Bottling Sunbeams
Court's 0.5m solar power system sees light of day - Scotsman.com News
SCOTLAND'S biggest solar panel system has been completed, promising to slash hundreds of thousand of pounds from the cost of running Europe's busiest court.
The roof of Glasgow Sheriff Court has been transformed by the installation of hundreds of 3ft by 2ft solar panels, which will provide up to a fifth of the massive building's energy demands.
At a cost of £500,000, the electricity-generating system will save about £20,000, at current prices, from the court's annual fuel bill.
With an estimated lifespan of 40 years, the solar panels will save the taxpayer an estimated £300,000. But with fuel prices likely to rise in future, the savings may be much bigger.
Capital and interest repayment at 6% interest - £33 230.76 pa according to BBC - Homes - Property - Mortgage calculator, all to save £20k a year using their best case scenario.
Kenny MacAskill, the SNP justice secretary, claimed...
"This project is a good example of the kind of low carbon technology that will make a significant contribution to Scotland's future prosperity and help build increased, sustainable economic growth."
Well good luck to you building prosperity on such "investments".
Comments
Put another way, using Excel's NPV function and some very basic discounted cash flow analysis, I can only make this cashflow have a positive NPV at an impossibly low discount rate of 1%.
It's great to see how brilliantly the financial giants of Scottish politics are doing. Still, it wasn't their money in the first place.
Posted by: The Remittance Man | June 24, 2008 7:42 AM
As already said not their money and probably ours but to only waste 10k pa is probably a profit in govt!
Posted by: TimC | June 24, 2008 8:41 AM
TRM is right. Even if you treat this simply as an annuity of £20,000 for 40 years at a discount rate of r%, then the PV is sum(i = 0 to 39) (20000/(1+r/100)^i)
r for the sum to be 500K is 2.683%. If you assume it doesn't start paying out for a year then the sum runs from 1 to 40 and r is 2.52% for break-even.
Posted by: David Gillies | June 24, 2008 8:17 PM
This sort of "investment" is why your electricity bill is going up so fast.
And the one-eyed bandit thinks more of the same will get him elected? (I nearly wrote "elected again" but of course he wasn't, was he?)
Posted by: Andrew Duffin | June 26, 2008 12:23 PM
Umm, _solar power_? In SCOTLAND?
Hello? I believe there may be a reason why my Scots-Irish ancestors were, like me, so pasty-white pale, and, like, blue-eyed.
Do not ask my why I am living in Southern Florida.
Posted by: Justthisguy | June 28, 2008 4:39 AM