Selfsufficientish.com

Do you know?

Try the following:
http://www.heatmyhome.co.uk/buy-solar-panels-uk.htm
http://www.solar-guide.info/buy-solar-panels/
http://www.best-solar.info/how-does-a-p ... -work.html

What about making your own?

I'll probably get shot for this - we can supply you some really good value panels here - http://solarwind.org.uk/shop/index.php? ... at&catId=3

No conflict of interest around here

What size would I have to buy to actually made a difference?

oh gawd - where to start?
Firstly, I'll be honest - pv solar panels are pricey, even with a grant, you're talking about 25 years for payback - wonderful for remote areas, caravans etc. but rather expensive for the average home.
"what'll they do mister?" - take our "biggest" panel for instance - a 60w panel at £210 - that means that if at the right angle to a nice clear sunny sky, they should yield 60 watts (5 amps at 12 volts) maximum - the problem in the UK is that over each day, you'll probably get about 5 times the wattage of the panel per day - (300watt hours) - which means it could run a 60w lightbulb for 5 hours - after a nice sunny day in summer.............far less on a cloudy day, or in winter - this is NOT a lot of power - fine to keep a small caravan going, but not an awful lot of use in the average home - that's why large arrays are talked about in "square metres"-you need quite an acreage of them - and the price of large arrays is frightening! 8)
Then, just as with a wind turbine, you're generating power -what are you going to do with it? - if you can use it as it's produced, no problem, but with your own generation, you'll probably need to either store the power in a battery bank (expensive, and will need replacement after a few years) - or "grid-tie" - where you have a special "G83 approved" mains inverter (ludicrously expensive) that allows you to export electricity to the grid - add an "export" meter, and you'll get paid for what you generate 8)

Hmmmm,

60w panel for 210 quid = $420

That's pretty good Martin, we usually pay about $10 per watt. some dearer but rarely cheaper!

Nev

Martin, would you happen to know about the huge advances recently? apparently some place in america has managed to be able to produced pannels continuously which will halve the price (or something like that), might be getting muddled with them doubling the efficiency soon apparently? Have you seen these articles (shall find link sometime).

Also...if i did go to the phillipines (should really start a thread about that), how much would it cost for completely solarise it (i can install it as you probs won't want to).

Cheers

http://www.scienceinafrica.co.za/2004/n ... energy.htm
that's the one!
So really it's down to what power you'll need to consume - design your consumption needs as low as possible, then work on a combo of wind and solar - even in the Phillipines. you'll need hot water, so I'd take a solar hot water system with me too! 8)
It is a difficult choice- to commit large sums on lots of pv panels at the moment -you may well end up paying far more now than you would if you were able to wait for a year or two!
You can get good polycrystalline panels at around £3,000 per kw -a large array is a LOT of money! If you have no planning problems, I'd go for a turbine or three - far more "bang per buck" - just get a larger battery bank!