Solar panels – should you take the plunge?

I love the idea that ‘ they should pay for themselves in 12 years ‘ I sincerely hope this will happen, but I’ve given up dreaming. That’s a long way to go.

we have just accepted a quote to have solar panels fitted from SOLAR SSP UK LTD and have been trying, without success, to find out whether this company is reputable or not.
does anyone have any information that would be useful to us. we are still well within the 14 day cooling down period and if anyone has anything good or bad to say about this company this would help us greatly in ensuring that we have made a good decision.
many thanks

MY PLANET
This is a sorry tale, I thought I’d got a great deal, a 4Kw 12x327panel system with immersion booster switch for £6 K and all was going well the EPC survey went ahead ..all ok with that and an installation date set but then…
Quote from a complaint to My Planet customer services, I have to tell you all about..
“I should have had a system ( 12 panels @327w etc).. installed today at 10.30 am start arranged but no one has turned up.
I was rang yesterday by your rep who said that your company head office had been in touch with him and couldn’t supply the 327w panels and that you wanted to substitute lower rated panels and a new contract drawn up and sent to me. I stated that this was unacceptable to me and could I speak to his superior. A person called subsequently rang me and stated that your company wouldn’t supply that panel (327w) at the price agreed and that the representative had made an error ( even though he had checked with his manager
that the price was alright before he offered it ). He went further to say that he would redraw the contract and give another £500 off the lower rated panel system 2.5Kw or it would be an extra £2000 for the contracted system specified.
I stated that this was also unacceptable and I expected you (My Planet) to stand by the signed existing and fully paid for contact.A cheque for £6000 was given to Mr Beale when the agreement was signed and was cashed by My Planet. I
also said that all his proposals to alter the contract and why be put in writing.”
This was a couple of weeks ago since then I have involved HIES, a trade organisation which offers mediation and a Ombudsman service. Although they broke the contract HIES accept that is was a genuine error by the representative and and that my options were to ask for my money back or take it to Ombudsman service which he said would take months to get my money back.I opted for contract cancellation and money back.
Since then they have been on holiday and the lady in accounts is off till next week and no one else can write cheques .Next they say its in the post or the computer is broke or the pen has ran out of ink.
Has any else used HIES to mediate or this Ombudsman, My Planet seem to be giving them the runaround .I know I was stupid but it all seemed so good.
HAS THIS HAPPENED TO ANYONE ELSE?

I’m writing this in response to the article on solar panels in the October 2015 magazine.

We have considered solar panels and decided not to buy them. For us, the key issue is how long we are likely to stay in our current house.

If we bought a system for £6000 – £7000 and it took between 7 and 10 years to make energy savings equalling that amount we’d be out of pocket if we moved any sooner. You can’t just withdraw your initial outlay when you move. We’d have to remain here for some years after we’d recovered the cost of buying the system to make it financially worthwhile.

Obviously you won’t add much extra to the selling price of your house because you’ve installed solar panels. No-one with any sense would pay £10000 more for a house with panels if it was going to take 10 years or more to save that amount from their energy bills and they might not remain in the house for that length of time.

For people who expect to stay in their present home for long enough the advice in the article to buy solar panels now makes sense – before the feed-in tariff is substantially reduced. But the article should have made clear that it’s not worth installing a system if you won’t be there long enough to benefit from it financially.

Ive had panels for 18 months or so now. they were installed by HELMS which is a company which is now liquidated. Ive been recording my savings and of course my fit payments and all is to plan so far. I received £450 in payments last year and of course i reduced my usage by around 50%, saving another £300. Based on these figures and not taking into account that the fit payment is index linked i should get my £9000 investment back in 12 years. Therefore i should earn another £12000 or so over last 13 years of contract.
My concern now is, when I signed contract HELMS said they would continually monitor my system for faults etc. If anything went wrong, i.e.: panel not working, they would notify me.
I FIT payments are paid by SSE HYDRO, do they monitor my system. If not, who does?