Frequently asked Questions........

Q. Where does Solarsense Install?

A. We generally install within a 2 hour radius of Bristol - for a more detailed map of the areas we cover, please see this link

Q. Do I need planning Permission?

A. Generally planning permission is not required, it is only required if the building is listed or if it is in located in National Park. In the case of AONBs (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty) solar panels are allowed to be fitted to the main property but not to out buildings. In conservation areas solar panels are permitted under Class C of Part 1 of Schedule 2 to the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) Order 1995. The GPDO is the part of the law that allows solar panels to be let into the roofs of dwelling houses (i.e. houses not divided into flats), provided the panels or arrays do not project significantly above the roof plane. This is the same Class which gives permission for skylights and roof lights and replacement roofs. Fro the purposes of Class C, it is not relevant whether the roof is at the front or back of the property.

Q. Is my home suitable for a solar installation?

A. Nearly all homes have a roof that faces a suitable direction. Ideally south facing roofs are the best but systems can be fitted on an east or west facing roof. If there are no suitable roofs a system can be fitted on a floor standing "A" frame for example in a garden or hard standing area.

Q. Are there grants available?

A. Yes, grants are available from the Low Carbon Buildings Programme (LCBP).  The maximum grant available for solar thermal is £400. For more details on the grants please contact a member of our staff. The grants available for charities and non profit organizations fall under Phase 2 of the LCBP. The grants available for these organizations can be up to 50% of the total costs for Solar Thermal. In addition, top up grants may be available from utility companies which often take the total grant up to 100% of the total installation cost.

PLEASE NOTE: As of 3/2/10, there are no grants available for solar PV under either Phase 1 or Phase 2 of the Low Carbon Buildings Programme.

Q. Will having solar energy improve my home?

A. Yes, a recent guardian article (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2006/sep/23/energy.business) has found that the average house value rose by 9% by having solar P.V. installed on the property. We have also had a few customers recently sell their houses and have said that the solar installation was a big selling point which lead to a faster sell than other properties in the area. How much will my solar installation contribute to reducing the amount of CO2? The average house uses approximately 3000 to 4000 kWh per annum. A typical 2 kW system of P.V. panels will approximately generate 1500 to 1800 kWh per annum. This equates to saving roughly 645 to 817 kg CO2 annually. A solar thermal system comprising of 20 evacuated tubes (which would provide 60-70% of annual domestic hot water needs for a 4 person family) would save approximately 285 kg CO2 annually

Q. Is there much disruption during installation?

A. No, the installation is usually done in a couple of days with little disturbance as most of the work is on the roof, in the loft and airing cupboard.

Q. Is there much maintenance?

A. No, the solar hot water system requires a top up of antifreeze between every 3-5 years. P.V. systems have no moving parts and do not require any maintenance.

Q. Are the grants easy to obtain?

A. Yes, the grant application for householders can be completed easily online within 5 minutes. Charities and schools applying to Phase 2 for funding will have their grant applications completed with assistance from dedicated staff at Solarsense.

Q. Should I wait until the new generation of solar cells becomes available?

A. No, because domestic applications of the newly emerging technologies are some years away from being available to us or our clients.

If you wait to install, the Feed in Tariff will reduce each year that you delay for the first 7 years from April 2010. For more information please look at our News archive here.

The '3rd-generation' of solar cells is often talked-about by the media as being on the verge of a breakthrough, but the reality on the ground is somewhat different.

We understand that CIGS (Copper-Indium-Gallium_Selenide modules are currently being produced with a mass-market efficiency of up to 13.5%, which compares with polycrystalline modules currently available. The maximum test efficiency under laboratory conditions is just under 20%, which is about what we can get from a good hybrid panel. When volume manufacturing really takes off, this will be a very useful technology, but right now, only governments and major research institutions are being allowed to purchase the new technology, or even find out the technical data on it.

It is likely to be several years before this filters to the level of UK installation companies.

Q. Can a Solarsense System integrate with my existing system?

A. Yes. The Solarsense system can integrate with virtually all systems, whether they are oil or gas boilers, wood burners, Rayburn or immersion heaters. For combi-boilers, a pressurised cylinder is installed either in the loft or in the cupboard. This gives improved performance from the combi-boiler in winter and bypasses it altogether in summer, going directly to the taps.

Q. What kind of performance can I expect from my thermal system?

A. A vacuum tube solar system can pre-heat the water for a house boiler in winter and can provide virtually all hot water requirements for the rest of the year. The system comes with a digital controller that shows the hot water temperatures, thus enabling customers to work with the solar system and keep their boiler shut off completely for months.

Q. Which is best - Evacuated Tubes or Flat Panels

A. This is the one question that causes the most arguments in the solar industry, with each manufacturer apparently distorting the figures to suit themselves - or so it seems.

Basically as independent installers of 15 years now, we would say there is virtually no difference in summer, but in the cool cloudy conditions of the rest of the year, the vaccuum tubes do produce more power from a smaller installed area.

So, if the use is summer only i.e. holiday home, campsite or pool, then a flat panel is perfectly OK, but if you're looking for year-round performance, then tubes are the best choice, particularly now they are as cheap to install as flat plate collectors. This is thanks to mass production techniques - Kingspan-Thermomax have made over 5 million tubes here in the UK and in China there are 5 million made each year, though there are often still quality issues with some of these tubes and question marks about the carbon sense of bringing tubes half way around the world to enable a carbon saving at the other end.

In Europe, you will find that flat panels are more widely installed, but continental Europe has far more sun than we in the UK; furthermore in Northern regions where there is high snowfall, flat panels are preferred as the snow can be melted from them, which cannot be done with tubes - although this is not a regular issue here in the South West of the UK.

Q. I am an existing generator - what does the FiT mean to me?

A. Householders: grants received through LCBP Phase 1

If the installation was completed before 15 July 2009:

• Any installation accredited under the RO on or before 31 March 2010 will transfer to the “existing microgenerators transferred from the RO” 9p/kWh tariff and will receive this tariff until 2027.
• Any installation not accredited under the RO on or before 31 March 2010 will not be eligible to receive support through the feed-in tariff and will not be eligible for RO support as of 1 April 2010.
• If the installation was completed on or after 15 July 2009:
  As an exception to the usual treatment of grant support and FITs, householders may keep the grant support received through the Low Carbon Buildings Programme phase 1 and receive the full tariff rate.

Non-domestic properties and LCBP Phase 2

Where a project has received LCBP Phase 2 support:

If the installation was completed before 15 July 2009:

• Any installation accredited under the RO on or before 31 March 2010 will transfer to the “existing microgenerators transferred from the RO” 9p/kWh tariff and will receive this tariff until 2027.
• Any installation not accredited under the RO on or before 31 March 2010 will not be eligible to receive support through the feed-in tariff and will not be eligible for RO support as of 1 April 2010.

If the installation was completed on or after 15 July 2009:

• LCBP phase 2 recipients have the option of keeping / receiving the LCBP phase 2 grant or receiving feed-in tariff support. They cannot have both.
• The “existing microgenerators transferred from the RO” 9p/kWh tariff is not available to these installations since they were not existing microgenerators on 15 July 2009.
• Therefore an installation that has not yet commissioned has the option of:
  keeping the LCBP phase 2 grant and not receiving any additional support; or
  repaying the LCBP phase 2 grant and receiving the appropriate FIT

Q. Why Should I choose Solarsense over other installers

A.

• we have been trading for 15 years, and are acknowledged experts in our field
• most of our business is from recommendations - this speaks for itself.
• our prices are turnkey - there are no added extras or nasty surprises
• we have installed over 3000 solar systems, encountering almost all roof types and design parameters along the way - our experience is second to none.
• We generally only fit EU-manufactured or assembled equipment. Our solar thermal equipment is made in the UK and represents the best available, globally. Our PV modules and inverters are either manufactured or finished within the EU, which reduces carbon miles, and ensures we are not selling 'new' brands from the far East that are relatively untested. Having been doing this for many years, we understand that there is a coefficient between low price and good quality.
• We have a very keen pricing policy for high quality equipment which will be expertly fitted by a passionate team.
• If you are having quotes from other companies: check their experience level - you don't want to find yourself a guinea-pig for a start-up company; ensure the quote is all inclusive (e.g including scaffolding or access); make certain they have all the relevant accreditations; be sure that the quality of the equipment suggested or quoted is top-notch - not a 'fly-by-night' company that may be cheap today but gone tomorrow when you might need their warranty.

Q. What is a SITE under the terms of the Feed in Tariff

A. It is important to know what constitutes a 'site' when looking at the Feed in Tariff ( aka Clean Energy Cashback), as this will determine the rate that the owner will be paid.
Here then, is the detail lifted directly from the DECC explanatory note, as linked on our Clean Energy Cashback page:

Definition of an installation / site:

31. Given that the Energy Act 2008 places a total capacity limit on individual
FITs installations, and that the tariffs will be banded by technology and total
installed capacity, we recognise the need to establish how an individual
installation is defined in order to verify capacity limits per installation.

Weaim to avoid creating perverse incentives such as under-sizing plants or
registering two installations by splitting one installation artificially into two in
order to benefit from FITs or a higher tariff within FITs (e.g. a 6MW wind farm
made up of four 1.5MW turbines “split” into two 3MW wind farms made up of
two 1.5MW turbines). However, we believe that the structure and levels of
FITs and their interaction with the RO are such that the risks of this
behaviour will be small. The draft licence modifications and the FITs order
will set out provisions to minimise these risks.

The key provisions are:

• if a generator installs two different technologies on a single site (e.g. a
PV panel and a wind turbine) they will be classed as two different
installations;
• if the generator has multiple installations of the same technology, they
will be classed as a single installation site when determining the tariff;
• site is defined in relation to a number of factors including address, map
reference and electricity meter identification;.
• any expansion of an installation within 12 months (of the same
technology) will be treated as an increase in the capacity of the
installation; if an expansion takes place more than one year after
confirmation in the Central FITs Register, the expansion will be treated
as a separate station - the original installation will be treated as having
continued in the same class, while the new installation will be rated at
the capacity of the aggregate of the two stations.

Q. Can you fit to an asbestos-containing roof?

A. The simple answer is yes.
However, as a professional company with a high regard for the health and safety of our staff, there is a due (and published) procedure that we must follow.
If, during the initial sales survey, our surveyors perceive any risk that asbestos containing materials (ACM) may be present, we will arrange for a specialist company to take samples and test them.
The turn-around from the laboratory on this is 3-4 days only.
Thereafter, if asbestos is found to be present, we will still be able to complete the installation, but we will have to add a £500 premium to the cost of the job.
This may seem unreasonable, but it covers the cost of providing respiration equipment, and disposable full-body suits, gloves and shoe covers for all workers.
We also have to pay for a registered asbestos disposal company to remove the material from our base, after is is bagged and removed.
We feel that this minimal extra cost is justified in protecting our most valuable asset - our work teams - from the very serious potential health effects of ingesting ACM's.