ProDave Posted January 3, 2020 Share Posted January 3, 2020 As required by law, the big energy companies have introduced their export tariffs. https://www.recc.org.uk/news/smart-export-guarantee-tariffs-introduced 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeSharp01 Posted January 3, 2020 Share Posted January 3, 2020 Interesting.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamyTea Posted January 4, 2020 Share Posted January 4, 2020 9 hours ago, MikeSharp01 said: Interesting Yes. The big players are offering the least. I have always been wary of smaller companies offering 'better' deals. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted January 4, 2020 Author Share Posted January 4, 2020 There was mention that one initially offered 0.001p per unit, but were "criticized" and they increased that to 3.5p It's just a political token. If we had been able to sign up at 5.5p export I would have been paid just over £6 in the last year for the little we exported. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamyTea Posted January 4, 2020 Share Posted January 4, 2020 (edited) 4 minutes ago, ProDave said: There was mention that one initially offered 0.001p per unit, but were "criticized" and they increased that to 3.5p That was Shell. Personally, as my Mother has lived off a Shell pension since 1978, I think they should charge people to export their energy. Edited January 4, 2020 by SteamyTea Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joth Posted January 4, 2020 Share Posted January 4, 2020 27 minutes ago, ProDave said: It's just a political token. One could argue the previous time limited FiT schemes were the political tokens, set by legislation with taxpayer subsidy at unsustainable levels. In comparison the SEG rate is the politicians stepping back and letting commercial forces take their course, for better or worse... 30 minutes ago, ProDave said: If we had been able to sign up at 5.5p export I would have been paid just over £6 in the last year for the little we exported. To be fair, you never ever set out to maximize the amount your system exports; quite the opposite you've designed it to minimize that exact number. Anything multiplied by a very small number will yield a very small number. With a typical 4kW system that exports 50% of its generation, I'd be expecting about £100 a year. That's still pretty crap - it will struggle to cover the MCS installation tax over its lifetime - but makes an illustration more representative of the typical ("non enthusiast") setup. As a more real world example, my parents are on an early FiT and export well over 50%. I've tried to at least get them an immersion redirect but they won't as they worry the cylinder is too old and don't trust the immersion in it or will be damaged or leak. To be fair, it must be getting on for 50years old now, but they won't consider replacing it until it finally dies and is done by the homecare cover, no doubt in yet another botched rush job. Question now is where prices go from here, can people be bothered to shop around for this in addition to price they pay for import which push up competition, or they just sit there at 5p and fail to even track inflation. 3 hours ago, SteamyTea said: The big players are offering the least. I have always been wary of smaller companies offering 'better' deals. And the biggest, British gas, hasnt even revealed its hand yet. Perhaps one reason the smaller players may succeed here is if they can offer deals the big ones are constrained to by legislation? E.g. AIUI big players must offer tariff to all regardless of who is the supplier, but can a small player offer special deals for people that have both import and export provided by them? Certainly looking at Social Energy website I get the feeling their model assumes they're providing both. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy Harris Posted January 4, 2020 Share Posted January 4, 2020 18 minutes ago, joth said: One could argue the previous time limited FiT schemes were the political tokens, set by legislation with taxpayer subsidy at unsustainable levels. In comparison the SEG rate is the politicians stepping back and letting commercial forces take their course, for better or worse... In my view, the FiT largely succeeded in what it set out to do, which was kick start the adoption of microgeneration at the domestic level. It provided just the incentive needed to create a boom in microgeneration system take up, which then resulted in a marked reduction in the price of panels, inverters etc. Certainly the FiT, and in particular the MCS, was/is very badly managed, and like pretty much all government subsidy schemes it was many of the MCS accredited companies that cashed in, rather than consumers, although it's clear that, with FiT in particular, consumers have actually seen a worthwhile benefit from a government subsidy. Many government subsidy schemes don't end up providing a subsidy for the people they are aimed at all, good examples being insulation schemes, where the cost to the customer is much the same whether there's a grant or not - the grant just gets taken as extra profit by some installers. The same applies to OLEV grant funded car charge point installations, the electricians installing those are currently getting around £600 to £800 per day, or their bosses are (nice work if you can get it!). Certainly FiT was unsustainable, but I don't think it was ever meant to be sustained, it was really an incentive scheme, to bring about a step change in thinking, and arguably it has contributed a great deal to that. The main problem with FiT was that it was incompetently managed. The rates should have been reduced gradually, as the level of take up increased, rather than the government waiting until they saw there was a major problem and just shutting the system down almost overnight. This isn't unusual in government, though. They see a political benefit to be had from promoting and implementing an idea, then lose interest and forget about it until it causes a near-crisis. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeSharp01 Posted January 4, 2020 Share Posted January 4, 2020 56 minutes ago, ProDave said: It's just a political token. If we had been able to sign up at 5.5p export I would have been paid just over £6 in the last year for the little we exported. Makes me wonder what to do next - I am about to order the 7+ Kw of solar panels and I know that is too much to export all at once but given that it is spread over the roof segments. 3.66Kw 20deg west of South @ 30deg elevation - no shade, 2Kw 20deg south of East @ 30 deg - shade early AM and 2Kw 20deg north of West @ 30 deg no shade I think our max output will be slightly above 5 although I have room for about 5 Kw more on the East & West roofs combined. I had intended to control loads and charge things like the Sunamp using solid state contractors, rough, ready and somewhat wasteful, so as to keep the peek below 3.66Kw, so I used it all and export a bit but I am now thinking I could export if I went for a G59 application - used an inverter system with the relevant protection - so no relays, the other phases are on a pole on our land! Even at 5.5p I cannot see it being a good financial call but imagine what it will do for the SAP rating! Need to do the math! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
willbish Posted January 4, 2020 Share Posted January 4, 2020 21 minutes ago, Jeremy Harris said: which then resulted in a marked reduction in the price of panels, inverters I thought the price of panels was a result of global demand and uptake, which would have happened with or without the UK feed in tariff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy Harris Posted January 4, 2020 Share Posted January 4, 2020 3 minutes ago, willbish said: I thought the price of panels was a result of global demand and uptake, which would have happened with or without the UK feed in tariff. It seemed to be a bit of both, I think. Suppliers here were charging a premium price for panels, so much so that when I bought some for my boat years ago it was very much cheaper to import them from China directly. I think the increased level of competition in the UK, that was a direct consequence of the boom in panel sales, helped to reduce the price of panels here a fair bit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted January 4, 2020 Author Share Posted January 4, 2020 22 minutes ago, MikeSharp01 said: Makes me wonder what to do next - I am about to order the 7+ Kw of solar panels and I know that is too much to export all at once but given that it is spread over the roof segments. 3.66Kw 20deg west of South @ 30deg elevation - no shade, 2Kw 20deg south of East @ 30 deg - shade early AM and 2Kw 20deg north of West @ 30 deg no shade I think our max output will be slightly above 5 although I have room for about 5 Kw more on the East & West roofs combined. I had intended to control loads and charge things like the Sunamp using solid state contractors, rough, ready and somewhat wasteful, so as to keep the peek below 3.66Kw, so I used it all and export a bit but I am now thinking I could export if I went for a G59 application - used an inverter system with the relevant protection - so no relays, the other phases are on a pole on our land! Even at 5.5p I cannot see it being a good financial call but imagine what it will do for the SAP rating! Need to do the math! You will need to get permission from the DNO for that. They will assume it is capable of exporting all 7KW and demand the network can support that. They tried to get shirty with me claiming we had a 4Kw install when they had miss read the data on the inverter that said it was limited to 3.68Kw output. There may or may not be a charge to allow you more than 3.68Kw At 7KW it will be hard to self use all of that on a sunny day, so you will be expecting more export. So it might be worth you going MCS and signing up for the export payments. Re the other points. Yes the FIT helped start consumers installing renewables. It would be interesting to see some figures now, but I would expect with no FIT since early last year, the rate of domestic solar PV installs has fallen off a cliff. Prices are not yet low enough to be viable on just self use or the small export payment now happening, at least not if you are paying an installer to fit them, and even more so if that is an MCS installer. I really struggled to buy the kit to do a self install cheap enough to make it viable with a predicted 6 year capital payback cost. At typical retail prices plus install I suspect you are looking at >10 year payback costs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamyTea Posted January 4, 2020 Share Posted January 4, 2020 At the time FiTs was planned there was a fear that energy prices would double in a short space of time. What happened is that domestic demand dropped though the use of 2 cheap technologies, lighting and flat screen TVs. This did not stop the PV sellers playing on people's fears. Even now, energy prices are not much different, once inflation is accounted for. I have never looked into the numbers, but wonder if the reducing in domestic usage is a better incentive, in cash terms, than the FiTs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted January 4, 2020 Author Share Posted January 4, 2020 Our new house definitely uses less electricity than the old one. (use less now for total including heating than we did at the last house excluding heating and hot water which were oil) Lighting must be part of it (all LED now) but I cannot believe that is all (we have the same tv's we had at the last house) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joth Posted January 4, 2020 Share Posted January 4, 2020 Did you replace fridge/freezer with the new house? That's one of the biggest background draws Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted January 4, 2020 Author Share Posted January 4, 2020 New Fridge / freezer. New dishwasher. Same washing machine, same tumble dryer. I suspected the pumped drainage system as being a big user but never put any metering on it to find out. At the new house I know the air pump in the treatment plant is using about 2KWh per day, about the same as the mvhr. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyshouse Posted January 4, 2020 Share Posted January 4, 2020 kWh 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed Davies Posted January 4, 2020 Share Posted January 4, 2020 5 hours ago, willbish said: I thought the price of panels was a result of global demand and uptake, which would have happened with or without the UK feed in tariff. Sure, the UK FiT was a relatively small part of the global market but it was a contribution together with the German and other European schemes and the US tax breaks & net metering. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benjseb Posted February 15, 2020 Share Posted February 15, 2020 Does anyone know if a smart meter is required for SEG? We’d like a tariff that’s fixed so not sure if we need a smart meter or not? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted February 15, 2020 Author Share Posted February 15, 2020 Yes a smart meter is needed and the PV install has to be done my an MCS installer in order to claim any export payments. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benjseb Posted February 15, 2020 Share Posted February 15, 2020 2 hours ago, ProDave said: Yes a smart meter is needed and the PV install has to be done my an MCS installer in order to claim any export payments. That’s a pain. I’m not a fan of having a 4g transmitter in my house. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted February 15, 2020 Author Share Posted February 15, 2020 Is the export tariff really worth it? At 5.5p per unit, I have only exported 127 units in the last year, so I would have received the princely sum of £6.98 Mine is DIY installed. Imagine if I had had to pay the premium of an MCS install? The small export payments would never ever recoup the extra cost of that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy Harris Posted February 15, 2020 Share Posted February 15, 2020 14 minutes ago, ProDave said: Is the export tariff really worth it? At 5.5p per unit, I have only exported 127 units in the last year, so I would have received the princely sum of £6.98 Mine is DIY installed. Imagine if I had had to pay the premium of an MCS install? The small export payments would never ever recoup the extra cost of that. Good question. We generate a bit under 6 MWh/year, from a 6.25 kWp PV installation. We're on the older 50% deemed export arrangement and our export payment (which is currently 5.38p/kWh) comes to about £160/year. We export pretty close to 50%, despite diverting excess generation to heating hot water and charging my car, and trying to use the dishwasher and washing machine when we're exporting. Days when we generate over 30 kWh are pretty common in summer, and we can only soak up so much of that in heating hot water etc. To get an answer as to whether the additional cost of an MCS installation can ever be recovered we need to know what the MCS premium is for a PV install. My guess this has come down a bit from the profiteering days when massive premiums were being added, as the remaining PV installers struggle to retain business. It's probably nothing like the doubling of the true installation cost that we see with things like heat pumps, and which may well have been the case during the PV boom years. Even if the MCS premium is only around £1k, then it looks like it would add significantly to the payback period for any installation, just from the export payment, and I'm inclined to think that a non-MCS installation, so foregoing the SEG payments, might make more sense, especially if there is a real effort made to maximise self-consumption. I've been thinking for a long time about adding battery storage to increase our self-consumption, but even for a DIY install it looks marginal in terms of any return on the investment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted February 15, 2020 Author Share Posted February 15, 2020 It has surprised me how much of our PV we can self use. We only have a 4kWp system with a 3.68kW inverter so it's not hard to use most of that. Export really only happens if the HW tank gets to temperature too early, and that mostly happens when we are on holiday so not using any. Otherwise when the inverter is flat out, and the immersion heater is on, then surplus is only a few hundred watts. We have some shading issues as well which reduce total generation so that too makes it easier. I should see soon as we move into spring if some tree felling over winter has made much difference to that. But once you go over 4kWp it becomes harder to self use it, and that is where I think battery storage would help. At the moment I see little merit for us installing any battery storage, though I am sure I will later when prices fall more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteamyTea Posted February 15, 2020 Share Posted February 15, 2020 3 minutes ago, ProDave said: But once you go over 4kWp it becomes harder to self use it, and that is where I think battery storage would help It is really down to sizing a system for your consumption. I could, if I had room, fit a 4 kWp system and configure it to export nothing. It would mean being very wasteful in the summer, and still importing in the winter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeSharp01 Posted February 15, 2020 Share Posted February 15, 2020 3 hours ago, ProDave said: Yes a smart meter is needed and the PV install has to be done my an MCS installer in order to claim any export payments. Just another money for old rope monopoly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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