“Investing“ in lowering living costs

[vand]

Smart meters may not save you any money directly, but having had one for the last 3 years I fail to see any downside and certainly wouldn't go back to old style blindometer even if I had the choice. Some things aren't a huge conspiracy, y'know - moving over to a smart meter is just the easy and modern thing to do.

[DrFfybes]

Smart meters may not save you any money directly, but having had one for the last 3 years I fail to see any downside and certainly wouldn't go back to old style blindometer even if I had the choice. Some things aren't a huge conspiracy, y'know - moving over to a smart meter is just the easy and modern thing to do.

There are benefits, and being able to see my 30 min gas use the day after is useful.

Of course more useful would be to see my real time gas use but that doesn't work, or if it didn't leave 2-3 week gaps in the data it sends back, but despite being on me second set of meters in 3 years, they don't work properly. The previous gas one was great though, it turned out the one on their system was in someone else's house, so I'd been billed on their use. So unless I continue to manually submit readings or prod them to download and update their data, I get bills that are hundreds of quid adrift in Winter and presumably if they do a catch up in March they'll try and put my monthly DD up.

As for 'investing' in energy efficienct, we thought we'd get someone in to see what could be done with out 230 year old roof. It turned out to have been leaking in a hidden corner, so it is now on the drive, the 6x1 inch ridge has been replaced with 300kg of steel as apparently that's what is needed these days, the house "foundations" needed upgrading to support the new steelwork, but at the end of this 6 figure expenditure we should at least have some insulation up there, and the ancient toothpicks that the roof tiles were clinging to for grim death will be replaced with battens that will support the weight of solar panels.

Paul

[International]

Hi,

I've performed a "back of an envelope" calculation on the idea of outsourcing my electricity use, as solar would be difficult to install chez nous.

I pay £100/month, so £1200/year for electricity.

Eyeballing the yield on UKW, they pay a dividend of about 5%/year.

I can't build a windfarm in my garden, but for £1200/5% = £24,000 I could buy part of theirs and pay my electricity bill.

£24,000 might buy quite a powerful solar installation, but estimates seem to vary a lot.

Is my math ok?

[Dod101]

Hi,

I've performed a "back of an envelope" calculation on the idea of outsourcing my electricity use, as solar would be difficult to install chez nous.

I pay £100/month, so £1200/year for electricity.

Eyeballing the yield on UKW, they pay a dividend of about 5%/year.

I can't build a windfarm in my garden, but for £1200/5% = £24,000 I could buy part of theirs and pay my electricity bill.

£24,000 might buy quite a powerful solar installation, but estimates seem to vary a lot.

Is my math ok?

That is pretty much what I do but mainly because I see UKW as a decent long term investment. Maths seem OK provided you will hold UKW in a tax free environment otherwise you will probably have to pay tax on the dividend.

Dod

[servodude]

Hi,

I've performed a "back of an envelope" calculation on the idea of outsourcing my electricity use, as solar would be difficult to install chez nous.

I pay £100/month, so £1200/year for electricity.

Eyeballing the yield on UKW, they pay a dividend of about 5%/year.

I can't build a windfarm in my garden, but for £1200/5% = £24,000 I could buy part of theirs and pay my electricity bill.

£24,000 might buy quite a powerful solar installation, but estimates seem to vary a lot.

Is my math ok?

That is pretty much what I do but mainly because I see UKW as a decent long term investment. Maths seem OK provided you will hold UKW in a tax free environment otherwise you will probably have to pay tax on the dividend.

Dod

I think it's not a bad way of considering the issue.

However forecasting the relative cost of electricity going forward is tricky; given there's a huge distortion betwixt the costs of consumer and generator

[scrumpyjack]

My post on the Smart Meter board covers my investment in lowering living costs

viewtopic.php?p=644648#p644648

[Dicky99]

That is pretty much what I do but mainly because I see UKW as a decent long term investment. Maths seem OK provided you will hold UKW in a tax free environment otherwise you will probably have to pay tax on the dividend.

Dod

I think it's not a bad way of considering the issue.

However forecasting the relative cost of electricity going forward is tricky; given there's a huge distortion betwixt the costs of consumer and generator

And while the dividend matches the cost of one's energy use the increase in book value over the period must take care of inflation.

[Gerry557]

The other positive reason for outsourcing/investing your energy use is that you can use it when you move home. It's not that practical to rip up your solar panels and put them on a van.

Additionally your roof might not be the most efficient especially if it's not pointing in the right direction.

I used to move house regularly so the payback period would never be reached and on homes I've kept over a long period it didn't seem worth it when I wasn't living there.

This isn't great for the green side of things granted as it reduces take up. I might be more interested in the independent side of things more though. So I could maintain power if the grid couldn't.

It's funny how scale was supposed to be more efficient but now we are all going more individual.

[International]

I think it's not a bad way of considering the issue.

However forecasting the relative cost of electricity going forward is tricky; given there's a huge distortion betwixt the costs of consumer and generator

Ok, so let's assume £24K of UKW as the working figure for capital to generate the required amount of electricity.

over in viewtopic.php?f=29&p=644660#p644660 that a suitable(?) home installation might be around £10K. Let's add a buffer for pessimism and say £15K. That's a lot less than the approach of buying UKW or similar.

A home installation will need replacing eventually and you have the cost and hassle of installation perhaps every 20 years(?). On the other hand, you have it installed and so if electricity prices go up then the ROI gets even better. On your third hand, all other things being equal, the dividend from UKW would go up in those circumstances too.

Without breaking out a spreadsheet, with those assumptions it is looking like a home solar installation gives a better ROI than the clean and lazy way of just buying UKW. I was hoping it would pencil out to be the same.

What do you folks think? Are there some other factors at play to consider?

[DrFfybes]

I think it's not a bad way of considering the issue.

Without breaking out a spreadsheet, with those assumptions it is looking like a home solar installation gives a better ROI than the clean and lazy way of just buying UKW. I was hoping it would pencil out to be the same.

What do you folks think? Are there some other factors at play to consider?

I think is is a daft way of considering the issue.

If you had a thirsty V8 and wanted to reduce your fuel consumption with an EV but lacked charging infrastructure would you buy shares in Tesla instead hoping the dividend covered your fuel?

Of course not, because there is no correlation between your investment and their production.

If it a purely financial decision then fine, but I wouldn't make my investment decisions based on things I'd like to have but can't. For one thing I'd have lost a fortune on Aston Martin shares.

Paul

[kempiejon]

Eyeballing the yield on UKW, they pay a dividend of about 5%/year.

I can't build a windfarm in my garden, but for £1200/5% = £24,000 I could buy part of theirs and pay my electricity bill.

Well, you could apply this sort of logic to your other fuel costs. Buy BP and/or Shell on 4.5% average yield, depends how much you buy. Then spread your other investments for similar outcomes, Tesco and Sainsbury's to cover your grocery bills, Admiral and Phoenix for your insurance, Astra Zeneca and GSK for your healthcare costs, Carnival or On the Beach for your holidays. This idea of hypothecated investment falls down either without viable companies to invest in or because there are better returns outside of your spending needs so why invest less successfully just because you buy a companies products.

So buy a big enough investment in a global tracker that throws off enough return by income and share price appreciation for all your spending needs.

[88V8]

Without breaking out a spreadsheet, with those assumptions it is looking like a home solar installation gives a better ROI than the clean and lazy way of just buying UKW. I was hoping it would pencil out to be the same.
What do you folks think? Are there some other factors at play to consider?

I think is is a daft way of considering the issue.

Buying a specific 'green' share as an offset is a nice way of illustrating a point that DIY infrastructure adopters sometimes ignore, which is 'opportunity cost'.
If the capital could have been invested at 5%, then that has to be deducted from any saving in determining the real saving and payback period.

For example if one spent £10k to save £1k, the opportunity cost of foregoing a 5% dividend is £500 and the real saving is halved.
So not really daft, imho.

Not saying one should ignore green generation, but if one is adopting it for financial reasons it pays to take account of the true cost.

V8

[International]

Eyeballing the yield on UKW, they pay a dividend of about 5%/year.

I can't build a windfarm in my garden, but for £1200/5% = £24,000 I could buy part of theirs and pay my electricity bill.

Well, you could apply this sort of logic to your other fuel costs... why invest less successfully just because you buy a companies products...So buy a big enough investment in a global tracker that throws off enough return by income and share price appreciation for all your spending needs.

I do agree with the logic here. I got into the narrower "matching" thought process like this: I like the idea of generating my own electricity but it would be hard to do with my house/plot... so why don't I buy part of a solar farm... so why don't I buy part of a solar farm company... here's UKW as an example of a renewables company.

But, yes, at that point you're so far away you might as well invest in anything and just offset the proceeds.

I did look at investing in my electricity supplier (was SSE), but they were bought by Eon, which is private!

I still like the idea of generating my own electricity.

[DrFfybes]

I still like the idea of generating my own electricity.

https://www.instructables.com/Hamster-W ... ding-Desk/ and a small dynamo

[International]

I still like the idea of generating my own electricity.

https://www.instructables.com/Hamster-W ... ding-Desk/ and a small dynamo

OMG I'm trying to get off the hamster wheel!

[scotview]

What do you folks think? Are there some other factors at play to consider?

Presume that you are looking at electricity consumption for cooking, lighting, tv, fridge etc. Maybe you should try and figure out your electricity requirements to cover your winter heating too, in the not too distant future........... if Starmer/Miliband have anything to do with it.

[International]

Presume that you are looking at electricity consumption for cooking, lighting, tv, fridge etc. Maybe you should try and figure out your electricity requirements to cover your winter heating too, in the not too distant future........... if Starmer/Miliband have anything to do with it.

Quite. Hopefully the ROI numbers would just mostly scale up for a rough model, e.g. just 3x everything. More theoretical solar capacity just worsens my implementability problem, though, as I run out of space.

For now my back-of-an-envelope numbers are feeling like they support what the OP said: it's actually better to implement your own solar if you can. Seems odd that the economics are that way. You'd think the scale of a large installation would work better than micro-generation in your back yard.

There's Ripple https://rippleenergy.com, but I am sure that has been discussed somewhere on TLF already so will go and read those topics.

[scotview]

I might be more interested in the independent side of things more though. So I could maintain power if the grid couldn't.

Yes handy, but in the middle of winter, heating a home fully on electricity, 20 kWh storage and limited solar, wont go very far. That is the real problem with the all electric direction of travel. Secure mid winter heating is the only real consideration.

[Dicky99]

You'd think the scale of a large installation would work better than micro-generation in your back yard.

So many factors will go into make up their rate per kwh that don't factor in back yard generation. Business overheads, payment defaults, r&d, dividends to shareholders to name a few.
It's why whatever weight you give to intagible benefits you may only compare like for like by dividing the life time cost of your installation by your total anticipated usage in kwh.

[genou]

Hi,

I've performed a "back of an envelope" calculation on the idea of outsourcing my electricity use, as solar would be difficult to install chez nous.

I pay £100/month, so £1200/year for electricity.

Eyeballing the yield on UKW, they pay a dividend of about 5%/year.

I can't build a windfarm in my garden, but for £1200/5% = £24,000 I could buy part of theirs and pay my electricity bill.

£24,000 might buy quite a powerful solar installation, but estimates seem to vary a lot.

Is my math ok?

You could invest directly in generation - https://rippleenergy.com/