Future Firewood Demand Optimism?

[neiln]

1 hour ago, openspaceman said:

Yes I don't know what the effect on selling a house equipped with solar PV and battery will have on the price.

 

In my case I have been here 43 years and unlikely to move except into a care home and that won't be for long.

 Of course the two are not mutually exclusive and I have both solar panels and I burn wood, as my house is small I only average about 6-7kWh of electricity per day and the shortfall during the winter is only 450kWh. I only wish I could store the excess that I  have in summer to use in winter. In fact doubling my array and increasing battery capacity somewhat would make me self sufficient but  I think I am on the right cost-performance part of the curve as it is.

 

Although my wood is all free it does require a fair amount of labour and if I valued that at £10/hour...

 

I don't want to appear too evangelistic about either just putting my case.

 

@Billhook feels he disagrees about the solar PV but does burn wood, I have easily paid back my investment in solar PV in ten years (except starting now there are no subsidies so it has to stand up by itself)  but didn't have roof space for solar thermal and felt the PV at around 15% conversion of incident sunlight to electricity offered far more utility as I only needed about 60 quids worth of hot water a year and the sun would only provide in the summer months.

Oops, typing from my phone was terrible, but I think you got the gist.

 

Yes I agree solar is a good thing, buta shame it's cost means it's only available to those with a big whack of cash to hand. 

 

True they could both be done, if you have even more money.  I can't deny that wood is only free with considerable on going effort.  With small stoves as I have I work on 5 hours per cube to scrounge, cut, split and stack and tidy ignores the considerable effort to collect from wood pile, set and feed the fire, and clean the ashes. It's real work!  I enjoy the saw and axe, the time in the garden and the exercise.  When I no longer do, I doubt I'll do 12+15 cube Year any longer!

 

Now....I need a wood fired house sized CHP system, to generate lecy, hot water and space heating, and a way to distil premium unleaded from wood.... Maybe producing saleable charcoal as a by product.... Any ideas? 😂

[openspaceman]

1 minute ago, neiln said:

need a wood fired house sized CHP system, to generate lecy, hot water and space heating, and a way to distil premium unleaded from wood.... Maybe producing saleable charcoal as a by product.... Any ideas? 😂

Plenty but none quite as optimistic as that.

 

[daveatdave]

i looked into the roof sola panels about 20 years ago and crunched the numbers it did not work out in my favor because after about 5 years they started to loose there capacity to produce there full kilowatts and by 20 years they needed replacing and they would not have paid for the cost of them 

also looked at the rent a roof scheme but that was a no go as i had a mortgage and lenders were very against it due to re selling the property in the future would cause problems with the roof rented out      

[openspaceman]

17 minutes ago, daveatdave said:

i looked into the roof sola panels about 20 years ago and crunched the numbers it did not work out in my favor because after about 5 years they started to loose there capacity

Well that's a myth and mine at 10 years are producing about the same, 3MWh per annum and that's with a WSW aspect which is far from ideal, mind I never considered them 20 years ago and sure as hell didn't have the money to invest then as I was spending it all on tractors.

[AHPP]

They’ll get dirty over five years. Makes more of a difference than you’d think.  

[trigger_andy]

6 hours ago, AHPP said:

They’ll get dirty over five years. Makes more of a difference than you’d think.  

Then wash them? 

 

[openspaceman]

7 hours ago, AHPP said:

They’ll get dirty over five years. Makes more of a difference than you’d think.  

I have a homeowner scaffold tower which I used to wash them 3 years ago for the first time and I will do so again, the dirt was mostly bird shit and algae

[Justme]

9 hours ago, daveatdave said:

 it did not work out in my favor because after about 5 years they started to loose there capacity to produce there full kilowatts and by 20 years they needed replacing and they would not have paid for the cost of them 

  

I fitted my 1.2kw array right at the start of FITs (well before actually in the period you could convert ROCS to fits). That must be 12 years ago now. That array still hits peaks of 1.4kw.

 

Our payback was much sooner as we are off grid to the cost of elec from a genny is much higher.

[slim reaper]

On 13/07/2022 at 16:55, openspaceman said:

Well I have to say that although we have a quote for £13500 for a 5kW array and 10kWh battery as the survey has still to take place there could still be a price hike.

 

2 years ago I reckoned a 4kW system and 6kWh battery could be had for £8k so yes much more than back then but with a likely 84% grid independence and an annual usage of 5000kWh there is still a saving of £1260 at 30p/kWh and that rises to £1848 at 40p/kWh.

 

In her case it is likely even better as she has an EV to soak up excess solar power.

I had a just over 3kwh fully optimised system installed on a shed roof a couple of weeks before  the cut off for FIT 3 years ago.

More West  than South facing produces just under 3000 kwh per year and heats a 200L unvented cylinder via an auto switch to the immersion heater so virtually no oil use from March - October   Cost was 4.5k fully installed, no battery, if we had one I guess we would loose much of the Dhw heating . 

Being so low makes it easy to keep clean especially this weather when they get covered on dust and pollen with no rain to wash them off.

[openspaceman]

5 hours ago, slim reaper said:

Cost was 4.5k fully installed, no battery, if we had one I guess we would loose much of the Dhw heating . 

I wonder; I manage to heat about 50 litres and charge a the battery most days since April and if the hot water runs low I boil 2 litres for washing up in a kettle yet we are still exporting half our production on sunny days.

 

That's a cracking price for the installation.