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Renewable Energy: PV -- Opt in or opt out?

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  1.  
    • CommentAuthortony
    • CommentTimeMay 5th 2011
     
    Should I opt out of the government guaranteed price for export of PV generated electricity of a measly 3p/kWh?

    And should we get an export meter fitted? --- existing meter will run backwards when the sun shines :smile:
    •  
      CommentAuthorDamonHD
    • CommentTimeMay 5th 2011
     
    Ofgem doesn't like 'net metering' because it screws up all the internal accounting between the various market parties apart from anything else.

    Various suppliers will do you a better deal than the 3p per export kWh one way or another anyway IIRC.

    Rgds

    Damon
  3.  
    Have you tried Good Energy, they have been pretty good with us, and you may not have to buy your electricity from them to sell them your export. Ecotricity may also offer a better deal than 3p they have also been helpful.
    • CommentAuthorwookey
    • CommentTimeMay 6th 2011
     
    Damon - who is offering anything other than 3p/kWh for domestic exports? So far as I know there are exactly no suppliers ofering anything other than the govt-mandated value?

    One can change one's decision to opt-out from the opt-out (which seems to be how it is implemented) once per year. i.e it's not a once/forever choice.
    •  
      CommentAuthorDamonHD
    • CommentTimeMay 6th 2011 edited
     
    Ecotricity is, I think, paying me more than the 3p, though I have a mix of ROC-FiT and new-FiT so I'm not sure and can't check right now.

    And I thought that Good Energy was paying more than the 3p.

    All complicated by the fact that exports may simply be 'deemed' for small installations.

    Rgds

    Damon
  6.  
    Whether it's cost effective to go for an export meter will depend on what size of system you've got, and how much you export. We recently rang all the energy companies to find out what they say on this matter, and they're all quite keen to push you down the 50% deemed export route. To be paid for exported electricity, you must have a meter with an MPAN number, and there's a cost attached to that - how much, and whether they'll supply one varies between suppliers. Read what they all said at http://www.yougen.co.uk/blog-entry/1659/Energy+companies+confuse+customers+over+export+meters+for+feed-in+tariff+/
    •  
      CommentAuthorDamonHD
    • CommentTimeMay 6th 2011
     
    For the record, Ecotricity did arrange for an export meter for me, but for free. Partially because I was a guinea pig for them, and partly because when EDF (our DNO) previously swapped out the original ancient meter at our request for safety reasons, EDF swapped in the wrong sort (unratcheted, thus resulting in the forbidden 'net metering'). So I hope that Ecotricity twisted EDF's arm to not charge Ecotricity for actually doing it right on the second attempt...

    Then along comes the new government's FiT backtracking and as I have mixed old and new scheme generation exporting though the one meter it's practically an orphaned asset.

    Ecotricity has come up with a decent arrangement, which we've had to adjust each time DECC has changed course, basically, but at no real cost to me.

    One of the reasons why I'm a big fan of Ecotricity and Dale Vince (hey, how many supplier CEOs will have a personal chat?).

    Rgds

    Damon
    • CommentAuthorAnke
    • CommentTimeMay 6th 2011
     
    Out of interest - what is the situation if the electricity meter goes backwards?

    Mine does - on sunny days ;-). My 2.6 kwh system has now been generating happily since mid March and I have 'lost' 360 kwh from my meter. Total generation has been 538 kwh todate.

    I am not yet registered for the FIT as the final amendments to the PV system were only completed this week and I hence am awaiting the final receipt which will then allow me to complete the FIT registration. My energy provider is SSE who will install an export meter FOC, but given the small return for exports would I be better off with the old meter as is? I assume it is not legal?

    Or would SSE just take payment for 50% of the generated amount - which would work out more expensive as I export more than 50% of the generated energy. Any advise appreciated. Ta
  9.  
    Hopefully anyone with a PV system becomes a low user. Its then worth looking at Ebico as your supplier as theres no 2 tier tariff which penalises low users. They are connected in some way to SSE and will provide an export meter FOC.

    Sadly my meter doesn't run backwards (its latched), if it did I would keep quiet, but I suspect a rapid change of meters when you try to submit a negative reading!

    Discussing similar matters here :
    http://www.navitron.org.uk/forum/index.php/topic,13761.msg154539/topicseen.html#msg154539
    • CommentAuthorAnke
    • CommentTimeMay 7th 2011
     
    "Its then worth looking at Ebico as your supplier as theres no 2 tier tariff which penalises low users. They are connected in some way to SSE and will provide an export meter FOC."

    Thanks for the link. Have been with EBICO for the last four years already. They use SSE as the energy provider who treat the EBICO deal just like one of their tariffs and any meter is now installed by SSE, still FOC. ;-)

    The question of how my future usage would be assessed still remains though. Sorry if I am thinking aloud here, but I don't have anybody to chew this over with.

    I submitted a meter reading the morning before the PV system went live and I estimate my current cost at £24 for the last 8 weeks. I doubt my usage in winter would catch up with the surplus generated during summer as even on a dull day my usage is about equal to what the system can generate ;-) - only it is used mostly during the evening - hence should normally be charged for.

    If Export is deemed at 50%, is the energy company then going to charge me usage at 50% as well in the absence of positive meter readings? This would be fine on dull days, but would generally be more expensive since it also charges me for any energy used during sunlight hours. I estimate the calculated cost to be approx £40 this period. Anybody argued this case before with they energy provider?
    • CommentAuthorwookey
    • CommentTimeMay 8th 2011
     
    I already have an export meter, with an MPAN, and am buying/selling power from/to ebico (i.e SSE). So apparently I'm over the now-difficult hurdle of getting an offical export meter in the first place. I still don't know of anyone who is offering more than 3.1p/kWh for that exported power.

    Damon - this page explains the Ecotricity tariffs http://www.yougen.co.uk/blog-entry/1489/Ecotricity+offers+the+best+tariff+for+pioneer+microgenerators/ which do offer >3p on export for pre July 2009 (i.e non-FIT) schemes, but not for FIT schemes - that's 3p same as everywhere else.
    •  
      CommentAuthorDamonHD
    • CommentTimeMay 8th 2011
     
    OK, thanks. I had lost track.

    Rgds

    Damon
    •  
      CommentAuthorJustin
    • CommentTimeMay 10th 2011 edited
     
    Anke.
    I am with Ecotricity and started out last summer with PV with the old backwards running meter. I explained all this when we had our installation, but nothing happened. In the end it turned out that their billing system simply couldn't cope. Everything was OK while there was a nett import in early spring, (Negligible bills: not the way it's supposed to be). Then a meter reader came at the end of the summer. Inevitably I'd generated considerably more than I'd used overall, and the negative reading screwed up their system. After further explaining, photos of the meter etc they decided it was impossible to bill me at all.

    I got a proper export meter in the new year (Ecotricity arranged the fitting - several emails required but they got there eventually). "Sadly" I have now lost my backwards running meter ! So now we need to ensure we bake bread while the sun shines instead of having reign to use the grid as our free storage battery!
    •  
      CommentAuthorDamonHD
    • CommentTimeMay 10th 2011
     
    It's not just Ecotricity's system that doesn't like the meter going backwards: systems between the meter reader and the supplier only record the 'high-water' mark too, as far as I can tell, so Ecotricity itself didn't get charged for the electricity either. I too had a silly bill or two until we got the import/export pair, though at least we were happy that the meter wouldn't be unsafe...

    Rgds

    Damon
    • CommentAuthorAnke
    • CommentTimeMay 11th 2011
     
    Thanks, Justin and DamonHD.

    Appreciate the input. Guess I'll put down for an export meter and see when they get round to installing one. Next bill is due in June.

    Regards


    Anke
    • CommentAuthoringleside
    • CommentTimeMay 17th 2011
     
    Scottish & Southern fit a free export meter, assuming you are a purchasing customer as well.
    • CommentAuthorjonno
    • CommentTimeSep 26th 2011
     
    We've written a guide with some help from Good Energy to the issues around FiT registration, opting out and opting in, export meters etc. at:
    http://www.greenenergynet.com/anaerobic-digesters/articles/fit-registration-opt-or-opt-out
    It's up-to-date for September 2011 but this situation is changing, as the posts above demonstrate. I called SSE 2 days ago and they have stopped offering free export meters, for example!
    •  
      CommentAuthorDamonHD
    • CommentTimeSep 26th 2011
     
    Given that your first two posts contain links back to your own site, that looks somewhat SPAMmy from here, and advertsing is not allowed in the threads. I haven't looked at your site to see how commercial it is. I suggest that you edit out the links and just tell us the pertinent facts for now.

    Or you may simply find your ID and posts deleted.

    Rgds

    Damon

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