Are Ikea's solar panels a good deal?

Swedish home furniture giants Ikea are to begin selling solar panels in all 18 UK based stores within 10 months, following a successful trial period, but do they offer value for money and should you even consider buying solar panels from a furniture store?

Firstly, their price of £5,700 for a 3.36kW system, which is the size for a typical semi-detached property, is expensive. Comparing prices from accredited solar installers shows that a larger 4kW system can now be installed for under £5,000, and a 3kW system for as low as £4,000. Though Ikea have to start somewhere

On the plus side the investment figures still stack up, with Ikea's smaller 3.36kW system, on a south-facing roof in Southampton, forecast to earn £770 each year from the Government Feed-in-Tariff (guaranteed for 20 years) - meaning you can recoup the cost within just 7 years.

Though installing the same size system for a lower cost from an accredited solar installer makes more sense and will give you a shorter repayment period.

From a personal opinion, Ikea are making a smart move, they have seen the Solar Panel business on the rise and must be expecting a big boom soon like the rest of us. Hence the first UK solar advert airing last week and the noise Solar has been making in the news recently

Click here to compare solar panel prices for your home

Ikea at Milton Keynes - roof becomes power plant

We've already reported on this blog stories of Ikea upgrading it's stores in the UK with solar panels in an ambitious attempt to make all it's stores as self-sufficient as possible, whilst being responsible to the environment.

Work's been progressing nicely with the Milton Keynes Citizen reporting their store has started on their installation which will be completed by next March. Some 5,978 pv panels, at a cost of £562,000, will generate a whopping 246,000kWh - enough to power 75 homes.

These figures alone are pretty impressive but even more impressive is this one: "Since 2005, the company has opened six new stores with only a 10% increase in its combined energy usage".

The store also burns renewable wood materials to produce heat and hot water for the store. The system can provide up to 100% of the stores needs.

Other eco-friendly devices include a rainwater harvesting system, which can store enough water to flush the toilets for a month before having to resort to mains water.

photo credit: colin anderson

Ikea - not all flat pack and meatballs

Ikea - the flat-pack superstore famous for swedish product names you can't pronounce and meatball suppers, has just bought a wind farm in Scotland.

The 12.3 megawatt wind farm could cover up to 30 percent of Ikea's total UK energy use.

However, Ikea isn't stopping there. With typical nordic efficiency, they're also planning to install 39,000 solar panels across 10 UK stores which will provide an average additional 5% of each stores energy usage. (source Bloomberg).

The Ikea Group already owns wind farms in Denmark, Germany and France.

According to Bloomberg, Ikea is looking to reduce its exposure to fluctuating energy prices, which cost the company $1.7 billion a year.

The planned solar panel installation will cost in the region of 4 million pounds.

photo credit: tgkohn