Local Electricity Bill... or fight to improve SEG

[Benguela]

I'm a solar pv owner (6.6 kW of panels, 5kW inverter) and it sticks in my craw that I'm purchasing electricity at 30p/kWh and exporting excess energy to the grid at 4p/kWh (Octopus SEG tariff).

 

I self-consume as much as I can by shifting use and charging my EV from solar and I'm also well aware that I can increase my self-consumption by getting a hot water diverter (£ 400) or a EV charger diverter (£800) or a home storage battery (£how-long-is-a-piece-of-string).

 

But that requires me to spend more capital to increase my self-consumption rate.

 

Why can't I just sell my electricity to my neighbour for 20p/kWh when I've got a bit of excess. Sun is shining, I plug in my EV and I tell my neighbour to quickly switch on her washing machine, to use up all my excess energy that I sell to her at a discount. Everyone is a winner: me, my neighbour and also the grid (because they don't have to generate energy using gas to allow my neighbour to do her washing... flattening the curve). It doesn't even have to be my direct neighbour... it can be anyone on the local grid who just happens to be switching on their washing machine right then.

 

The more I think about it, it's not that I'm a mug who doesn't self-consume his excess electricity. It's that the market is set up wrong: for every kWh of electricity I produce, someone else pays 30p. And who grabs that money? The power distributor. They bill someone else 30p for electricity that I produce at 4p. And they don't add any extra value to that electricity... it's the same electricity, so their 26p profit comes not from some magic sauce they add to my electricity, it just comes from their position in the market vis a vis me. 

 

What's the answer for a more 'market-based' solution (rather than a home-engineering solution)? Should all us PV owners fight for something like the Local Electricity Bill? Info here: https://powerforpeople.org.uk/ Or is there any chance that the SEG market will ever begin to pay us more decent rates? 

 

 

[SteamyTea]

29 minutes ago, Benguela said:

Why can't I just sell my electricity to my neighbour for 20p/kWh when I've got a bit of excess.

How much are you willing to pay to use the DNOs infrastructure?

How much time are you willing to spend administering the flows to your neighbour/s?

How much are you willing to pay to enforce non payment of bills?

How would you feel if you set up all the above, then your neighbour/s decided to not use your power?

Are you willing to pay your taxes on the income?

 

£40/MWh is a pretty good price in my opinion considering you are doing it for next to nothing (read an export meter every now and again and submit readings).

 

If you really want to sell power to customers, via the NG, then become a proper energy supplier and run it as a business.  They seem easy enough to set up.

Here is a list to show how easy it is:

 

Energy Supplier	Date Supplier Went Bust	No. of Customers		New Supplier
Whoop Energy	18/02/2022	262	Yu Energy
Xcel Power Ltd	18/02/2022	274	Yu Energy
Together Energy (inc Bristol Energy)	18/01/2022	176,000	British Gas
Zog Energy	01/12/2021	11,700	EDF Energy
Orbit Energy	25/11/2021	65,000	Scottish Power
Entice Energy	25/11/2021	5,400	Scottish Power
Bulb Energy	22/11/2021	1,700,000	Special Administration Process
Social Energy Supply	16/11/2021	5,500	British Gas
Neon Reef	16/11/2021	30,000	British Gas
CNG Energy	04/11/2021	41,000 (Business)	Pozitive Energy
Zebra Power	02/11/2021	14,800	British Gas
Omni Energy Ltd	02/11/2021	6,000	Utilita
Ampoweruk Ltd	02/11/2021	600 + 2000 (Business)	Yu Energy
MA Energy	02/11/2021	300 (Business)	SmartestEnergy
Bluegreen Energy	02/11/2021	5,900	British Gas
GOTO Energy	18/10/2021	22,000	Shell Energy
Daligas	14/10/2021	9,000	Shell Energy
Pure Planet	13/10/2021	235,000	Shell Energy
Colorado Energy	13/10/2021	15,000	Shell Energy
Igloo Energy	29/09/2021	179,000	E.ON
Symbio Energy	29/09/2021	48,000	E.ON
ENSTROGA	29/09/2021	6,000	E.ON
Avro Energy	22/09/2021	580,000	Octopus Energy
Green	22/09/2021	255,000	Shell Energy
Utility Point	14/09/2021	220,000	EDF Energy
People's Energy	14/09/2021	350,000	British Gas
PFP Energy	07/09/2021	80,000	British Gas
Money Plus Energy Ltd	07/09/2021	9,000	British Gas
Hub Energy	09/08/2021	6,000	E.ON
Green Network Energy	27/01/2021	360,000	EDF Energy
Simplicity Energy	27/01/2021	50,000	British Gas
Yorkshire Energy	02/12/2020	74,000	Scottish Power
Tonik Energy	06/10/2020	130,000	Scottish Power
Go Effortless Energy	03/09/2020	2,500	Octopus Energy
GnERGY	18/03/2020	9,000	Bulb Energy
Breeze Energy	18/12/2019	18,000	British Gas
Toto Energy	18/12/2019	134,000	EDF Energy
Uttily Energy	15/10/2019	280 (Business)	Total Gas and Power
Eversmart Energy	06/09/2019	29,000	Utilita
Solarplicity	13/08/2019	7,500	SSE
Cardiff Energy Supply	09/08/2019	800	SSE
Brilliant Energy	11/03/2019	17,000	SSE
Our Power	25/01/2019	31,000	Utilita
Economy Energy	08/01/2019	235,000	Ovo Energy
One Select	10/12/2018	36,000	Together Energy
Spark Energy	10/12/2018	290,000	Ovo Energy
Extra Energy	21/11/2018	108,000	Scottish Power
Usio Energy	15/10/2018	7,000	First Utility
Gen4U	13/09/2018	500	Octopus Energy
Iresa	13/09/2018	90,000	Octopus Energy
National Gas and Power Limited	25/07/2018	22,000	Hudson Energy
Future Energy	13/09/2018	170,000	Green Star Energy

[Benguela]

42 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

If you really want to sell power to customers, via the NG, then become a proper energy supplier and run it as a business.  They seem easy enough to set up.

Not a totally fair comment... The easiest way to become a proper energy supplier is the Ofgem Licence Lite Route and that isn't pain free https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/sites/default/files/docs/2015/04/482_an_introduction_to_licence_lite_factsheet_web_0.pdf ... for one thing, you need to partner with a national energy supplier.

 

The point of my hypothetical above wasn't to say I personally want to be the Gordon Gecko of energy markets... it was genuinely to check what people think about the Local Electricity Bill. For my part, I hope it could allow PV owners to club together as cooperatives so that, together, our coop could become a local electricity supplier giving us a little more bidding power in the market. 

[Radian]

5 minutes ago, Benguela said:

Not a totally fair comment...

@SteamyTea thinks energy is still good value for money. This is debatable but what is less subjective is the profiteering around the SEG. The vast profits being made by the generators through other means hardly needs to be bolstered by such asymmetric pricing.

[SteamyTea]

20 minutes ago, Radian said:

@SteamyTea thinks energy is still good value for money

It is, but I still don't throw it out the window.

21 minutes ago, Radian said:

This is debatable but what is less subjective is the profiteering around the SEG

Do you have some numbers to compare? I have no idea how many GWh are paid for at 4p/kWh, or how much is paid for mainstream tradional generation by the energy retailers.

Traditionally it was around £50/MWh.

Trading houses made a good markup on relatively small quantities of power, so maybe they are the people to ask about the best way to set this up.

[ProDave]

This just shows what I have always thought, there is little point going above 4kW of panels with a 3.68kW inverter unless you have battery storage.

 

Up to 3.68kW it is easy to self use almost all you generate as long as you have a hot water tank and a PV diverter.  Beyond that it becomes very hard to self use it all.  You then have to do serious sums, the cost of batteries vs the extra that will allow you to self use.

 

[Radian]

1 hour ago, SteamyTea said:

Do you have some numbers to compare? I have no idea how many GWh are paid for at 4p/kWh, or how much is paid for mainstream tradional generation by the energy retailers.

No numbers and it would be chicken feed compared to overall supply but I feel we should be able to make objective statements about the import/export ratio of 8:1

 

At a very rough guestimate of 1 million rooftops generating 2750kWh/a of which roughly one third is sent into the grid (i.e. 1mWh/a) could equate to 1,000,000 units of electricity redistributed to consumers and charged for at a profit of 26p/unit or £260,000,000 - a tidy profit for letting the infrastructure that already had to be in place carry a little less generation from source - by courtesy of the domestic Solar PV system purchasers.

[Benguela]

1 hour ago, SteamyTea said:

Do you have some numbers to compare? I have no idea how many GWh are paid for at 4p/kWh, or how much is paid for mainstream tradional generation by the energy retailers.

We can start to guestimate by doing a quick google. If I get anything wrong, feel free to correct, I'm just doing this on a paper napkin.

 

In 2020 there were 970,000 homes with solar panels in the UK (https://www.theecoexperts.co.uk/solar-panels/popularity-of-solar-power#:~:text=using solar panels.-,Residential,homes with solar panel installations.) and let's say the average installation is 4KW, producing maybe 3,000 KWh per year.

 

So home solar produces about 2,910GWh? How much of that is exported... maybe a third or half?

 

Of those 970,000 homes, 80,000 receive FIT. ( https://www.which.co.uk/reviews/feed-in-tariffs/article/feed-in-tariffs/what-was-the-feed-in-tariff-aAsa36S95iJy) People who got in at the beginning of FIT got a princely 50-something pence per kWh exported for 20-something years, but at the tail end of FIT it dropped to about 5p, I think. (In fairness, the capital outlay was considerable at the beginning.)

 

Take away point: if there really are 970k homes with solar panels in the UK, only about 80k homes probably get more than 4 or 5p per kWh exported. The majority of us get the princely sum of £40/MWh that Steamy Tea quoted above.

 

The day ahead wholesale price for electricity yesterday was £290/MWh. https://marketwatch.zenergi.co.uk/price/16-09-2022/

 

So collectively we are producing quite a bit and we are also selling our leccie to the grid quite cheap. Or, to put it another way, the market currently gives us few other options except to take a low price for it.

 

 

[ProDave]

13 minutes ago, Benguela said:

Of those 970,000 homes, 80,000 receive FIT.

That is an astonishing statistic.  So 890,000 homes  with solar PV do not receive FIT.  Are you really saying most of those were installed before or after the end of the FIT scheme?  The whole point of the FIT scheme was to kick start solar PV installs as before it only a few eco wariers were doing so, and anecdotal evidence is most of the Solar PV installers quit after the FIT ended as there were so few bothering without any payment scheme.  It is only in the last couple of years with rising energy costs that it is picking up again.

[JohnMo]

Something not right with one website or the others numbers.

 

DIY installs are few and far between, those sites are indicating they are could be the norm, which isn't that believable.

[JohnMo]

4 hours ago, Benguela said:

I'm a solar pv owner (6.6 kW of panels, 5kW inverter) and it sticks in my craw that I'm purchasing electricity at 30p/kWh and exporting excess energy to the grid at 4p/kWh (Octopus SEG tariff).

 We know the game before we enter it.  Your lucky I and others on here, get zero for export.

 

Buy a diverter, why pay for summer hot water.

[Marvin]

5 hours ago, Benguela said:

I'm a solar pv owner (6.6 kW of panels, 5kW inverter) and it sticks in my craw that I'm purchasing electricity at 30p/kWh and exporting excess energy to the grid at 4p/kWh (Octopus SEG tariff).

 

I self-consume as much as I can by shifting use and charging my EV from solar and I'm also well aware that I can increase my self-consumption by getting a hot water diverter (£ 400) or a EV charger diverter (£800) or a home storage battery (£how-long-is-a-piece-of-string).

 

But that requires me to spend more capital to increase my self-consumption rate.

 

Why can't I just sell my electricity to my neighbour for 20p/kWh when I've got a bit of excess. Sun is shining, I plug in my EV and I tell my neighbour to quickly switch on her washing machine, to use up all my excess energy that I sell to her at a discount. Everyone is a winner: me, my neighbour and also the grid (because they don't have to generate energy using gas to allow my neighbour to do her washing... flattening the curve). It doesn't even have to be my direct neighbour... it can be anyone on the local grid who just happens to be switching on their washing machine right then.

 

The more I think about it, it's not that I'm a mug who doesn't self-consume his excess electricity. It's that the market is set up wrong: for every kWh of electricity I produce, someone else pays 30p. And who grabs that money? The power distributor. They bill someone else 30p for electricity that I produce at 4p. And they don't add any extra value to that electricity... it's the same electricity, so their 26p profit comes not from some magic sauce they add to my electricity, it just comes from their position in the market vis a vis me. 

 

What's the answer for a more 'market-based' solution (rather than a home-engineering solution)? Should all us PV owners fight for something like the Local Electricity Bill? Info here: https://powerforpeople.org.uk/ Or is there any chance that the SEG market will ever begin to pay us more decent rates? 

 

 

Hi @Benguela

 

Nice idea. I am in favour of local power production and storage. However, no chance. Too many boring reasons why it won't work.

 

Better off using up as much as you can, and giving away as little as possible.

 

Good luck

 

Marvin

[Radian]

1 hour ago, Benguela said:

We can start to guestimate by doing a quick google. If I get anything wrong, feel free to correct, I'm just doing this on a paper napkin.

 

In 2020 there were 970,000 homes with solar panels in the UK (https://www.theecoexperts.co.uk/solar-panels/popularity-of-solar-power#:~:text=using solar panels.-,Residential,homes with solar panel installations.) and let's say the average installation is 4KW, producing maybe 3,000 KWh per year.

 

So home solar produces about 2,910GWh? How much of that is exported... maybe a third or half?

We must both have been scribbling away and posted almost at the same time! My guestimate aligns quite well with yours, so given the additional installs since 2020 (they've been at an all time high since the spring of this year) I'm confident that there's a good million sources of gratis units winging their way through peoples meters. And being charged for at retail, not wholesale prices.

[Benguela]

1 hour ago, ProDave said:

That is an astonishing statistic.  So 890,000 homes  with solar PV do not receive FIT.  Are you really saying most of those were installed before or after the end of the FIT scheme?  The whole point of the FIT scheme was to kick start solar PV installs as before it only a few eco wariers were doing so, and anecdotal evidence is most of the Solar PV installers quit after the FIT ended as there were so few bothering without any payment scheme.  It is only in the last couple of years with rising energy costs that it is picking up again.

Only doing some quick googling there, ProDave, and more than happy to acknowledge that the question 'how many UK homes with Solar PV do and do not get FIT?' is still open. But there's enough to be an interesting question, right?

[patp]

What about offering to charge electric cars for the the local community? What about offering to do washing/drying or filling your oven with other people's casseroles? Rechargeable garden tools could also be charged. Then there could be a community large battery storage unit for the benefit of local residents? I know, I know I have been visiting cloud cuckoo land again!

[Benguela]

1 hour ago, JohnMo said:

 We know the game before we enter it.  Your lucky I and others on here, get zero for export.

 

Buy a diverter, why pay for summer hot water.

Sure! We all know the game, we entered it and I'm not being all sour grapes. I like my system.

 

It's just an interesting phenomenon: us Solar PV producers do our local grids a favour by magically dumping energy into it. No-one contracts us to do it (we're not contracted suppliers) and no-one bothers to pay us... much.

 

So, seeing as there is about a million of us, isn't it rational to try to see if we can get a better deal.

 

That's all. It's not Peterloo or anything.

 

 

[Benguela]

But I found there are 

3 minutes ago, patp said:

What about offering to charge electric cars for the the local community? What about offering to do washing/drying or filling your oven with other people's casseroles? Rechargeable garden tools could also be charged. Then there could be a community large battery storage unit for the benefit of local residents? I know, I know I have been visiting cloud cuckoo land again!

There is actually a form of this already in Wales. See here https://energylocal.org.uk/

 

I don't totally understand how it works, but it looks like electricity users and small generators club together and then pool their production and use during half hour periods. Going to see if I can find out more and then maybe we can get one where I am.

[patp]

1 minute ago, Benguela said:

But I found there are 

There is actually a form of this already in Wales. See here https://energylocal.org.uk/

 

I don't totally understand how it works, but it looks like electricity users and small generators club together and then pool their production and use during half hour periods. Going to see if I can find out more and then maybe we can get one where I am.

Ah I thought I had seen/heard of something before. Wales seems likely as bartering is still fairly common among the smallholding community.

[SteamyTea]

Right

 

You can get the data here.  A few codes to look up, but it is geospatial data so you can make a good estimate to what is generated, and as there are commissioning dates, you can work out the FiT/SEG rates.

 

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2022-05/Feed-in Tariff Installation Report May 2022 Part 1.xlsx

 

Too late at night for me to look at it, seems this surprise bank holiday caught us out tonight, and our supplier who did not deliver until after opening time.

 

 

Right a quick, look I cannot leave data alone.

PV systems 4 kW and under (mean 3.96 kW), 268,800 between commissioned between 16/07/2009 and 20/03/2019.

Those are MCS registered systems and do not include off grid systems.

So about 806,400 kW_p installed.  0.81 GW_p.

 

 

 

Edited September 17, 2022 by SteamyTea

[Benguela]

10 hours ago, SteamyTea said:

PV systems 4 kW and under (mean 3.96 kW), 268,800 between commissioned between 16/07/2009 and 20/03/2019.

I yield to your research, Steamy Tea. Of the roughly 960k home solar installations in the UK, 268k look like they are entitled to FIT (27%) and my numbers above were clearly wrong.

 

We can see how much people got paid through FIT at the table here https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/publications/feed-tariff-fit-tariff-table-1-april-2022

 

Column F shows all the different FIT rates between 2010 and 2019 and the tariffs were much higher in the earlier years and dropped as the years went by. In 2010 the highest tariff I see being offered for PV was "60.23". In 2019, the lowest tariff I see being offered for PV was "0.05".

 

But is that figure in pounds or pence? I can't see directly. Either some lucky sod was being given £60 per KWh in 2010, or some poor mug was being stiffed with 0.05p per KWh in 2019. Or they changed from pence to pounds halfway through their own spreadsheet. 🤣

 

It doesn't matter as I'm just giving a rough picture.

 

Still, my point is that not everyone who is on FIT is getting a great deal anyway and about 73% of PV owners having nothing better than SEG.

 

I'm speculating, but I think the reason for that is that us PV owners are not treated as 'suppliers' on the grid. We are not being contracted to produce power (like the nuclear or gas or even big renewables suppliers). We just dump electricity on our local grids intermittently and are probably regarded as a form of background noise. We get a little pat on the head in form of SEG, but the amount of SEG isn't determined by market forces, the law says SEG must be >0p, so the electricity companies give us the least they can get away with and then the wholesale market just says 'thanks very much' and throttles down the gas peaker plants when the sun is shining.

 

Anyone who understands the electricity market better, please correct me, but it looks like there is maybe 1,000GWh of electricity swirling around per year that the market doesn't pay for, or as Radian puts it above £260million. (Fag packet numbers, totally ready to be corrected.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ProDave]

6 minutes ago, Benguela said:

Column F shows all the different FIT rates between 2010 and 2019 and the tariffs were much higher in the earlier years and dropped as the years went by. In 2010 the highest tariff I see being offered for PV was "60.23". In 2019, the lowest tariff I see being offered for PV was "0.05".

 

But is that figure in pounds or pence? I can't see directly. Either some lucky sod was being given £60 per KWh in 2010, or some poor mug was being stiffed with 0.05p per KWh in 2019. Or they changed from pence to pounds halfway through their own spreadsheet. 🤣

 

That is the figure in pence per kWh at todays rates.  All of those would have been lower when first paid and have been index linked since.

 

I am still receiving the FIT at 60.23p per kWh for our old house.  Ours was installed in a rush in January 2011 to meet the March 2011 deadline.  The original rate was going to be lowered sooner but a court case ensued on the basis they had not given enough notice, and there was a bit of a rush right at the end when the court ruled that notice had to be given hence the March deadline.  And that was a 25 year contract.

 

That table shows the FIT rates have not kept up with energy price inflation, only general inflation.  When first paid, that original FIT rate was about 3 times the standard electricity unit rate.  After October when the standard rate goes up to 35p per kWh even that higher FIT rate will only be paying 1.7 times the EPG capped rate.

[SteamyTea]

1 hour ago, ProDave said:

When first paid, that original FIT rate was about 3 times the standard electricity unit rate.  After October when the standard rate goes up to 35p per kWh even that higher FIT rate will only be paying 1.7 times the EPG

As mentioned earlier, the FiT was to encourage business growth in the sector, not to subsidise individuals earning/utility bills, the latter was an unseen consequence, like roof 'to rent' was.

Prior to the FiTs there were some grants, our @DamonHD had some fitted under the scheme I think.

Many, pre FiT, early adopters would have been happy with net metering, i.e. sell at same price as you buy.

This, on the face of it seems reasonable, but at the time, the lack of smart meters made it impractical.  What should really have happened is that the FiTs should have been at a much lower rate, and not tax free earnings.

If the rate had been about 12 to 15p/kWh, index linked, people would not be having this debate now.

There is also a problem in that the current high prices have a specific cause, which has rippled though the economy, take away the cause i.e. Putin, and prices will get back to normal. This creates the problem on what to do now, but I would not be trying to set up an independent trading system to trade in home grown energy.

if such a system did exist, and paid say 30p/kWh, I would plug a diesel generator in and milk it for all it is worth.

What the Spanish did.

Edited September 18, 2022 by SteamyTea

[Radian]

14 minutes ago, SteamyTea said:

if such a system did exist, and paid say 30p/kWh, I would plug a diesel generator in and milk it for all it is worth.

The practicalities are not insurmountable, just find neighbour(s) on the same phase (inject a 120kHz signal e.g. X10 to confirm) then haul some SWA cable over the fence and slap a din rail meter on it at each end. A Grid tied inverter will then run as many houses sharing the same phase as though they were one. 😁

[SteamyTea]

4 minutes ago, Radian said:

The practicalities are not insurmountable, just find neighbour(s) on the same phase

All my neighbours are on drugs, except the Romanians, they are alright.

[joth]

On 17/09/2022 at 13:42, Benguela said:

exporting excess energy to the grid at 4p/kWh (Octopus SEG tariff).

That doesn't sound right.

Octopus were paying me 5p/unit when I signed up in 2020 and recently put it up to 7.5p

 

https://solarenergyuk.org/resource/smart-export-guarantee/?cn-reloaded=1

 

Still not great, but it's almost double what you're quoting