DECC publish Renewable Energy Strategy

[Ted]

Possibly but those built-in reviews can rejig the figures at any time.  The proposed aim for FITs is for it to encourage investment in microrenewables with the expectation of around a 6% payback so it should be possible to get that irrespective of when you start.  If PV prices come down drastically at some point in the future then the tariffs should come down to maintain that 6%.

BUT - if DECC get the figures wrong from the start, then realise it at the first review point, and reduce the tariff for subsequent systems, the early movers will still have their tariffs locked-in and guaranteed for 20 years.   

BUT if take up is less than DECC want, at 6% return, they may decide to increase the return to stimulate more demand and increase the tariff rather than reduce it. The early movers will still be locked-in to the lower tariffs and a 6% return.   

So it's still a bit of a gamble.

[Paulh_Boats]

I can see that Joe Public will get very confused with all the different rates and variables.....a bit of negative press and the public could get frightened into making no decision about PV.

[Justme]

BUT - if DECC get the figures wrong from the start, then realise it at the first review point, and reduce the tariff for subsequent systems, the early movers will still have their tariffs locked-in and guaranteed for 20 years.   

BUT if take up is less than DECC want, at 6% return, they may decide to increase the return to stimulate more demand and increase the tariff rather than reduce it. The early movers will still be locked-in to the lower tariffs and a 6% return.   

So it's still a bit of a gamble.

It might be a slight gamble to do it now & poss mis out on a better rate but its a larger gamble to wait it out.

At least if you do it now you have all the costs of the install & the actual payments you will get so can say with some degree of accuracy what your personal financial situation will be. Waiting on a possible better deal if the current deal works for you is mad when its likely that the next deal will be worse.


Justme

[sjaglin]

Umm, very interesting thread, Hat off to Ted for the in depth lecture of the documents!

Just a silly question. If one has an already existing installation (let's say me) and has a few panels added to it by a professional now (let's say 1/2 a kWp) (I already have 2.1kWp), would the authorities/energy companies be able to measure which part of the export is eligible for the FITs and which belongs to the old ROC system?

If not then the little added installation will be worth its price!

I am sure you will see where I am coming from and where I am going to...

Stef

[Ted]

The whole issue of how the FITs scheme handles incremental upgrades over time is completely open. The report recognises that the situation can exist but only says this:

Installations over multiple years

3.138 There are likely to be instances where generators increase the size of their installation over time. For example, they may install one wind turbine in year 1 of
FITs and install another wind turbine in year 2 on the same site, increasing the total capacity incrementally over a number of years. This creates issues with how
the total capacity of the site is treated for the purposes of tariff banding and how degression is applied to the newly added generation on the site.

and then poses 3 questions:

Q61. What do you think is the best way of defining an installation for the purposes of FITs?

Q62. Once an installation is defined, do you think further checks are required to verify this? If so, what would these checks be?

Q63. How could we deal with installations at a single site installed in different years?

So you can see that the report has no suggestions as to how to address this situation.

I suggest you respond to the consultation indicating that you are a system owner in exactly this situation and what you would like to see happen from a practical point of view. 

Personally I think an equitable solution would be for the generation from the panels to be 'pro rated' across their different years. So, if you started with an existing PV system of  2.1kW, which migrated from ROCs, and then added 0.4kW in the first year of FITs your total generation would be paid at:

84% (=2.1/2.5) at 9p and 16% (=0.4/2.5) at 36.5p

In other words if you generated 1000 kWh you would be paid 840 units at 9p and 160 units at 36.5p for a total of £134 so you would be paid an 'effective rate' of 13.4p per kWh.

I can see that from an admin point of view that this would be less than straight forwards, but not impossible, and that policing might be difficult too (maybe you would have to submit a copy of the installers invoice when applying to register a system upgrade).

Anything that left you in a worse financial situation than this could lead to the ridiculous situation where you decommission a working 2.1kW system and recommision it as a 2.5kW system and then get 36.5p on all of the generation. This, I am sure, would lead the FITs scheme into dis-repute.

[Benpointer]

Apologies if I am being a bit of numpty newbie here but as someone who is considering a pv installation can I just check I get this:

If I install pv panels now, even before the FIT tarrif starts I will qualify for it when it starts? (next April?)

But...

Not if I install it myself - it needs to be an accredited installer (probably - subject to consultation)?

Also, the FIT rate may not be the curently proposed 36.5p beacuse that's still subject to consultation?

Coming to this new, it's very confusing - which I think bears out some points made earlier in the thread.

Thanks

[Paulh_Boats]

Apologies if I am being a bit of numpty newbie here but as someone who is considering a pv installation can I just check I get this:

If I install pv panels now, even before the FIT tarrif starts I will qualify for it when it starts? (next April?)

But...

Not if I install it myself - it needs to be an accredited installer (probably - subject to consultation)?

Also, the FIT rate may not be the curently proposed 36.5p beacuse that's still subject to consultation?

Coming to this new, it's very confusing - which I think bears out some points made earlier in the thread.

Ben

Its all up in the air at the moment and under discussion, so anything could happen between now and April 2010 when FITs kick off. I suggest you wait a few months until the final decisions are made. Without a doubt an accredited installation will be required, so hopefully we can install the panels and hardware then sparky does the final connection to the grid and ticks all the boxes. However it is up to the electricity supplier to accept a new install and some of them might have a relaxed view of the regs.

If you are desperate to get your hands dirty with DIY renewables then consider installing solar thermal because it is cheaper and produces much more power per square metre (thermal 85% efficient, PV 15%) and many of us think every house in the country should have solar thermal, followed by PV.

cheers
Paul

[Benpointer]

Thanks Paul, we will have to wait a bit anyway because we need to get our house renovation plans through planning.  And yes we'll do the solar thermal first. 

I guess the one advantage solar pv has is there's nothing wasted in the summer if all the excess electricity is sold back to the suppliers, whereas there's a limit to how many baths I can face on a hot summer's day!  Someone needs to invent a way of storing all that summer heat for six months :-)

[Ted]

Inter-seasonal thermal stores have been around for a while.  If you have space for 100,000+ litres.

[Benpointer]

Ah! let me just think about that for a nano-second...   Er no.  Shame though!

[wookey]

If I install pv panels now, even before the FIT tarrif starts I will qualify for it when it starts? (next April?)

Yes - pretty much guaranteed unless the whole things is scrapped, which seems unlikely.

But... Not if I install it myself - it needs to be an accredited installer (probably - subject to consultation)?

Also, the FIT rate may not be the curently proposed 36.5p beacuse that's still subject to consultation?

Probably. They _might_ change the MCS-required thing if enough of us moan. I just sent my response in which has taken me a 5hr train journey to write)

And the tariff is quite lkely to change (a bit), but it'll be somehwhere roundthere.

We turned ours on today (wooo!) generated about 200Wh before it went dark :-)

[JohnS]

We turned ours on today (wooo!) generated about 200Wh before it went dark :-)

Wookey

Are you able/willing to share with us your experience of the installation.  Choosing the installer, panels and inverter etc.

[StBarnabas]

Wooky
was already dark when StBC system was turned on so no power till the next morning 365 units so far so on track to produce 2,500 units per year as predicted... Congrats! great feeling when the juice starts flowing!

[noah]

Paulh_Boats
If market forces applied we would not be in this discussion at all. Power from fossil fuels is so much cheaper than renewables that if there were no government interference in the market there would be virtually no renwable schemes except possibly for  big hydro (and maybe small/ medium hydro where an extra benefit is available, eg irrigation). We all know that the moral and ecological arguments for renewables is overwhelming but this has very little relevance in market driven economies. The vast majority will always take the cheapest option. A true market driven renewables economy would require the cost of fossil fuels to at least triple thereby making renewables a financially attractive proposition without government tweaking of the marketplace.
Personally I think Keynes was more right than wrong so I`m all in favour of market manipulation for the long term good.
If anyone thinks that the FIT`s situation will somehow improve under the Tories, Lord Hunt said at a DECC meeting that there is good cross party support for the current oproposals. Of course any government can be driven into amending unpopular legislation and I dont think the details will be much affected by a change of government.