I think here in the UK there are grants available to assist with the cost, so maybe I need to look into it again.
February 28th, 2009 at 3:17 am
I also thought that the cost of installing solar panels would be too high to be a feasible option for us. The solar company, however, tells us that by making use of the special grants available, we can have the whole thing financed by the bank and pay back the loan with the money we make by selling the generated power back to the utility company. So, the bottom line is: it doesn’t cost you a cent out of your own pocket, you even make a few bucks.
We’re still waiting for the definitive numbers though, installing solar panels on our greenhouses glass roofs seems to be a bit of a problem. We had some building engineers over last week. They had a closer look and took lots of pictures of our greenhouses. I hope they can come up with a way of mounting the solar panels.