Solar Power

Well, this HAS been a bit of a saga....

It all started at least 6 months ago when I first looked into getting solar power for the workshop. I could only fund part of it myself from capital in hand, so I had to raise the rest. First I tried to get my OH to contribute (on the basis that it is a jointly-owned property and this would increase the value) but she was not prepared to, nor were other family members, as they did not trust the government guarantee of 43.3p/kW generated index linked for the next 25 years, so it was a job for a commercial loan.
Before I was prepared to agree to paying out for one I had to get listed building consent and also, because the roof of the garage (onto which the array was to be fitted) had to be strengthened to cope, planning permission & Building Control consent.....
By the time I had got that lot sorted, and the loan offer in place, the government had brought forward the deadline for reduction in the Feed-in-Tariff which would make it far less profitable (or indeed totally unprofitable), but I though I could squeeze in before the deadline, and agreed to the loan.
I then found that the company which had promised they could fit the panels for me in time and for an agreed price had run out of the panels we had agreed on and could only supply far more expensive ones - so I told them where to get off!
I rang a few other people and was told they were all booked up - no surprise there - but one of them said that they were now able to get panels far more cheaply and to ring back once the rush was over to get a revised quote.
I decided that, since I had the loan anyway I might as well proceed, so in due course I did contact them, and also a couple of others for revised quotes.
One of them turned out to be substantially cheaper than the rest, and the government had been forced to back-track on the rate reduction, so I agreed to have a 4kW array set up by them.
The return to the full rate of FiT was only for a short period though, so I had to get moving...
I phoned the builders to check they could do the work in the time allowed, and agreed a date with them, then the solar panel company to tell them when the roof would be ready, and ask for confirmation that they would be able to fit the panels in the remaining window of time before the deadline, which they agreed would be fine.
I confirmed with the builders, who did their job. I then contacted the solar panel company again because I had not yet been given a date for the fitting, and was told they had not yet set a date because they were waiting for confirmation that the roof work was completed and would now be strong enough! They seemed incapable of telling me exactly what details they needed from me to confirm that the roof was now OK, but after several phone calls, emails, faxes etc they finally accepted that it was, and agreed to come and fit the system on the 24th Feb, well in time for the deadline of the 3rd March. Much relief on my part...
They duly arrived, started work...... and discovered they had been supplied with the wrong selection of fasteners to attach the panels to the roof rails...  - thank God there was a week in hand! They agreed to return on the following Thursday.  Beginning to get rather short finger-nails by now....
I waited in all day and made several phone calls to find out what was happening, but they never showed up, and eventually (at ~ 6.30!) the manager rang me to ask if they had turned up... I pointed out that I had rung them twice to find out where the fitters were, and had been promised a return call which had not materialised. He said something about "other teams telling him that one of them had jacked off". No real apology, but a promise to turn up the following day. Down to the wire now.....
They did indeed turn up the next day (Friday - the last chance to get connected before the deadline for the return to the lower FiT rate) and finished fitting the system.................... only to find the inverter was not working. **##!!**~~!!**@@##!!*. I did however have the certificate to say I was connected so I could register the system in time for the full rate.
Finally they returned this morning to sort out the problem - and found that the only problem was that the imbecile who had been here on Friday had connected the positive and negative leads to the inverter the wrong way round!!!!!!
What a waste of everyone's time...
All's well that ends well though, and the upshot is that I do now (finally!) have a 4kW solar PV installation up and running and earning me the full 43.3p/generated unit from the government, guaranteed for 25 years and index linked, as well as (currently) 3.1p/unit exported to the grid to be paid by the electricity company. Since the meter does not show how much is exported, and how much is used here, the assumption is that 50% is exported, so I should be nicely in funds once the loan is paid off!