Advice on gravel needed

[biffvernon]

Ecotricity are the firm that actually spend the money on building new renewable generating capacity. If you've a spare monkey you could speed up the process thus: http://www.ecotricity.co.uk/ecobonds

 

[Pford75]

I can think of plenty of ways to generate a larger return than 7%

 

[Flyfisher]

I seem to be right out of spare monkeys at present.

 

[Moo]

I can think of plenty of ways to generate a larger return than 7%

Are you prepared to share them with us, or is it a secret? (I'd love to know!)

 

[Pford75]

Well, since my marginal tax rate is 50% any investment which has tax advantages will in practice achieve higher returns, just by avoiding tax.

Aside from that, I am entitled to buy shares in my company at a 15% discount...and then could sell them within 6months....which generates higher returns.

Don't get me wrong, I think investment in renewables is attractive....but if the govt is serious, then these investments ought to be tax deductible. I'd send a troop of monkeys if they were.....

 

[biffvernon]

For us poor hewers of oak, having to pay 50% tax sounds like quite unobtainable riches. I'm lucky to be asked for any income tax at all.

But where else can a 7.5% return on an 'ethical' investment be found? Even the Grauniad is impressed today (see Money section).

 

[Flyfisher]

I wasn't sure about whether to start a new thread for this report about "PV panels for free" or add it to the digression in this one. Oh well . . .
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10277544

 

[biffvernon]

surely there must be a catch?

Of course.

 

[Flyfisher]

Well, as expected, it's looking as if the feed-in tariff is jump-starting interest in such things. It'll be interesting to see how quickly the price of PV panels come down as the manufacturing volumes rise.

 

[biffvernon]

I don't expect module prices to come down rapidly. For sure manufacturing capacity is increasing quickly, but so is demand. The UK is a tiny fraction of the global market. The demand for electricity in China, Brazil, India etc, along with supply chain shortages in the raw materials, will ensure that prices stay high, and ultimately linked to other, particularly oil, energy prices.

 

[AMc]

At the moment there is a great deal of competition in the PV installer market as the FiT return and comparatively low interest rates have generated a great deal of interest. My electrician has gone from general wiring jobs to exclusively PV installs since FiT was announced. There are now many more MCS accredited installers than when I originally installed my heat pump last year. All of which is good. However there are a lot of inexperienced installers out there and I would check some customer references before parting with cash.
My friends in this business all expect the price competition to be increasingly fierce over the next few months (now the govt. have removed uncertainty about FiT) but then there will be a lot of installers going bust and consolidation which will probably be good for quality, but bad for prices.
If you've got the roof space, the readily available cash this would be the time IMHO to get a raft of quotes, customer references and then get PV installed YMMV.

 

[biffvernon]

I used a small firm called Ethical Solar because they were the cheapest of the many quotes we had and the boss, John Whiten, impressed me with his competence and ethics. We are well pleased with the system he supplied us. Mention me to him if you ask him for a quote

 

[skier-hughes]

Mention me to him if you ask him for a quote

I did and he hung up !

So far the dealings I've had with them have been positive, seems a nice chap does John.

As we are outside of their normal coverage we've done most of the preliminary work by phone, and email with pictures, measurements etc being sent by me.

He's going to provide a quote shortly based on my info, if I'm happy he's going to come up adn do a proper survey, make sure all I've said is correct adn then we can go ahead if we want.

I contacted the energy savings trust, mostly as they had a competition on, so I asked for a call back about solar pv. I got a call, promptly, but the guy hadn't read my message and new nothing about pv. Had another call back, this guy was the pc specialist and basically read me out what was on the web-site.

None the wiser, they said they'd get 3 companies to contact me to come and see me and give me a quote.............. one week later............ well I've been speaking with ethicalsolar as per Biff's recommendation

 

[AMc]

I have a friend in renewable heating, wind and PV and another who is mainly installing PV. Both are MCS accredited neither of them rate the EST.
I have a warm spot in my heart for the £900 grant on my heat pump but that's as far as it goes.