D’oh!
Robert Skillen, who was the director of the firm when Mr Thompson bought his system, said Mr Thompson’s panels would make him money.
Mr Skillen is now in business claiming to help people who have been missold solar panels. He did not want to be interviewed.
By Ed Hanson BBC Inside Out, North East & Cumbria
- 9 September 2019
Thousands of people who bought solar panels have complained to a financial watchdog that they are not bringing them the returns they were promised.
Many people took out loans to pay for panels on the promise they would save thousands of pounds in electricity costs and make money generating power.
They say they have not had the expected savings, and the Financial Services Ombudsman has had 2,000 complaints.
Barclays Bank has put aside £38m to deal with potential claims.
Brian Thompson from Rowlands Gill, Gateshead, told BBC Inside Out he was contacted by a salesman for PV Solar UK but told him he did not want to take a loan on as he was preparing for retirement.
He said he was told the move would provide money towards his pension, which persuaded him, and he took out a loan with Barclays of more than £10,000 over 10 years.
Mr Thompson said the payments he was getting back from the power his solar panels sent to the National Grid did not correspond with what he was told.
“I had to dip into my savings which I was putting away for retirement to pay the loan off. To me it was lies,” he said.
An independent survey of Mr Thompson’s system showed even after 20 years the income from the panels would not cover the cost of the loan.
Barclays offered him some compensation but Mr Thompson said it was not enough.
PV Solar UK went into liquidation in 2017.
Robert Skillen, who was the director of the firm when Mr Thompson bought his system, said Mr Thompson’s panels would make him money.
Mr Skillen is now in business claiming to help people who have been missold solar panels. He did not want to be interviewed.
“They were very, very persuasive. Everything they said was plausible. It was a no-brainer.”
You have to respect a man who can admit his shortcomings like that. Just another useful idiot and grist for the mill for the climate changers I suppose. How did Griff’s loan go by the way?
I have bought 2nd hand off cast panels for my system, in the UK the 2nd hand prices are really low as some many of them are being dumped due to the bad returns and also the difficulty in selling your house with them still on the roof so best taken off and then sell up. All up I pay £450 per Kw including cables and inverters, labour is mine and free 😉 and the pay back is 5 years. However there is no way on earth to get these systems to pay for themselves if you have to pay the market price. I do not sell the excess, I dump it to a hot water heater so end up using less oil in the oil boiler.
That should be enough panels to power a mini apartment, mini appliances, and a mini lifestyle. But it still may be too much for the micro style planned for them at the UN and Brussels.
England is far to the North of the United States. (Paris is just a tad North of the USA.) Can’t imagine why solar is not doing well there.
Maybe those rooftop solar panels will provide some shielding for household electronics under them in the event of a CME or an EMP. Nah, they won’t.
“Mr Skillen is now in business claiming to help people who have been missold solar panels. He did not want to be interviewed.”
Can you define the word, “chutzpah”?
well, if you can put the load 3mm from the panel……..
I bought mine and after 5 years got my money back. Now with FIT are doing well. They were certified and checked by a competent person. If you borrow for something you paid over the odds for then it will take at least ten years to break even. I have a 3.99kw system and produce about 4000kw hours a year. You can only reduce your electric bills by about 8% a year by using the solar instead of the grid supply. Nothing like the 50% that some falsely claim.
Strange it makes me wonder what you paid for these systems.
) I bought a system and upgraded it two years later. Total cost £11000.
Its returning £600 on the feed in and a similar saving in energy usage from the sun instead of the grid, I have saved around £1000 a year so that’s £20k over a twenty year period nott accounting for inflation.
OK I’m not going to be a millionaire but I have easily covered the cost and made the same again. The trick is to adapt to taking maximum advantage of the sun and using it when it’s there, addad a gadget to heat my hot water for free, it only cost £100 on ebay and there’s so many other ways.
I can only assume these people who lost out paid too much, did not adapt, failed to keep the panels clear of bird poo etc.
Don’t get too excited about paying off your solar in 7 years. Considering the opportunity cost and the rule of 72:
“Measured by the S&P 500 index, stocks return an average of about 10% annually over time.May 15, 2019”.
The same amount invested in solar panels, invested instead in the S&P may have doubled in value. Taxable, tax rates, past performance no guarantee of future returns, blah, blah, but an important consideration.
I’ve got a roof half covered in solar panels. My out of pocket? $0 Vivant owns the thing, I just pay for the electricity it generates at a guaranteed rate for the next 15 years. My electric company bill is now 1/10 of previous – or less – and my Vivant bill isn’t bad. Roof top solar for free is the way to go.
I’m sure Vivant is the recipient of all the subsidies and tax breaks I would have gotten had I bought the system, but I’m fine with that. Besides, I’m betting that inside of 15 years Vivant goes bankrupt and those panels really will be free.