Solar mortgages, is it worth it?

Solar power is a clean eco-friendly way of producing electricity for a home or place of business; Solar panels are placed on the roof of the building to convert the Suns energy into electricity, using photovoltaic cells. Photovoltaic cells convert the energy from the sun into DC current. This has been used for applications such as calculators since the 1980’s. However the type of solar power required to power a home needs a much larger solar panel and an inverter to convert the DC to AC. Solar power is also very sustainable due to the energy being renew able and solar panel prices can vary between £200 and £9000.

One £9000 solar panel can approximately create enough energy to meet between 30-50% of your energy bill. This means to power the average home it would need approximately 2 or 3 solar panels to meet the electricity needs of one home. Therefore the total cost could be anywhere between £18000 and £24000. The issue of sustainability is Can people afford to pay this amount of money to power their home? In a lot of cases the answer is most likely no, this means for homes to be equipped with solar panels they would have to re-mortgage their home. A solar mortgage would be the only means for a lot of people to have solar panels on their homes. My question is, is it worth having a solar mortgage on your home? This is an issue because there seems to be a culture of borrowing that has developed recently; there are many more adverts on the internet and television about loans and debt consolidation. If people re-mortgage their homes there is a chance of this borrowing culture continuing and people may even lose their homes. Also the rate of return is very low, which again makes me ask is it worth mortgaging your home for solar energy?

A solar panel attatched to a house

This issue of Sustainable development affects me on several fronts. Firstly I am an undergraduate studying Electrical/Electronic engineering, if solar power is chosen as the replacement for fossil fuels it could affect my Career as an Engineer. It could also affect me because I one day plan to own a home, If Solar mortgages are implemented it would mean I would have to pay more money for my home. It would also affect my family as they would have to take out another mortgage which would force them to alter their lifestyle in order to pay off a second mortgage.

My plan of inquiry is as follow
 Research solar energy further mainly looking at the cost and the technology lifespan
 I will research mortgages and find out information about re-mortgaging a house
 I will conduct an analysis of my home to see if it’s feasible to re-mortgage the house for solar panels
 I will also research solar mortgages to see how popular they are

I will do this using the following sources:
 www.imaginationsolar.com
 www.moneyweb.co.uk
 http://money.msn.uk