Solarcentury, the British solar power company, says that the recently announced arrival of Feed-in Tariffs has shortened the payback period for photo-voltaic panels. This could mean that the average barn roof could be earning more than £20,000 a year by generating electricity.
A big barn roof with PV panels totalling 400sq m can produce up to 60kW in idea conditions, according to Solarcentury. Averaged over a year, that would amount to 51,000 kWh of electricity. The generation tariff for big solar power installations between 10 and 100kW peak capacity if 31.4p/unit. 51,000kWh equates to £16,014 for generated electricity plus £765 for electricity sold back tot he grid and £2295 for savings from not consuming power from the grid. These figures assume that on average you will consume 50% of the solar electricity on the house and farm and export the remainder to the grid. Read more...