Before December the feed-in tariff was one of the best reasons for most homeowners to consider solar panel energy for their home. It was a government scheme, borrowed from a German idea, in which the energy companies were made to pay premium rates for all excess electricity generated by people with PV cells on their home. The idea was sound, in that it encouraged people to go green while they, or a free-installation company, took on the installation costs in order to reap the potential profits.
Unfortunately this spell of excitement for solar energy couldn't last. It's not that anything changed about the viability of the power itself but the costs for regular energy users were increasing because energy companies didn't want to make a loss on buying so much solar energy. As a result of this the government have had a rethink and decided that a feed-in tariff of around half the original figure would be fairer for everyone. This makes a big difference to how easy the switch to solar can be.
The problem is that without the incentive of the large tariff, there might not be much reason for free installation companies to continue their trade. Without free installation a lot of potential solar power users might be scared off from investing in it, and as a result the whole industry could dry up in the UK. Existing users can still get their premium rate tariff until 2025, but for upcoming people there's even talk of having to prove your house is at is most energy efficient to get any real gains.
But this needs to be put in perspective. Solar power is a great option even without free installation. The potential benefits as a long-term investment can see you saving more than a hundred pounds a year on energy bills, and that's with the current price of energy: things are likely to go up with the instability of fuel sources in the future.
So the message is that if you're looking into solar, there's still a lot to be happy about. It's just that a certain window of maximum profit has closed.
Unfortunately this spell of excitement for solar energy couldn't last. It's not that anything changed about the viability of the power itself but the costs for regular energy users were increasing because energy companies didn't want to make a loss on buying so much solar energy. As a result of this the government have had a rethink and decided that a feed-in tariff of around half the original figure would be fairer for everyone. This makes a big difference to how easy the switch to solar can be.
The problem is that without the incentive of the large tariff, there might not be much reason for free installation companies to continue their trade. Without free installation a lot of potential solar power users might be scared off from investing in it, and as a result the whole industry could dry up in the UK. Existing users can still get their premium rate tariff until 2025, but for upcoming people there's even talk of having to prove your house is at is most energy efficient to get any real gains.
But this needs to be put in perspective. Solar power is a great option even without free installation. The potential benefits as a long-term investment can see you saving more than a hundred pounds a year on energy bills, and that's with the current price of energy: things are likely to go up with the instability of fuel sources in the future.
So the message is that if you're looking into solar, there's still a lot to be happy about. It's just that a certain window of maximum profit has closed.
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