Rent per acre for ground solar?

[Exfarmer]

I cannot understand everyones concern about removal of the panels.
If I thought that after 20 years I would be getting an income equivalent to £200K today, from 10 acres, it must be a serious contender to being a good pension with no cost.
makes a rent hardly necessary.

Panels may get more efficient but will never be anywhere 4 X times since they currently harvest nearly 20% of the power received. We may though perhaps see a doubling in output.

Removal costs will be minimal anyway as they are only glass with alluminium frames and wiring, they already do it with alluminium double glazed windows and pay for them

 

[warksfarmer]

I cannot understand everyones concern about removal of the panels.
If I thought that after 20 years I would be getting an income equivalent to £200K today, from 10 acres, it must be a serious contender to being a good pension with no cost.
makes a rent hardly necessary.

Panels may get more efficient but will never be anywhere 4 X times since they currently harvest nearly 20% of the power received. We may though perhaps see a doubling in output.

Removal costs will be minimal anyway as they are only glass with alluminium frames and wiring, they already do it with alluminium double glazed windows and pay for them

I think your 'bonkers chopsticks'

Are you saying that the panels wont loose efficiency? and will infact double output after 25 years when the solar companies lease has finished?

Also £200k over 20 years is not exactly earth shattering is it? Worse case is you loose 50% depending on your tax sistuation but lets say 25% goes back to the IR which means your netting £15,000/year so £150k after 20 years.

What about inheritance tax issues - dont say there arnt any because its not been exercised yet so nobody knows what the IR's view on it will be.

Also youve got 40 acres of panels to clear off the site that need to go to landfill?? It could easily cost £3750/ac to deal with it. £150,000 / 40 acres.

 

[Exfarmer]

Ouch, I think you have seriously misread my post ( perhaps I could have phrased it better)
Firstly I was talking about the latest panels in 20 years time possibly be being double the output in a hypothetical scenario
I do not actually believe they will increase this much , but another poster suggested that panels could be up to 4 X more efficient.
The panels will certainly lose efficiency , but if the export comes to £200k per year at today's rate that is still £160k in 20 years time if they lose 20% efficiency? There is no actual reason why they should as they are solid state of course, but who knows. This figure will have inflation built in and will still be paid to the owner of the panels as the generator.
This will give a lot of people a very nice pension

When the panels are redundant they will be crushed , the glass will be used in type one road stone as much of today's recycled bottles are, and the aluminium frames will b sold for scrap at about £1000. Per tonne., if you are too lazy to do it yourself just call in local caravan dwellers

There are certainly tax issues which should be considered, but I will leave the accountants to argue that one

 

[warksfarmer]

Ouch, I think you have seriously misread my post ( perhaps I could have phrased it better)
Firstly I was talking about the latest panels in 20 years time possibly be being double the output in a hypothetical scenario
I do not actually believe they will increase this much , but another poster suggested that panels could be up to 4 X more efficient.
The panels will certainly lose efficiency , but if the export comes to £200k per year at today's rate that is still £160k in 20 years time if they lose 20% efficiency? There is no actual reason why they should as they are solid state of course, but who knows. This figure will have inflation built in and will still be paid to the owner of the panels as the generator.
This will give a lot of people a very nice pension

When the panels are redundant they will be crushed , the glass will be used in type one road stone as much of today's recycled bottles are, and the aluminium frames will b sold for scrap at about £1000. Per tonne., if you are too lazy to do it yourself just call in local caravan dwellers

There are certainly tax issues which should be considered, but I will leave the accountants to argue that one

Ok so not sure what the panel efficiency in 20 years time has to do with letting 40 acre of farmland out in 2013? Its totally irrelevant because your installing 2013 panels.

As the landowner I get left with 40 ac of panels which you think because not of us know, will be working at 80% efficiency?

Does anything 20 years old thats technology based work at 80% efficiency at that age?

Your idea that the landowner gets left with the panels after taking a rent for 20 years is a nice idea but in reality I think you are left with a 40ac park to pay to get rid of.

The point is 20 years is an awful long time to plan on. In 20 years time I will be retired anyway.

 

[Exfarmer]

Ok so not sure what the panel efficiency in 20 years time has to do with letting 40 acre of farmland out in 2013? Its totally irrelevant because your installing 2013 panels.

As the landowner I get left with 40 ac of panels which you think because not of us know, will be working at 80% efficiency?

Does anything 20 years old thats technology based work at 80% efficiency at that age?

Your idea that the landowner gets left with the panels after taking a rent for 20 years is a nice idea but in reality I think you are left with a 40ac park to pay to get rid of.

The point is 20 years is an awful long time to plan on. In 20 years time I will be retired anyway.

There are many satellites with PV which have been working at full potential for far longer than 20 years, some are over 40 years old. These will be working in a far from friendly environment with no maintenance at all!
The point about future panel efficiency was raised by another poster

We all have to make our own decisions on the evidence in front of us, foresight would be wonderful

 

[Lincsman]

Asbestos cement sheets used to be free to dump for many years... things change in less time than 25 years.

 

[warksfarmer]

Asbestos cement sheets used to be free to dump for many years... things change in less time than 25 years.

Exactly my point. I think you would be a complete nutter to invest in 40 acres of solar panels (I wouldn't even invest in 5 acres) now thinking that the whole thing will last longer than 20 years and you will be paid to take the stuff away at the end.

If I had cash like that sat around it would be going into land as thats a much better safer more known investment because we live on an island and cant make any more of it.

 

[Exfarmer]

as was pointed out on another discussion, for a £1000 rent per annum you can buy more land to match, then have a pension at the end for free.
Why should it cost money to scrap them?
I am more worried about the caravan dwellers, walking off with them

 

[deadwood]

Hi all

Looking in leasing land for ground mounted solar panels. Could anyone point me in the right direction of a reputable company who is looking to lease land on this basis

Thanks

 

[d williams]

I think your 'bonkers chopsticks'

Are you saying that the panels wont loose efficiency? and will infact double output after 25 years when the solar companies lease has finished?

Also £200k over 20 years is not exactly earth shattering is it? Worse case is you loose 50% depending on your tax sistuation but lets say 25% goes back to the IR which means your netting £15,000/year so £150k after 20 years.

What about inheritance tax issues - dont say there arnt any because its not been exercised yet so nobody knows what the IR's view on it will be.

Also youve got 40 acres of panels to clear off the site that need to go to landfill?? It could easily cost £3750/ac to deal with it. £150,000 / 40 acres.

Also what if the need to release asset came about sure they would let you do that at no expensive

 

[RushesToo]

Things do change and almost certainly the premium paid for solar energy will not increase. Disposal costs may increase, but by my reckoning the 10-15% rise per annum in energy costs isn't going away any time soon [not until the population increase /energy use balance becomes more equal]. So over a period of time the loss in income from efficiency fall off will be more than matched by the increase in cost in power.

There are many unknowns so it is probably part of the risky investment bit of your pension - but what is the low risk bit? Land price, government bonds, FTSE100 [which has banks in it] . . .

 

[mikelaluz]

All panel manufacturers have linear performance guarantees based on 25 years of operation. In general this is between 0.6% and 0.8% loss per year. It's worth looking closely at this guarantee as some offer 2 day on site replacement of panels and allassociated costs some however are a little more vague. There is also a trend to offering an insurance backed performance guarantee.

However several points to consider. Firstly if the manufacturers are offering this guarantee then the chances of a 0.6% or 0.8% loss per year is in my opinion quite slim and they would expect operating losses to be well within these figures. It was mentioned earlier in the thread that panels used in Space have suffered little drop in output over 10's of years.

My advice would be to work out returns based on 0.8% loss in generation each year over the 20 year period and this would give your wost case scenario. If you need any help with this drop me a line and I'll mail you a spreadsheet that calculates the losses and ROI over 20 years.

In terms of disposal many manufacturers are part of PV Cycle a none profits organisation that offer collection points across the UK for redundant panels and will collect directly from your site but i'm not sure of the cost implications but you can check them out http://www.pvcycle.org/collection-points/?country=United+Kingdom

 

[warksfarmer]

All panel manufacturers have linear performance guarantees based on 25 years of operation. In general this is between 0.6% and 0.8% loss per year. It's worth looking closely at this guarantee as some offer 2 day on site replacement of panels and allassociated costs some however are a little more vague. There is also a trend to offering an insurance backed performance guarantee.

However several points to consider. Firstly if the manufacturers are offering this guarantee then the chances of a 0.6% or 0.8% loss per year is in my opinion quite slim and they would expect operating losses to be well within these figures. It was mentioned earlier in the thread that panels used in Space have suffered little drop in output over 10's of years.

My advice would be to work out returns based on 0.8% loss in generation each year over the 20 year period and this would give your wost case scenario. If you need any help with this drop me a line and I'll mail you a spreadsheet that calculates the losses and ROI over 20 years.

In terms of disposal many manufacturers are part of PV Cycle a none profits organisation that offer collection points across the UK for redundant panels and will collect directly from your site but i'm not sure of the cost implications but you can check them out http://www.pvcycle.org/collection-points/?country=United Kingdom

All well and good until the manufacturer no longer exists.

 

[stroller]

as was pointed out on another discussion, for a £1000 rent per annum you can buy more land to match, then have a pension at the end for free.
Why should it cost money to scrap them?
I am more worried about the caravan dwellers, walking off with them

Do many get stolen from ground mount sites?

 

[Exfarmer]

I have not heard any statistics on the issue.
I know that one of the main objections to these sites is the requirement for security cameras and CCTV.

I would suspect the cabling is more of an issue, as it would be relatively simple to strip a lot of that out in a night.
It is Alluminium though, so nowhere near as valuable as copper

 

[Honest john]

I have to say as a farmer with 5 Meg on the farm. It would be a hell of a job to clear it up. Still we have to live for today first to see tomorrow. We have lost to farming about 33 acres ( still have the ground ) for an income of over 60 K cant say exactly on here. Index linked with 5 year reviews.
The money is buying more land. You would surely be mad to turn that down.

On IHT and CGT you can at this point in time have 20% in non farming turnover or asset's.
That may be a problem for some.

 

[Derrick Hughes]

Bump

 

[Derrick Hughes]

I here there is 1200 acres in South Wales just with one company going through the motions
One guy with 150 acres and 3 turbines has been offered 500 thousand up front pluss rent, buy back for £1 in 20 years

 

[Honest john]

I here there is 1200 acres in South Wales just with one company going through the motions
One guy with 150 acres and 3 turbines has been offered 500 thousand up front pluss rent, buy back for £1 in 20 years

That sounds like Pub Talk.

 

[Honest john]

Any updates on offers on ground mount. We are considering Phase 2 now.