Best Electricity provider/buyer according to my production?

[sjaglin]

Hi,

I have a PV (2.1kWh) and I sell my excess energy to the grid. To date, we sell about 70% of what we use. We are with npower who buys our excess 12p/unit plus a ROC (2x£ 37.19).

To be with them we have to be part of their Juice contract which is not cheap for gas so we want to shop around in order to reduce our gas bill which is by far the highest despite a very well insulated house and some very energy-saving behaviours...

Can any-one point me towards a comparative page or let me know their experience with their own supplier/buyer?

Thank you,

Stef

[Iain]

Hi
Just signed up with Scotish and Southern(Atlantic Elec and Gas). They keep the ROC and give 28p/Kwh exported

Elec Rates    first 225 @ 17.07p then 12.47p
Gas Rates    First 1143 @ 4.46p rest @3.35p

Per 3 month period (inc VAT)
Iain

[guydewdney]

good energy pay 15p/unit GENERATED not exported.

[StBarnabas]

I am with GoodEnergy also and getting HotRocs - about £87.50 per year for my Hot water as well.

[sjaglin]

Ummm, All that sounds better than npower, St Barnabas, may I ask how much you pay for elec and gas?

Stef

[guydewdney]

14.04p for leccy, plus 8.71p/day standing charge. But it varies with area. I also get hotrocs -31.59p credit to my bill for two 30x47mm tubes.

If you go with GE - can you say I recommended you? The last bill had something about recommend a fried, get a free tea bag or something.

[tange179]

Strange I'm joining Southern Electric and they quoted me £0.092p for ROC's and £0.05p for exported kWh's

John

[StBarnabas]

Click on above link for current GoodEnergy prices.
 

[Iain]

John
They have two rates. The one you have been given and 28p / unit exported


Microgeneration Export Tariff
For your exported power we pay a fixed rate of 5p/kWh. This rate is set each April and runs until the end of March the following year. The payment for this exported power will be shown as a credit on your normal electricity bill.

If you qualify for the renewables obligation certificate (ROC) and appoint us as your agent then we are able to pay you an additional 9.2p/kWh for all the energy you generate. If you do not wish to appoint us as your agent then we will pay £46 per ROC.  Either way, this will be paid each year in July for your previous year’s generation. 

Solar Energy Plus Tariff (benefit customers who will export over 40%)

    * It is only for customers with Solar PV generation
    * We pay 28p/kWh for Export
    * The customer must be an import customer with SSE
    * The customer must have an Ofgem approved gross generation meter installed
    * The customer must have an export meter installed (we will fit this free of charge if you do not already have one)
    * The customer must appoint SSE as their agent for ROCs
    * The generation must be connected to the grid via the property and not directly onto the grid
    * There is no separate payment for ROCs, it is all rolled up into the 28p/kWh we pay for export
    * It is only available for generation up to 5kW.  Solar PV greater than 5kW will be decided on a site by site basis


Iain

[tange179]

Thanks Iain,

That clears it up.

One of the reasons I'm joining SE is they offer a free export meter, however I wonder if I will qualify one as my system only totals on 615 watts

John

[wookey]

If you are a low user (it sounds like you aren't), then consider Ebico too, who do the same export tariffs as SSE, but import is flat-rate (i.e no loading on first few hundred kWh). Slow to install expoert meters though (says me, waiting for an export meter for 2 weeks so far with no clue when one might turn up)

[fje-iptelenet]

One of the reasons I'm joining SE is they offer a free export meter, however I wonder if I will qualify one as my system only totals on 615 watts

In this case unless your base load is next to nothing you are better off with Good Energy as the pay you for each kwh you generate(No Export meter required) and SE pays only kWh's exported.

Regads,
Franz

[billt]

As Ivan pointed out in another thread that's not necessarily so. The trouble is that the generation times and the consumption times don't generally match, so you're unlikely to use much of your locally generated power. Most people have a consumption peak in the morning and a bigger one in the evening. Generally domestic consumption is low during the day which is when the PV generator is producing.

E.g. you consume 15 units per day, 3 of them during the PV generation period. You generate about 13 units, 10 of which are exported but you have to import 12 units. Doing the sums Good energy would pay you 39p per day, but at the rates quoted above you would be paid £1.24 per day by SSE. (Using 13p per unit import, 15p per unit GE generation tariff, 28p SSE export tariff.)

Unfortunately there isn't a simple way of working out which is better without knowing consumption and generation patterns in some detail.

[crispy]

Roughly speaking, the GE tariff is worth choosing if you can consume, on average over the year, more than 46% of your generated PV before it gets exported. To do that, you might need to time your usage, perhaps putting the freezer on a timer to weight its consumption to when the sun is shining, etc.

Or charging a big battery bank for use at night, but that's probably not in the spirit of helping out the country :-)

Why 46%? It's 1-(15p/28p)