Free solar power system. Is it a scam?

K4blades

zeupater wrote: »

Hi

The problem is not with any of the scheme operators, and I agree that 10,000 homes is not a great proportion of the housing stock in the UK, however, 10,000 homes with a 3.3kWp system will generate a FiT revenue of around £11million per year, index linked ..... that's a little different to the turnover of a typical small company but is nowhere near the likes of British Gas, NPower et al. For reference companies with an installed capacity exceeding 50kW cannot be classified as microgenerators according to section 82 (subsection 8) of the Energy Act 2004 (LINK REMOVED as I'm not allowed to post)
The problem arises when you find that similar schemes are being launched by the large utilities such as British Gas, and they are not proposing 10000 installs, they're looking at potentially hundreds of thousands, possibly even millions. Now, companies operating on this scale are not what the banded FiT scheme was designed for when the generation bands were set. For information the solar pv FiT bands for retro-fit panels are currently as follows ....

<4kWp is £0.413/kWh
=4kWp <10kWp is £0.361/kWh
=10kWp <100kWp is £0.314/kWh
=100kWp <5MWp is £0.293/kWh

... note that the scheme is designed for 'small' generation projects up to 5MWp, which is the equivalent of around 1900 3.3kWp installations, so if 'small' scheme operators were not taking advantage of a loophole in the leglislation in order to maximise income they would be installing very large solar generation farms of up to 5MWp capacity.

There are other schemes available to incentivise larger installations, however, due to more poorly constructed legislation by the previous government and the FiT rates available, you will find that almost every commercial operator will look at taking advantage. The loophole exists in that every location is classified as a separate generating entity, with there being no aggregation of installed capacity against individuals or commercial organisations, so the solution is simple, change the legislation to include an aggregation clause which would limit large commercial organisations to a total of 5MWp within the scheme paying the appropriate aggregated FiT rate .... job done, small companies such as ASG would need to change their business plan a little, large companies such as British Gas quickly loose interest in making a killing in the 'rent-a-roof' sector, installation prices to consumers will likely fall due to the focus on commercial competition .... and various corporate shareholders and employees will not see 'banker style' bonuses and dividends.

It is as a result of poorly drafted legislation, commercial greed and lack of proper and timely regulation that we have the current economic downturn, I'd rather see the remaining manufacturing sector companies stay in the UK than be driven overseas by exorbitant energy costs .... there is a difference between 29.3p/kWh and 41.3p/kWh if you think about it ......

Regards

What complete rubbish. THERE IS NO LOOPHOLE. This is NOT legislation drawn up with errors now being exploited. The likes of ISIS and ASG were very much involved in the consultation and the government KNEW EXACTLTY WHAT THEY WERE DOING WHEN THEY DREW UP THE LEGISLATION, so stop bleating on about loopholes. If you don't believe me submit a FoI request to DECC.

And why did the govt. do this. Because they had one simple goal: To boost PV installations. If they had restricted it to individual homeowners, then yes, there would have been some small increase in uptake compared to pre April 2010 but nothing like what there is now. Because of these companies, uptake has massively increased both by these companies AND individuals because of lower costs and all the publicity, etc, etc. THAT WAS THE GOVERNMENTS INTENTION.

And what of cost. I repeat what I said earlier. Do you seriously think for 1 minute that our utility bills would be lower if we didn't have FITs. The utilities would simply increase their dividend payments or invest it in other things such as nuclear, wind etc. So there is no difference in cost to me as a member of the public what so ever!!!! All that is happening in reality is that funds are being re-distributed from a large multi-national, to a new, smaller, regional business. And if the likes of ASG are so bad, they are only doing what has happened countless times before throughout the capitalist world.
This is no different from the CERT scheme which is funded by the utilities that has lead to millions of homes having cavity wall insulation and lodft insulation fitted free. The companies doing the installing don't do it out of the kindness of their hearts, they do it because they too make money at the expense of the larger utilities. AND THE PEOPLE BENEFITING ARE USUALLY THOSE WHO ARE LOW PAID OR PENSIONERS, ETC.
Yes, I agree that if BG, etc get in on the act with FITs, then the scale will have consequences, but if you think fuel bills aren't going to go up anyway, I suspect you are being very optimistic. If the utilities don't invest in FITs, they will have to invest in nuclear, wind, tidal, carbon capture and so on and shock, horror, business's won't invest unless they can make a profit.


I suspect most of the critiscim of this scheme comes from people who;
1) haven't done their research or
2) are fundementally oppossed to anyone making a profit, (which is a fair view point but shouldn't be aimed specifically at FITs, apply it across the board, and admit thats your view), or
3) have paid for their own panels and resent anyone else getting them free.

I haven't got them but I am objective enough to look at the big picture, and see that a lot of people will benefit from this.

John_Pierpoint

I would think that giving old pensioners free loft and cavity wall insulation (say £350 quids worth) gives one hell of a lot better return than paying out 41.3 plus 1.5 pence per unit for 25 years; if they have allowed free panels to be fitted to their roof.
Even in terms of carbon I would think the insulation is a better investment.

Now who wants to pay me to insulate my home?

Jon_Tiffany

Cardew wrote: »

It depends how you define 'made in the UK' - perhaps 'assembled in UK' might be a better term?

Yes, correct - assembled in the UK is a better term.

However, I still prefer assembled in the Uk over assembled in china.

While some of the materials may come from forgien manufacturers there are still plenty of UK jobs being created.

Jon_Tiffany

K4blades wrote: »

What complete rubbish. THERE IS NO LOOPHOLE. This is NOT legislation drawn up with errors now being exploited. The likes of ISIS and ASG were very much involved in the consultation and the government KNEW EXACTLTY WHAT THEY WERE DOING WHEN THEY DREW UP THE LEGISLATION, so stop bleating on about loopholes. If you don't believe me submit a FoI request to DECC.

And why did the govt. do this. Because they had one simple goal: To boost PV installations. If they had restricted it to individual homeowners, then yes, there would have been some small increase in uptake compared to pre April 2010 but nothing like what there is now. Because of these companies, uptake has massively increased both by these companies AND individuals because of lower costs and all the publicity, etc, etc. THAT WAS THE GOVERNMENTS INTENTION.

And what of cost. I repeat what I said earlier. Do you seriously think for 1 minute that our utility bills would be lower if we didn't have FITs. The utilities would simply increase their dividend payments or invest it in other things such as nuclear, wind etc. So there is no difference in cost to me as a member of the public what so ever!!!! All that is happening in reality is that funds are being re-distributed from a large multi-national, to a new, smaller, regional business. And if the likes of ASG are so bad, they are only doing what has happened countless times before throughout the capitalist world.
This is no different from the CERT scheme which is funded by the utilities that has lead to millions of homes having cavity wall insulation and lodft insulation fitted free. The companies doing the installing don't do it out of the kindness of their hearts, they do it because they too make money at the expense of the larger utilities. AND THE PEOPLE BENEFITING ARE USUALLY THOSE WHO ARE LOW PAID OR PENSIONERS, ETC.
Yes, I agree that if BG, etc get in on the act with FITs, then the scale will have consequences, but if you think fuel bills aren't going to go up anyway, I suspect you are being very optimistic. If the utilities don't invest in FITs, they will have to invest in nuclear, wind, tidal, carbon capture and so on and shock, horror, business's won't invest unless they can make a profit.


I suspect most of the critiscim of this scheme comes from people who;
1) haven't done their research or
2) are fundementally oppossed to anyone making a profit, (which is a fair view point but shouldn't be aimed specifically at FITs, apply it across the board, and admit thats your view), or
3) have paid for their own panels and resent anyone else getting them free.

I haven't got them but I am objective enough to look at the big picture, and see that a lot of people will benefit from this.

I agree with most of what you say. Sarah from A Shade Greener said on this forum that they consulted with Whitehall about the scheme and were given the go ahead.

The scheme is intended to increase the renewable generation in the UK - does it really matter how we get there?

I disagree with one part of your post:

"3) have paid for their own panels and resent anyone else getting them free."

I paid for my own panels, taking the gamble of investing my life savings into them. I have no resentment towards anyone who takes up the free offers. In fact, quite the opposite. The companies offering free panels will help boost demand in the UK, driving down overall costs, making it cheaper for those who want to buy their own.

Gizmosmum_2

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

I would think that giving old pensioners free loft and cavity wall insulation (say £350 quids worth) gives one hell of a lot better return than paying out 41.3 plus 1.5 pence per unit for 25 years; if they have allowed free panels to be fitted to their roof.
Even in terms of carbon I would think the insulation is a better investment.

Of course insulation is a better option, few would dispute that, but now we've hammered the low hanging fruit and made massive Co2 savings we need to be tackling other areas. I remember starting in this business 15 years ago when cavity wall insulation was £800. SoP, EEC and Cert have got the core price down to £350 then it's subsidised by the utilities to be no more than £150. Many millions of public sector funding went into pump priming domestic schemes to encourage take up, this has gone now because the market is mature.

The same happened when I started working with solar thermal 8k down to 3k and ashp. No reason to believe that the theory won't happen with pv making it more accessible for others but it needs pump primed first to generate the demand.

4kw pv has dropped in the last 12 months from 18 - 20k to 14 - 17k so there's decent headway being made already. As I've said in previous posts I resent funding holidays in Dubai and Tenerife via incapacity Benefit at least we get some CO2 savings and jobs created from this scheme.

Cardew

Jon_Tiffany wrote: »

Sarah from A Shade Greener said on this forum that they consulted with Whitehall about the scheme and were given the go ahead.

.

That is correct!

They consulted with Whitehall to see if their scheme would be allowed to go ahead, and set up a new firm to exploit the obvious loophole. That is very different from being involved in the drafting of the proposals/legislation.

Perhaps K4blades can find out using FofI where ASG were involved in the drafting of the proposals. As I understand it ASG didn't exist as a company at that time.

Read the original proposals that were sent for consultation, and indeed the legislation itself and see if the ASG type scheme is proposed or even muted! So of course it is a loophole!

Why have a lower rates of FIT (and ROC) for large commercial companies, if large commercial companies can circumvent this by using the roof of thousands of houses.

If the 'Government intention' was to 'boost PV installations'(see post# 662 above) in this manner, why not let firms erect huge solar farms with thousands of panels on brownfield sites(factory roofs etc) and pay them a FIT of 41.3p/kWh.

Or let them errect thousands of systems , 4kWp on the same site?

Think of the economies of scale, no scaffolding on thousands of homes, all maintenance in one place, no requirement for thousands of inverters etc.

K4blades

Jon_Tiffany wrote: »

I agree with most of what you say. Sarah from A Shade Greener said on this forum that they consulted with Whitehall about the scheme and were given the go ahead.

The scheme is intended to increase the renewable generation in the UK - does it really matter how we get there?

I disagree with one part of your post:

"3) have paid for their own panels and resent anyone else getting them free."

I paid for my own panels, taking the gamble of investing my life savings into them. I have no resentment towards anyone who takes up the free offers. In fact, quite the opposite. The companies offering free panels will help boost demand in the UK, driving down overall costs, making it cheaper for those who want to buy their own.

Thanks Jon, I wasn't having a dig a you personally, just wondering if some people are motivated that way. certainly if you have the money, it is a good investment.

Jon_Tiffany

Cardew wrote: »

That is correct!

They consulted with Whitehall to see if their scheme would be allowed to go ahead, and set up a new firm to exploit the obvious loophole. That is very different from being involved in the drafting of the proposals/legislation.

Perhaps K4blades can find out using FofI where ASG were involved in the drafting of the proposals. As I understand it ASG didn't exist as a company at that time.

Read the original proposals that were sent for consultation, and indeed the legislation itself and see if the ASG type scheme is proposed or even muted! So of course it is a loophole!

Why have a lower rates of FIT (and ROC) for large commercial companies, if large commercial companies can circumvent this by using the roof of thousands of houses.

If the 'Government intention' was to 'boost PV installations'(see post# 662 above) in this manner, why not let firms erect huge solar farms with thousands of panels on brownfield sites(factory roofs etc) and pay them a FIT of 41.3p/kWh.

Or let them errect thousands of systems , 4kWp on the same site?

Think of the economies of scale, no scaffolding on thousands of homes, all maintenance in one place, no requirement for thousands of inverters etc.

Taken from Sarahs (A Shade Greener) posts:

"As regards the consultation that closed on October 15th - our Directors were actively involved in that consultation."

She also said:

"Cardew - In the process of consultation we explained fully what we were proposing to do and were told that this was being positively encouraged. They want to guarantee income for small scale renewable energy generators and therefore encourage investment in renewable energy schemes. There is no loop hole to close."

So it would seem that ASG are indeed operating within the spirit of the scheme and there is no loophole.

Jon_Tiffany

K4blades wrote: »

Thanks Jon, I wasn't having a dig a you personally, just wondering if some people are motivated that way. certainly if you have the money, it is a good investment.

I dont think my post came across correctly - I didn't think you were having a dig at me - just trying to point out that not everyone is against the free schemes, even if they have their own panels. I'm sure that there are some that will resent people getting free panels.:)

K4blades

Cardew wrote: »

That is correct!

They consulted with Whitehall to see if their scheme would be allowed to go ahead, and set up a new firm to exploit the obvious loophole. That is very different from being involved in the drafting of the proposals/legislation.

Perhaps K4blades can find out using FofI where ASG were involved in the drafting of the proposals. As I understand it ASG didn't exist as a company at that time.

Read the original proposals that were sent for consultation, and indeed the legislation itself and see if the ASG type scheme is proposed or even muted! So of course it is a loophole!

Why have a lower rates of FIT (and ROC) for large commercial companies, if large commercial companies can circumvent this by using the roof of thousands of houses.

If the 'Government intention' was to 'boost PV installations'(see post# 662 above) in this manner, why not let firms erect huge solar farms with thousands of panels on brownfield sites(factory roofs etc) and pay them a FIT of 41.3p/kWh.

Or let them errect thousands of systems , 4kWp on the same site?

Think of the economies of scale, no scaffolding on thousands of homes, all maintenance in one place, no requirement for thousands of inverters etc.

Just because ASG weren't mentioned in the legislation it doesn't mean the govt. weren't aware of them. Most people would take the term "loophole" to mean an unforeseen error (in the legislation), being exploited. If the government were aware of what they were doing prior to doing it, then most people would not consider ity a loophole.
I think you are also implying, (though maybe wrong) that the legislation changed from the initial proposal, why was this, because the government were influenced through consultation. And maybe they saw other benefits such as job creation.

As for the larger schemes, etc, well who knows what the govermnent was thinking but my guess is that the idea is to "promote" to homeowners the idea of having PVs on the roof, rather than using brown field sites, which the likes of ASG would have to buy / rent. It also benefits those in fuel poverty such as pensioners, which would not be the case if ASG just stuck loads of panels in a field. And besides, how do you know it won't happen in the future.

You really do need to look at the bigger picture.