Labour rates

[jason121]

What are the current rates for a good sub contract solar installer ?

 

[Eco Deal]

Not sure I say same as a spark now adays

 

[Gavin A]

depends if you mean someone to actually lead an installation team and sign it off.

 

[jason121]

looking rates for experienced Sub contractor in the solar industry some who knows is AC from his DC

 

[sedgy34]

looking rates for experienced Sub contractor in the solar industry some who knows is AC from his DC

You need a spark who does solar but got no work I would say £130 a day actually I had a spark come to me whilst I was doing a job he had no work but he's in redditch area as I remember rightly!

 

[Worcester]

sedgy34 PM me his details! - Always looking for good ones, and Redditch is on my doorstep.

 

[moggy1968]

You need a spark who does solar but got no work I would say £130 a day actually I had a spark come to me whilst I was doing a job he had no work but he's in redditch area as I remember rightly!

wouldn't get a spark out of bed in the morning for that money round here!!

Sparky rates, £160 /day, solar spark now unfortunately about the same.
3 years ago general sparking was £250 / day:nonod:

 

[poheZ]

yes it is very hard to get anything above 150 a day, it has been that price for years. despite the fact that the cost of living goes up the sub contractor day rate has not!

Is that really a great amount to earn and run van and tools?

 

[moggy1968]

no it isn't. by the time you take off your expenses and the fact not every day will be a full day your probably earning about 20k, less if you factor in advertising costs if you need it.
After paying the wages and bills my electrical business made a loss for the last 2 years, so now no staff, just me and use subbies when I need them.

 

[FB.]

Sparky rates, £160 /day, solar spark now unfortunately about the same.
3 years ago general sparking was £250 / day:nonod:

Those rates aren't helped by the constant boom-bust nature of our economy. Remember Gordon Brown's promise to end boom and bust? Hmmm.

If governments would only stop being self-centred in order to gain re-election, then we could have a much more stable economy. Without extremes of boom and bust, there'd be a much better situation for business and investment. Much of the problems have been caused by allowing credit to run away; credit exagerates a boom to the upside and exagerates the following bust to the downside. Look at property as an example of what happens with too much and then too little credit.

Why has Germany been doing so well? Debt - or rather lack of it, and their relative financial discipline. If you have debt (government or private), you don't have as much money to invest and you have to pay interest on top.

In a more stable economy, instead of £250/day in the good years and £160/day in the bad years, it'd probably sit in the middle of the range and a steadier stream of jobs coming along.

 

[moggy1968]

If governments would only stop being self-centred in order to gain re-election, then we could have a much more stable economy. .

Governemt self centred, shurely shome mistake FB:cheesy:

I find it difficult to reconcile the Governments constant mutterings about stimulating the construction industry and their desdtruction of the solar industry.

 

[FB.]

I find it difficult to reconcile the Governments.........destruction of the solar industry.

As an impartial outsider (customer, not installer), I think that the government left it too long before reducing the FiT, but reduced it too much in a knee-jerk reaction.
This too-generous FiT caused a runaway boom in mid-2011 (the graph of solar installation rates looks just like dotcom shares in 1999-2000; a bubble). It also caused a lot of companies to startup, adding competition and making life tougher for those who'd been around a while. Subsidies, if too generous, can create "zombie companies"; built on an unsustainable business model, and sucking the lifeblood from those who really could make a living out of it before the runaway boom.

My 3.75kWp array was 43p FiT and £9k cost. The return on investment is likely to be very high and, frankly, I think that was much too generous - although I'd be foolish to complain!

The return on any investment (especially if it is subsidised) should be porportionate to the risk. Solar is less risky than sharess, but riskier than cash; it should not offer returns higher than "risky" shares, otherwise it deprives investment money from non-subsidised other parts of the economy as everyone goes solar. Money invested into over-subsidised solar would draw money from some other sector of the economy which isn't subsidised.

I know it may not be popular, but I am a shareholder of National Grid (please bear with me, as this is making an interesting point). In mid-2010, they asked shareholders for about £3bn cash in order to increase investment - OFGEM was proposing 10-12% return on investment for the projects. As a shareholder, in mid-2010 I coughed-up thousands of pounds for that - sending a big cheque to National Grid.
If solar had been available paying 20%, it would have drawn much of my money away from investment into the grid (which we need for renewables).

Over very long periods of time, the following are approximate rates of return:
Cash: 4%
Bonds: 6%
Shares: 10%

With solar in late 2011 and early 2012 (post-court-judgement) offering 20% or so, clearly the returns were too high. But now the returns are at the low end of acceptable. It only takes a change in the assumption for inverter lifespan on a 2.5kW system to seriously spoil the return on investment. Inverter lifespan is a bit of an unknown.

 

[moggy1968]

agree with a lot of what you say. The market totally ran away, for installers and suppliers. The danger now is that we will, in the medium term, see an increase in prices of materials as the current practices of Chinese manufacturers come home to roost and companies go bust. With the Governments degression plan being based on further reductions in wholesale prices PV will become less and less viable and will, once again, become the preserve of rich middle class tree huggers.

In my opinion what we should have is a generous fit, say 50p for, say, 5 years so the panels are quickly paid off and then the customer just has the benefit of cheaper electricity. Whilst quite expensive in the short term it provides better long term stability and stops PV being seen as a long term investment and more as a long term energy strategy. Of course, the fact that the Labour Government who bought this in has saddled consumers with a debt burden for the next 25 years won't interest them because they are only interested in the next 4-5 years.

People don't take a long term view generally, and most people won't be in their houses for 25 years (or 20 as it now is!) so giving a payback time of just 5 years would make it much more appealing to people.

The profits of the energy companies aren't being reinvested into R&D into renewables. IT goes on dividends to their shareholders and bonuses to their bosses. The money inversted into R&D is minimal, just docking their hat to it. Then, when we need new power stations they go cap in hand to the Government to pay for it through subsisies instead of using their profits.

The Government don't pay for me to develop my business and certainly wouldn't give me a subsidy to expand because I had blown all my profits on beer and dancing girls, so why should they pay for the energy companies to do so!

The reason we have an energy crisis in this country is because the FAT cats have been filling their faces for too long. One of the problems with the shares and dividends business model is it discourages R&D and ecourages short term profit making

 

[whinmoor]

People don't take a long term view generally, and most people won't be in their houses for 25 years (or 20 as it now is!) so giving a payback time of just 5 years would make it much more appealing to people.

We couldn't give a 5 year payback period at the moment without fiddling the figures which I'm not prepared to do. Some companies may offer unrealistic calculations using unknown variables such as future inflation and fuel price projections.

 

[moggy1968]

We couldn't give a 5 year payback period at the moment without fiddling the figures which I'm not prepared to do. Some companies may offer unrealistic calculations using unknown variables such as future inflation and fuel price projections.

yes, I know. thats why I suggested a more generous FiT to make a 5 year payback possible!
RTFP:cheesy:

 

[FB.]

I suggested a more generous FiT to make a 5 year payback possible!

That would be a good idea. It would remove the uncertainty of how long someone will live in the house, and the longer-term risk of faults developing with the system before payback is reached. It would also remove the variables of future energy prices and inflation, which can make a big difference to the payback assumptions in the longer term.
For some people, a 25-year FiT or ten-year payback may be beyond their life expectancy!

 

[whinmoor]

Increasing the FiT seems highly unlikely. It's totally contrary to Government policy. Maybe a choice of FiT amount and payback period might be possible but fraught with legal and bureaucratic difficulties. Working out whether you would be better off with 50p over 5 years or 15p over 20 years would be a recipe for chaos.

 

[moggy1968]

yes it's unlikely, simply because the Government don't want SSEGs. Thats their policy.
Complicated, no, very simple, no choice. 45p FiT for 5 years upto 4kW, end of. Nice, simple, and as FB says, a lot less liable to manipulation of the figures. The degression model could continue by aiming for a 5 year payback on a TRUE average install cost.

Will it ever happen, of course not, it's a sensible idea!

- - - Updated - - -

yes it's unlikely, simply because the Government don't want SSEGs. Thats their policy.
Complicated, no, very simple, no choice. 45p FiT for 5 years upto 4kW, end of. Nice, simple, and as FB says, a lot less liable to manipulation of the figures. The degression model could continue by aiming for a 5 year payback on a TRUE average install cost.

Will it ever happen, of course not, it's a sensible idea!