[macafee2]

Originally Posted by andymc

If ever there was an argument in favour of microgeneration, this is it. At the prices they've been paying for their electricity, it would only take a few years to recoup the cost of installing solar panels with battery backup for when it's dark.

Just to compare - after the first year of use, I calculated that the payback period for my own PV array was actually around seven years, rather than the approximate nine years I had originally estimated. I don't have a battery backup yet as the price hasn't quite fallen far enough, but my savings calculation was based on receiving the feed-in tariff of around £550 per annum and a purchase price per unit of 14.4p for all the power I buy from the grid - now increasing to 16.5p or thereabouts, which ironically shortens the payback period still further. So in less than seven years, I'll reach the point of being financially better off for the rest of my life than if I had done nothing. In Sark, they'd actually been paying 66p per unit before this all kicked off ...

I just looked up the average annual electricity consumption for the south-west of England, which is the nearest place for comparison, and it's 5596 kWh (the highest in the UK). If the consumption figures correlate, that means that the average household in Sark has been paying nearly £3500 a year on electricity bills!! Even without a feed-in tariff, for a Sark household to recoup the cost of a solar array with enough battery storage for over two days of electricity consumption would take little more than two years. It's a no-brainer.

planning permission and building regs?

macafee2