Seems the electricity Co are very slow payers.
I sent my first Export and FITs "invoice" to SSE at the end of September and nothing yet. They said I would be paid 65 days after sending in the meter readings.

Has anyone else experienced delays and, if so, how did you get things moving? Is this just cynical big business.

I got mine

Npower processed my Sept claim on 14 oct. I was expecting them to be slow, so a pleasant surprise.

Green Energy.
Last payment - 35 days after meter reading.
Previous payment - 25 days after meter reading.

Am with Good energy - just for the FIT payments and all is good.

I'm with Eon, I emailed my first reading on 30.09 2011, the money was in my account well before the end of October. From what I've read on Navitron they do seem to be the most efficient.

Posted By: windy lambI think they are taking the mickey since they give me only 10 days to pay my lecty before I get a red bill.

Devil's Advocate: ON
The electricity billing system is based on a reading by an official using a handheld data recorder (or simply an
estimated figure), is highly automated, and they've been doing it for years.
The FIT reading is based on an email or other written communication (I be a bit surprised if the current "web form" does any more than just send an email?), which probably then needs a real human to read and transfer the data to a separate application, and they's only been doing this for just under 2 years, during which time the workload has been growing massively.

Is it any surprise that FIT payments are slower than supply billing?

And once the process has got rolling does it really make that much difference how long they take? Whether they take 10 days or 90 days to make each payment, it's still a case of 4 payments a year...
Devil's Advocate: OFF

PS. But if they do manage to get their act together and pay quicker, it would be nice.

Posted By: SteamyTeaHas anyone considered the cost of not being paid on time?

Is it a matter of first defining "On time"?
If the FIT legislation doesn't define anything specific, then presumably the schedule is whatever the FIT purchaser(?) chooses to put in their contract?
So far all the payments we have had from SSE have been well within schedule (as defined by SSE).

Apart from my initial communication request that they make FIT payments to me, SSE/Swalec have been very poor in acknowledging receipt of any communications from me. Hence I have always sent every letter by recorded delivery.

I questioned the 65 working days in an email but of course never got a reply. At first I thought it must have been a typo as 65 WORKING days is an astonishingly long time (13 weeks) just to issue a cheque/BACS. In reality the first payment came within about 6 weeks IIRC. I did get through on the phone one day and I was told that they were taking on extra staff to cope with the workload, so hopefully that will ease the situation.

I agree with Skyewright though, in the long run it won't matter as we will all get 4 payments a year, it's just the first one where the delay is really noticeable.

All very interesting and it does matter when you get paid.
If I had, for example, borrowed the money for the turbine I am/would be paying a monthly repayment to the bank. That's gotta come from somewhere. Better to get paid by SSE in a reasonable amount of time than not be able to pay the wages. I know we are lucky in getting FITs but why should I give SSE interest free credit for 13 weeks? And they came round and read the export meter with the hand held device.

Jeff B - obviously Yes.
BUT You factor in for being paid 30 days after the invoice or meter reading date. I think a further 2 months is a bit cheeky. You do that to your suppliers and you will be paying interest.
Just seems the big boys take the pi.. because they can, that's all.

Posted By: windy lambJeff B - obviously Yes.
BUT You factor in for being paid 30 days after the invoice or meter reading date. I think a further 2 months is a bit cheeky. You do that to your suppliers and you will be paying interest.
Just seems the big boys take the pi.. because they can, that's all.

Agree with you 100%, that's why I wrote to Swalec (part of SSE) to ask how on earth they can justify 65 working days to come up with the payment! As I said I got no reply. Yes, I suspect they are deliberately holding off doing the calculations. My summer payment was approx £1000 so if that can do the same with several thousand other customers, that's quite a bit of interest earned!

We are with SSE, and when adding a second installation to my neighbour's roof, I spoke to someone at a managerial level about the delay. They are very unhappy, since they have a purely manual system, with lots more people being loaded on to it, so it's costing them a lot of money to run it. A proper computerised system is being developed, which will be far more automated, but it needs to be RIGHT before they start using it! And testing computer systems takes time. I'm not excusing them, but - certainly for SSE - change will happen. (Don't know when!)
Tony

User,Provider,Meter Reading Date,Payment Received
Tombuild,Good Energy,10/09/2011,14/11/2011
anglia,EON,30/09/2011,E--/10/2011
Owlman,nPower,--/09/2011,14/11/2011
Owlman,nPower,06/12/2011,21/12/2011

Seems you picked the right company there. Anyone else got some dates, and I am not talking the Eat-Me sort.

User,Provider,Meter Reading Date,Payment Received
Tombuild,Good Energy,10/09/2011,14/11/2011
anglia,EON,30/09/2011,E--/10/2011
Owlman,nPower,--/09/2011,14/11/2011
Owlman,nPower,06/12/2011,21/12/2011
Wookey,EBICO,04/10/2011,18/11/2011