On 24/11/2011 07:47, Tim wrote:
This story caught my eye this morning.

http://m.stv.tv/news/scotland/east-c...-solar-meadow/

A college plans to spend £300,000 on a solar array generating 1076 KW and
are expecting to save £150,000 a year on electricity bills. The surplus
will be used locally and there is no mention of any FIT.

Can this possibly work or has someone got their sums very wrong?

Harry apparently paid about £15000 for his 4KW array. The college is
paying about £1100 per 4KW (about 7.5%). 7.5% of 43.3p is 3.2p which is
very close to the export tariff (3.1p) for small domestic installations
so it is not totally uneconomic. If domestic installations are to get a
10% profit the college would appear to have a unit cost of about 2.9p.

If a 4KW array is expected to produce some 3300KWh then a 1076KW array
should produce about 888,000KWh. Saving £150,000 on 888,000KWh is about
17p a unit so to get the saving the college should currently be paying
approximately 20p per unit. (Or alternatively have I got my sums wrong).

I have no idea how comparatively large scale users are charged compared
with domestic customers but 20p a unit seems high to me.

--
Roger Chapman