Advantages of Solar Panels

Advantages & cost savings of photovoltaic solar panels. Everyone uses electricity (the average household uses around 4800kWh per annum) that gets more expensive every year so if you can produce your own and lower your bills permanently then that has to be a good idea. Are solar panels cost effective? You will be paid for producing your own electricity at 3.86p per kWh in addition to the savings off your electricity bill and providing you have a suitable roof this still makes financial as well as environmental sense.

As a safe return on investment it is difficult to think of a better alternative. A viable domestic system now costs only £4000 – £6000 and will yield a return of between 6% and 9% p.a. tax free and index linked for 20 years. A house with a roof (or an area of land) facing between south east and south west can expect to generate more than half of its electricity from a well installed system and this protects the householder from energy price rises for 25 years or more.

Cost savings and solar energy panels. For commercial customers who typically have larger roofs or ground space and are bigger users of electricity the financial benefits can be even greater – a solar pv investment of £25,000 with a favourable orientation in the north of England can reasonably expect a return of around £45,000 or more over 10 years if they can use most of the electricity they generate..

Photovoltaic panels and efficiency: As storage of generated electricity becomes more viable (i.e. as batteries become cheaper, smaller and more efficient) then the advantages of having solar panels will become even greater – it will enable businesses and households to avoid power cuts and to use some of their generated electricity in non-daylight hours.

Having solar panels can also help reduce the cost of running other renewable technologies such as heat pumps – for more on this read see the whole house solution.

And of course there is one other small advantage – by switching to renewable technologies you will be helping to avert greatest threat facing the planet – global warming. To learn more about global warming see our Links section.