Solar energy savings ripoff shutdown

Manchester based Solar Energy Savings has been shutdown by the High Court after it failed to contest action brought against it alleging misleading sales information, high pressure sales tactics and vastly exaggerated solar panel outputs giving too low payback periods. The company has been subject to many complaints from online forum users about their claims especially the money back guarantees that appeared to be worthless.

Does Cooling Solar Panels Increase Electricity Output generated?

Last week we decided to do an experiment to see if cooling Solar Panels would increase the electricity output that they generated.

By feeding a hosepipe up to the roof on a sunny day we could use the velux window to direct the hose onto each panel in turn in order to cool them down.



Does Cooling Solar Panels Increase Electricity Output generated?

The results were dramatic. As soon as all the panels had been sprayed the electricity generated jumped by 300W from around 2.4kW to 2.7kW. This would tie in with the fact that heat decreases the electricity that solar panels generate by around 0.5% per degree of heating.

This weekend is forecast to be over 30C so it looks like the electricity output from the panels will not reach its maximum.

Sainsburys Now Biggest Solar Generator in Europe

Sainsburys, the UK supermarket chain has announced that it has now installed over 69,500 solar panels on 169 of its stores.

This will save 6,800 tonnes a year of carbon dioxide emissions and makes Sainsburys the top generator of solar power across Europe which is a pretty impressive feat when countries such as Germany had such a head start with their Feed in Tariff schemes.

Sainsburys 69,500 solar panels generate a total of 16MW suggesting that the panels used are 230Wp ones. On a domestic installation these would generate FIT payments of £7.2 million per year at the original rate. Obviously the Feed in Tariff only applies to domestic installations below 4kWp so Sainsburys would never get this money but it gives a comparison between commercial and domestic.




Sainsburys Now Biggest Solar Generator in Europe



Installing 69500 Solar Panels - Sainsburys Now Biggest Solar Generator in Europe

July Solar Panel Power Data Loaded

The data for solar panel output for July has now been loaded to the website.

http://solar-panels-review.321web.co.uk/yearly-solar-panel-stats.php

Despite the poor weather July has not been too bad for electricity generation from our solar panels beating both the SAP and PV-GIS numbers.

The final electricity generated for July 2012 was 393kWh compared with a PV-GIS estimate of 351kWh.

In July there were 30 days with over 5kWh generation and 23 days over 10kWh but only the 1 day over 20kWh.

The depressing thought is that from now on it is all downhill as every month will get lower generation going into autumn and winter....