Export v Battery storage

[Chriswills]

I currently have PV installed and getting top rate of export from the original scheme, around 56p a KW.

If we installed battery storage with it, does this mean that the amount we export would be less, as we currently get around £1500 a year.

Surely if you store it and dont export it, they pay you less??

[MikeSharp01]

18 minutes ago, Chriswills said:

If we installed battery storage with it, does this mean that the amount we export would be less, as we currently get around £1500 a year.

Surely if you store it and dont export it, they pay you less??

I dimly recall that in early schemes the payment was made on some notional export amount as they had no way of actually measuring it - smart meters tend to sort this one but may not have in your case. SO maybe yes / maybe no!

[Dillsue]

1 hour ago, Chriswills said:

I currently have PV installed and getting top rate of export from the original scheme, around 56p a KW.

That sounds like a whopping export rate but are you sure thats not a combined generation and export rate?? We're on a 2015 FIT scheme and that pays one payment based on generated units from a generation meter and second deemed/assumed export payment based on half the generated units. For the deemed export payment it doesnt matter if we actually export it or use it ourselves, we still get paid it.

 

Have look back through the last few months posts as there was a discussion over some rule changes OFGEM had made that now allowed batteries to be added to an existing system without affecting payments. Maybe search for OFGEM

[Dave Jones]

12 hours ago, Chriswills said:

I currently have PV installed and getting top rate of export from the original scheme, around 56p a KW.

If we installed battery storage with it, does this mean that the amount we export would be less, as we currently get around £1500 a year.

Surely if you store it and dont export it, they pay you less??

 

your not getting 56p export.

 

The 2022 FIT rates for an April 2010 - March 2011 FIT is 60.23p

Export rate is 4.25p

 

 

[Chriswills]

8 hours ago, Dave Jones said:

OK but not really bothered about that, that was not my question

 

8 hours ago, Dave Jones said:

your not getting 56p export.

 

The 2022 FIT rates for an April 2010 - March 2011 FIT is 60.23p

Export rate is 4.25p

 

 

 

[Chriswills]

19 hours ago, Dillsue said:

That sounds like a whopping export rate but are you sure thats not a combined generation and export rate?? We're on a 2015 FIT scheme and that pays one payment based on generated units from a generation meter and second deemed/assumed export payment based on half the generated units. For the deemed export payment it doesnt matter if we actually export it or use it ourselves, we still get paid it.

 

Have look back through the last few months posts as there was a discussion over some rule changes OFGEM had made that now allowed batteries to be added to an existing system without affecting payments. Maybe search for OFGEM

It may not be the exact, I was just approximating but for example we had £800 May to August

[Figure 11]

You will be getting two payments.

The Feed in Tarrif based on your installation date and an export rate based on a supposition that you are exporting 50% of the kWh generated.  In my case as I only got in on the last day of the feed in Tarrif, I get .29p per kWh generated and 4p for 50% of kWh generated as an export Tarrif. 😡

https://www.energy-stats.uk/octopus-agile-outgoing-export/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 14, 2022 by Figure 11
Additional info

[Benguela]

Hi Figure 11,

 

For those of us who are unhappy about what we're being paid for export: 

 

1. Energy Local sets up local energy clubs allowing pv owners to sell their export locally. See here Welcome to Energy Local | Energy Local. But it's not cheap or easy. Needs £5k to start and needs an anchor partner who produces more than 30kW and has a three phase meter.

2.  Support the Local Electricity Bill. The Community Energy Revolution — Power for People

[Ferdinand]

On 13/10/2022 at 22:25, Chriswills said:

I currently have PV installed and getting top rate of export from the original scheme, around 56p a KW.

If we installed battery storage with it, does this mean that the amount we export would be less, as we currently get around £1500 a year.

Surely if you store it and dont export it, they pay you less??

 

That's not quite right. Let me explain my understanding, also to clarify in my own head - I'm have moved my tariff to Octopus Export Agile. This is how it operates:

 

Under the FIT scheme you have TWO contracts: 

 

Contract 1 with your FIT provider that will pay you for everything you generate. This is basically a subsidy to help you pay for the cost of your solar equipment to get the ball rolling for the country, which reduced over time as the cost of kit fell. This was 60p per generated unit at the start for installs from 2009 (?) or so, and fell to about 11-12p by 2015 for contracts started then, and was then significantly reduced as it was deemed to have basically done it's job. It was usage based to make sure that people would install solar arrays to actually produce energy.

 

I did mine in late 2015, and paid around £1k per kWp to get the solar installed. You may have paid 4x that, which is why you get the big FIT payments.

 

Contract 2 would also be with your FIT provider (afaik) and would pay you a minimal amount for lecky you actually export to the grid. If you have an export meter, that would be on the amount you export. If no export meter, they "deem" half to be export and pay you on that basis.

 

This is why there is an incentive to use 'divert devices' which prevent export and divert it all to a local load, such as electric ufh, a hot water tank or a Sunamp. The "deeming" process means that you get paid for an assumed half, and get all the electricity as well. Back then some people thought this a bit ethically dodgy, but everyone is now cheerfully cynical.

 

The Smart Export Guarantee (SEG) is a minimum guaranteed payment per unit of export, which I think is aligned with the base payments under Contract 2.

 

The Octopus Outgoing tariffs replace the Contract 2 with a new contract with Octopus (other companies do similar but are less innovative aiui), where they pay you either a fixed amount (normal version) which is higher than the (SEG) which was 7.5p per unit and has recently jumped to 15p per unit, or they pay you an amount ('Agile' tariffs) based on the futures market price for tomorrow's electricity minus admin expenses and I think a small margin.  

 

Outgoing tariffs require an Export Meter, which is part of the gubbins in a SMETS 2 Smartmeter, which is why they require that.

 

The currently innovative bit aiui is that Octopus let you keep your existing normal import tariff (ie import = your normal supply) which avoids the risk of being shafted by the market at times of high demand when they used to make you have an Agile import tariff as well. That makes it nearly a one way bet, upwards.

 

They also seem to let you timeshift your house battery output if you have a house battery and a means of controlling it. The current capital cost per kWh of charge stored over the lifecycle do not make this a cost-effective single reason to get a house battery even at current prices. You need more justification, such as if it reduces your lecky bills enough to cover the difference. That is one reason I say keep it simple.

 

On the battery aspects, obviously if you stick lecky into your battery you can't export the same lecky. That's one of the things you get to use your skill and judgement on, within the controls that you have over your battery and your current export limits and what it is you have chosen to maximise.

 

Whilst it is I think technically possible to feed the current export price into an automatic controller which will switch your setup between export and import by the minute, you'll have to programme (or use simulated data) for your own control system *.

 

At the moment it seems that the better option is to keep it simple and either tune your house / life around times when it generates solar, and accept that Agile Export is a pretty good lazy way of sort-of-maximising your benefit if you do not have a house battery (perhaps 60-70% as good - guessing), or have a house battery (or base load) and a divert device to use everything you generate (in which case getting Agile may be an irrelevance).

 

Octopus also have various tariffs for cheap-overnight, Tesla cars etc.

At present it's a very flexible environment in which you can innovate. But therefore also you could end up dazed by the 27 different options, like the proverbial centipede **, and end up doing nothing. So doing *something* beneficial is perhaps more important than getting analysis-paralysed.

 

You pays your money, and takes your choice. I'd say start simple.

 

In your position it will be imo advantageous to move your Exports (Contract 2) to an export tariff, but hang on to your FIT payments (which are guaranteed at 50- 60p per unit until 203x) like a limpet.

 

Make damned sure that you track any change process - which is a bit like the Children of Israel and their 40 years in the wilderness - closely enough that you do not lose your FITs (Contract 1) by mistake. I have not known it happen, but it is a drawn out process, and you need all of your paperwork to hand.

 

HTH

 

Ferdinand

 

* We discussed these control and programming aspects here last year:

 

**

The centipede was happy, quite

until the frog, in fun, said:

"pray which leg goes after which?"

He worked her mind to such a pitch

she lay distracted in a ditch ...

considering how to run.

 

*** One further complication is that part of SSE (my FIT provider) have been bought out by Ovo, and now use Ovo for their FIT meter (solar generation meter) reading service, but will still tell you to talk to SSE about the export contract.

 

I am still hacking through this last bit of undergrowth, because Octopus need my confirmation email from SSE that my final meter reading has been accepted before they give me any Agile Export money, and the computo-email from the meter reading service says it will be processed "in the next quarter".

[Dillsue]

15 hours ago, Chriswills said:

It may not be the exact, I was just approximating but for example we had £800 May to August

What Dave Jones and myself are trying to explain is how the FIT payments are made up so you can understand which parts you may loose if you do things wrong. If you look up the revised OFGEM guidance youll be able to see how batteries can be added within the rules

[Ferdinand]

On 13/10/2022 at 22:25, Chriswills said:

I currently have PV installed and getting top rate of export from the original scheme, around 56p a KW.

If we installed battery storage with it, does this mean that the amount we export would be less, as we currently get around £1500 a year.

Surely if you store it and dont export it, they pay you less??

 

Having explained the history of the whole thing above, also to get my thinking in order - to address the direct questions.

 

Basically if you store it it then it depends on whether you use it yourself later from your storage, or export it later from your storage (aiui at a 20-25% round trip efficiency loss). The storage just does a time shift, you get to use your solar electricity later and import less, or export it if you have that level of control and potentially get export payments.

 

If you don't export it when generated or later (if you time shift it using your battery), then of course you won't be paid the Export payments - as you have not exported anything. Although you may still get "deemed" export payments, as discussed above.

 

But on an Agile Tariff you could get paid more or less for your exports depending on how you time the export.

 

Plus - and this is the one you have wrong I think - only a small fraction of that 56p is Export Payments (Contract 2 as I referred to it). Your FIT payments (Contract 1) are not dependent on exporting electricity.

[Benpointer]

On 15/10/2022 at 11:59, Ferdinand said:

 

[Snip]

 

If you don't export it when generated or later (if you time shift it using your battery), then of course you won't be paid the Export payments - as you have not exported anything. Although you may still get "deemed" export payments, as discussed above.

 

[Snip]

Er... Sorry to butt in on this one but in our FIT scheme at least we get an export payment for 50% of what we generate, regardless of how much we actually export.  That is because the company paying our FIT (Energy Warehouse) has no way of knowing how much we actually export - there is no meter for that.  So an assumption is made that we export 50%.  

 

We don't have a battery - I've looked but I still think the pay-back is too long, we don't plan to be in this house for many years.  But if we did install a battery, we'd still get an export payment for 50% of what we generate even if never exported anything. 

 

Edit:  Apols @FerdinandI see you have made the point about 50% assumed export where you don't have an export meter.

Edited October 18, 2022 by Benpointer

[Ferdinand]

13 minutes ago, Benpointer said:

Er... Sorry to butt in on this one but in our FIT scheme at least we get an export payment for 50% of what we generate, regardless of how much we actually export.  That is because the company paying our FIT (Energy Warehouse) has no way of knowing how much we actually export - there is no meter for that.  So an assumption is made that we export 50%.  

 

We don't have a battery - I've looked but I still think the pay-back is too long, we don't plan to be in this house for many years.  But if we did install a battery, we'd still get an export payment for 50% of what we generate even if never exported anything. 

 

Edit:  Apols @FerdinandI see you have made the point about 50% assumed export where you don't have an export meter.

 

No probs.

 

It *was* a bit of a tome.

[SteamyTea]

19 minutes ago, Benpointer said:

don't have a battery - I've looked but I still think the pay-back is too long, we don't plan to be in this house for many years.  But if we did install a battery, we'd still get an export payment for 50% of what we generate even if never exported anything. 

You could take it with you when you move.

 

Nice to know that the people that whinge and whine about the current export payment are helping to pay for your export payment.

I always thought that the original FiT scheme was a (expletive deleted)ing nonsense.

[Dillsue]

16 minutes ago, Benpointer said:

Er... Sorry to butt in on this one but in our FIT scheme at least we get an export payment for 50% of what we generate, regardless of how much we actually export.  That is because the company paying our FIT (Energy Warehouse) has no way of knowing how much we actually export - there is no meter for that.  So an assumption is made that we export 50%.  

Thats the scheme that everyone started on with a deemed export of 50% of what you generated. Once SEG became an option then you could have metered export if you wanted to give up the 50% deemed option