DECC penalise early adopters.

[Mudman]

This is one for the Guardian to pick up on- or maybe a radio 4 you and yours kind of programme. any media types on the forum? ... hmmm maybe not!

[Moxi]

I've been thinking this next suggestion over for some time but always avoided mentioning it in case I've missed something obvious, but here goes anyway.......

The inovators amongst us currently look as though they will be penalised for DIY and early installations, this is in part because of the uncertanty over what the power companies will pay you in ther future for your exported electricity.  One problem I see is that dealing with lots of small generators is costly for the returns involved for the power companies and hence a dissincentive to them.

Now if you all grouped together and formed a cooperative you would offer a larger source of power and a simpler organisation to deal with for a power company - perhaps sufficent to attract a premium export rate?

Shares in the cooperative could be assigned on a generation capacity basis perhaps? and as a group organisation your voice would hold more emphasis in the market place?

So thats the idea, can someone explain the holes that I must have missed?

Moxi

[Ted]

You could even go one step further and set up a separate ESCO to handle it. How this would work across a large geographic area though I am not sure. You'd probably need a thousand or more customers to make it viable.

[linesrg]

Ivan,

As I must have posted elsewhere on the forum my situation is as follows. I have a ROC's approved 1.28kW system which S&S 'accepted' even though it was a self-install. I received 'certification' some time in May 2009. This clearly makes this part of the system a ROC's one.

Since July I have installed another 2.56kw on the back of this. Granted 16 of the 80W panels are probably not going to be MCS approved but other than that the whole shebang is MCS approved equipment.

So what is the status of my system given you're current understanding? I note your comment about having an MCS approved installer 'on hand', I know that waiting for something to change in our favour will be a very long and probably fruitless venture so I need to know what it will take to get said individual up to somewhere as remote as Aberdeenshire or whether you know of a suitably inclined individual up north ( I am prepared to make it worth their while). Please PM me.

Regards

Richard

[noah]

Moxi: I`d be keen to join any group that will stick up for DIY`ers.
"FairPlayForGreenPioneers.org" I can see it now
Could be one for a petition to downing st
I see that there is already a petition re early adopters:

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Microgenerators/ 

though this is not necessarily about DIY.
If anyone has any thought re the wording of a petition lets discuss it

[guydewdney]

Signed pointless No10 petition... 

My mrs is spitting blood. she woke up at 5am today  angry - and spent all day sorting out how to go about getting this changed. Shes a tough little cookie, and a very very good arguer (I fail a lot....) and she is going to try to sort out a face to face meeting with our local MP - then move on to the shadow environment dude... Ill keep you informed...

[desperate]

If enough of us refused to pay an equivalent amount of our income tax bills and publicised the reasoning widely enough, although not legal it would I think be quite an irresistable force. Although i shudder to say it, it is a sort of Daily Tale campaign, especially if it were seen as an opportunity to bash the Labour Party.

Desp

[wookey]

Guy, can you explain your numbers for us; or point to another post where they are covered? I was only looking at PV numbers and know nothing about the hydro situation.

This is all going to come around again next year when solar thermal money is available, too. And I'll be on the other side of the fence then :-) Along with an awful lot of other people - how many of those installs are MCS-accredited? The amounts involved will generally be a lot smaller but there will be an awful lot of installs and thus grumpy individuals.

[guydewdney]

Basically - 'MCS' approved hydro is 19.9p - RO transferred is 9p. The main catch here is that there are NO, none, zip, hydro installers who are MCS qualified. So its a joke. Our install is seriosuly expensive - depending on how you do the maths (do you count my and her indoors' hours? etc) you can make the total somthing like 100,000 pounds. It didn't cost that in cash - nothing like it - but when you start banying this size around, and I know for a fact I am not  the only one in this sort of price bracket (I quote another hydro install 10 miles away "hundredS of thoudsands") that the 11p differential is very very important.

Whats even more galling - is why is PV 40+p and hydro 20p? Hydro is high labour, low material cost - ie it creates long term employment (digging leats / channels, concreting, etc etc) versus PV which is some monkey up a ladder bolting a panel on - which takes 20 minutes  and the majority of the money for PV is in the panel - and therefore the money leaves the country - whereas hydro most of it stays in here....

[Mudman]

I've been thinking about this one and as i have no generation capacity installed - not heat nor lekki, i'll have to post a suggestion that i can't follow:

If several of us on the forum wrote to our MPs with specific figures of how much the installation cost and how much we will miss out based on current proposals, it's the sort of thing many MPs would take notice of. especially where there's more than one letter from their consitituents (sure there's two or more in on the forum in the cambridge consituency). A simple letter, one to one and a half sides of A4, mainly setting out your situation and maybe one parragraph about the general FIT situation and your motivation.

i know some MPs are absolutely useless  - ours is none other than george galloway so may be we have the worst of the lot - but many MPs consider that if a busy voter has taken the time to write a sensibly argued letter, there are likely to be at least ten more who would have written if they had the time.

It only needs one MPs to ask the DECC about this and it'll be looked into- several requests and it'll be looked into more fully. so even if half the letters written are ignored, some pressure will be applied.

I know the government's done infinitely more talking than action on climate change and it is a disgrace - but one thing they need in order to act more is more pressure from the voters- Milliband said exactly that last year.

our democracy is certainly very flawed, but letters to MPs do often work- i've friends who work for MPs whose job it is to get answers to the letters.

[northern installer]

It is my firm belief that the mcs scheme,like the clearskys scheme before it,has been organised to minimise the payout but maximise the green publicity for the government.In the hope that there is going to be a change of government soon,I think lobbying of the prospective candidates is now the way forward,with a 'fits for all' theme .

[rhys]

Moxi: I`d be keen to join any group that will stick up for DIY`ers.
"FairPlayForGreenPioneers.org" I can see it now
Could be one for a petition to downing st
I see that there is already a petition re early adopters:

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/Microgenerators/ 

though this is not necessarily about DIY.
If anyone has any thought re the wording of a petition lets discuss it

Signed

[noah]

The `rationale` behind the differing FIT amount for hydro/solar/wind is that hydro (good site hydro that is)generates well over 50% of the time, wind 25/30% solar 10/15% (dont take these figures as gospel- just a good indication.
However Guy is right: small scale hydro  can be comparatively expensive to install.
The certification problem is that there are many existing but currently inactive hydro sites with refurbishable machinery-1920`s Gilkes turbines that are good for another 100 years if reconditioned, waterwheels that just need a modern gearbox- but how will anyone get qualified to install (re-install) these? And how will the old turbines/wheels be tested to the MCS`s satifaction?
And people like me who have built a one off wheel from scratch
Even if some scheme was designed to train people for these tasks they would probably not be over willing to endorse the work of some "cowboy amateur".
No doubt the MCS/DECC response is "we cannot take any risks with public safety"
Writing to you MP cannot do any harm.
Don`t forget your MEP , local council and AM or MSP if you live in one of the outlying Kingdoms.

[fje-iptelenet]

Ecogeorge wrote in this thread: http://www.navitron.org.uk/forum/index.php/topic,9696.15.html

http://decc.gov.uk/Media/viewfile.ashx?FilePath=Consultations\Renewable%20Electricity%20Financial%20Incentives\1_20100201131016_e_@@_GovernmentResponsetotheFITsConsultation.pdf&filetype=4

Paragraph 31 looks interesting !  Could we add existing arrays

• any expansion of an installation within 12 months (of the same
technology) will be treated as an increase in the capacity of the
installation; if an expansion takes place more than one year after
confirmation in the Central FITs Register, the expansion will be treated
as a separate station - the original installation will be treated as having
continued in the same class, while the new installation will be rated at
the capacity of the aggregate of the two stations.
Paragraph 47 has a useful flow chart for existing / new installations.

Ecogeorge,
Apologies for hijacking your message. Could the 'experts' (no pun intended) Ted, Ivan etc. please elaborate/clarify this......Thank you, much appreciated. I would like to read above paragraph (for PV systems installed before July 2009 and currently claiming ROC's) as followed:
1) The system is transfered to FIT's on April the 1st at the unfair rate of 9p
2) If the system is expanded after 12 month, e.g. some panels are added, that is after 01/04/2011 then the total capacity of old system plus the new panels qualify for FIT's just above 41p
I would be prepared to increase the capacity of the currently installed 2340 kwp system to a total of 3380 kwp as I'm building an extension and therefore enlarge the roof area.

If I'm wrongly interpreting above paragraph, I have decided to de-commission the current system after April the first and export the panels to Europe, full stop - No more of this nonsense! With regards to the grant pay back my solicitor takes the view that since they have changed the goal post, that is being forced into FIT's system that is not part of the grant conditions I signed up for, he argues they would find it very difficult to succeed in a court of law. If someone has the precise terms for de-commissioning, please publish here on the forum or PM me - Thank you.

I do apologize for the rant, but the gloves have come off and I'll do whatever is needed to re-install a new PV system to qualify for the higher rate of FIT's.

CeeBe are you still around?

Kind Regards,
Franz.

[Ted]

Sorry Franz, I cannot definitively elaborate on that. It is the one part of the document that made me scratch my head when I first read it - and I still don't fully understand it. I'm currently collating a bunch of questions for DECC that I intend to send to them once I have everything listed and this will be one of them.

I think it is meant to clarify what happens in circumstances such as:

1. 2.2kW PV installed 1/4/2010 - qualifies for FIT at 41.3p
2. 2.2kW PV added 6 months later - total system 4.4kW - all now gets paid at 36.1p for 25 years from 1/4/2010.

versus

1. 2.2kW PV installed 1/4/2010 - qualifies for FIT at 41.3p
2. 2.2kW PV added 13 months later - total system 4.4kW - first 2.2kW continues at 41.3p for balance of 25 years and second 2.2kW only gets paid at 36.1p but for 25 years from install date.

Because in the second case it takes the total system over the 4kW threshold. But you either need 2 meters for this or a 50/50 split of generation is deemed (or whatever ratio applies to the two parts).

How this might apply to a system that is initially transferred from ROCs and is only on the 9p rate I don't think DECC have thought about. I specifically asked about this in my consultation response (system that is part non-MCS eligible and part eligible) and this has been echoed in the responses summary but I can't see anything in the scheme document that covers it.

The flowchart that is included in the document only covers a small number of the potential scenarios that could crop up.