Solar Blog

Solar Thermal advice

BSOLAR Managing Director Peter Bladen is an established and qualified renewable energy consultant whose company BSOLAR endeavours to maintain an ethical position on the solutions that they will offer to the UK market. His open advice in the Liverpool. Daily Post on 30th March has recently been dismissed by a Director of a competitor company.

Peter would like to reaffirm his statement that Solar Thermal hot water systems are only ever financially viable in very limited/exceptional circumstances in the UK*.

The only domestic customers are people wishing to be ‘green’ despite the financial penalty or people badly advised, usually by people with a financial interest in advising poorly. The maths is relatively simple to understand. Solar thermal can only provide hot water. The average UK home spends £600 pa on gas for heating and hot water. £200 at most goes on hot water. Even assuming that the solar thermal system provides 75% of hot water (optimistic) the best they can do is save £150 pa. The installed system needs maintenance with fluid changes and this costs a significant portion of the savings resulting in a saving of less than £100 pa. At an installation price of £5000 the best a customer can hope for is a 50 year payback which is beyond the expected system lifetime.

BSOLAR are only MCS accredited for Solar Photovoltaics because this remains the only technology that currently has widespread application and is financially rewarding for those that invest in it. BSOLAR will not seek MCS accreditation for any technology that it feels cannot be ethically provided economically.

*References RICS publication ‘The Greener House Price Guide’ & Energy Saving Trust guidance.