Future FIT Rates

[repton]

Hello,

I'm trying to work out some numbers for a neighbouring farmer who is in the very early stages of thinking about installing a wind turbine on his farm. The only FIT tables I can find run out in March and clearly there's no chance of getting everything sorted by then and I am struggling to find anything with firm details for April and beyond. I can find references to "a 20% cut in April and another 10% in October" but no firm numbers. The maths stack up very favourably at the current 21.65p/kWh rate but if you knocked 20-30% off that the picture is quite different.

Can anyone help?

TIA,
Paul

[Tiff]

You wont find any rates for post March because they have not been confirmed yet. Sorry that isn't very helpful.

If Ted is around he will probably know when the rates will be announced.

[repton]

You wont find any rates for post March because they have not been confirmed yet. Sorry that isn't very helpful.

That's helpful in that at least I now know that there's no point spending any more time trying to find out what they will be. They're leaving it a bit last minute though! I wonder if we're going to have another debacle like we had the other autumn where they announce huge cuts to the rates with next to no notice.

Paul

[Ted]

From 1 April 2014 the degression mechanism that has so far only applied to PV systems will start to be applied to non-PV FIT technologies as well. The new rates, including any degression, for wind should be published at the end of this month.

There was 24.3 MW of <100 kW wind installed during 2013 (11 months up to November) and 105.3 MW of over 100 kW wind so there will definitely be 20% degression triggered which will bring the 21.65p figure down to 17.32p from 1 April 2014.

More info: https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/publications-and-updates/preliminary-accreditation-upcoming-degression-pv-and-non-pv-tariffs-2014 and https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/monthly-mcs-and-roofit-statistics

You can apply for preliminary accreditation to 'lock' the tariff at the current rate for 12 months (for wind, 6 months for PV) but you need to already have planning permission (where required) and a grid connection agreement in place - BUT this is only available for systems with a DNC > 50kW and is pointless after the 31 December in any case as the 'lock' tariff date you will get will be set at 1st April of the current year.

[Ted]

Oh, and if the rate of installs does not dramatically reduce due to the 20% degression then there certainly will be another 10% tariff reduction from 1st October as the current installation rates are quite a bit above the trigger thresholds - so the rate for new installs after that date would drop to 15.588p.

[repton]

Thanks Ted, I'll do the figures based on 17.32p for now then and see how it stacks up.

Paul

[repton]

Thanks Ted, I'll do the figures based on 17.32p for now then and see how it stacks up.

Well it looks like it has been confirmed as a 20% drop to 17.32p as expected. Makes installing a 50kWp turbine at a cost of getting on for £300k look a lot less attractive giving he will be borrowing almost all of the capital should he go ahead.

Interestingly the 100-500kW band has gone down just over 22% from 18.53p to 14.43p.

Paul