Free solar power system. Is it a scam?

Jon_Tiffany

zeupater wrote: »

Hi

I, like many others who contribute, post as an individual with no personal interests in the industry to declare, reading the position of others could lead members to believe that the interests of some may possibly differ ...........

Regards

Are you suggesting that Cardew is an employee of one of the energy companies and hence his strong views against the likes of ASG, Homesun, ISIS etc?

Cardew

Jon_Tiffany wrote: »

Full time supermarket worker has a total annual income of £16k. Of that £10k is paid by the supermarket and £6k is paid by the government. Why should the supermarket be able to make huge profits by paying staff a low wage and having it topped up by the government?

Whether that is justified or not, I fail to see the relevance of how a Goverment spends our taxes to Electricity customers paying toward the profit of 'Rent a Roof' companies.

Jon_Tiffany

Cardew wrote: »

Whether that is justified or not, I fail to see the relevance of how a Goverment spends our taxes to Electricity customers paying toward the profit of 'Rent a Roof' companies.

Ok, so what is wrong with customers paying towards the profit of a company? Whenever I buy a product or service I accept that they will make a profit. Even my window cleaner is most likely a very rich man judging by the car he drives, but I still dont begrudge paying him.

Ealier, your objection seemed to be on the grounds that the customers didn't have a choice - hence the analogy of the supermarket that makes a profit from taxpayer money, where the tax payers do not have a choice over paying tax.

zeupater

K4blades wrote: »

Once again you go off assuming you know what "the spirit of the rules are", who made you God. The government made the legislation, and they did it with their eyes open, though you continue to suggest that they were somehow duped, though you have no evidence of this.
And why the obsession with 2000 that ASG were talking about, ISIS have always talked about a much higher figure than that, as everyone who knows about the consultation knows, though you think you know better!

And again I ask you..so what anyway, who's losing out. Oh yeah, you think our electricity bills would be less without FITs, dream on. In fact, in the future they could be higher. There are lots of reports about regarding the rising cost of whole sale gas, which is only going to get worse in the coming years, how do you propose we deal with keeping those costs down. Not everyone has 10-15k sat around to invest for the next 10 years or more so why don't you try suggesting something constructive.

Hi

In order ....

' though you have no evidence of this' .... recently provided reference to a quote on the subject made by ASG themselves ...

'And why the obsession with 2000 that ASG were talking about' .... 2000 installations seem to fit well with a 5MWp upper limit set within the FiT scheme ...

'And again I ask you..so what anyway, who's losing out' .... everyone, domestic, commercial and public sector who purchases energy in the UK will be contributing to the additional 12p/kWh which will be claimed by the 'rent-a-roof' scheme operators.

'you think our electricity bills would be less without FITs, dream on' .... of course they would be, they would be far lower without the recovery of renewable & clean energy investment costs, but that's not what the current debate is about, it's simply the difference in FiT payments between rent-a-roof scheme operators aggregating the installed generating capacity to a limit of 5MWp, claiming 29.3p/kWh ... and ... insisting that all of the capital assets they own do not constitute a single distributed system, claiming 41.3p/kWh. The difference of 12p/kWh will be paid by the consumer, therefore the electricity bills would theoretically be lower without this enhanced level payment ....

' so why don't you try suggesting something constructive' ... It is constructive to suggest that the solution to the obvious 'loophole' which can be utilised to enhance corporate profits at the expense of consumers is to close it. The constructive approach is furthered by supporting a position to aggregate all capacity operated by a single entity, private or corporate, in order to determine the correct FiT tariff banding. Doing this will in no way reduce the demand for 'free systems' and will therefore have no effect on employment in the installation and associated renewables industry, but increasing energy costs to UK industry just to enhance large 'rent-a-roof' scheme operator margins may well have a negative effect on the UK manufacturing base, which is an approach which I would suggest would be considered 'destructive' ....

Regards

Jon_Tiffany

zeupater wrote: »

The difference of 12p/kWh will be paid by the consumer, therefore the electricity bills would theoretically be lower without this enhanced level payment ....

Regards

ASGs 6000 installs will produce 15,840,000kWh per year
The difference of 12p equals £1,900,800
Industry and comerical will pay the buk of this, lets say leaving £750,000 to be paid by consumers.

20m households, that works out to 3p per year, per household.

Its getting late and the the maths was rushed, please feel free to check, but I don't think people are going to be that fussed about an annual saving of 3pence?

zeupater

Jon_Tiffany wrote: »

Are you suggesting that Cardew is an employee of one of the energy companies and hence his strong views against the likes of ASG, Homesun, ISIS etc?

:rotfl: ..... considering the full spectrum of posts which include similar strong views on the utilities, I would suggest not .... excellent post though, constructed to provide a level of spin which could almost be considered professional, well done !!

Regards

zeupater

Jon_Tiffany wrote: »

ASGs 6000 installs will produce 15,840,000kWh per year
The difference of 12p equals £1,900,800
Industry and comerical will pay the buk of this, lets say leaving £750,000 to be paid by consumers.

20m households, that works out to 3p per year, per household.

Its getting late and the the maths was rushed, please feel free to check, but I don't think people are going to be that fussed about an annual saving of 3pence?

Hi

The figures look about right to me for 6000 3.3kWp installs.

So 3p per year is not that bad is it ? ..... however that's just 3p/year from each household in the country which is being paid to one rent-a-roof scheme operator over and above what the FiT scheme would pay if the generating capacity were to be aggregated for their 6,000 installations ... what about the 18,000 installations planned by ISIS ? .... and the 100,000 planned by HomeSun ? .... then there's the multinationals which are becoming interested, how many are they considering ?.

What at first seems to be pennies of additional profit payable by each and every household due to loophole exploitation when considering one scheme in isolation, easily becomes pounds when taking a wider view on the issue ........

The old saying "take care of the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves" is definately as true today as it was in the past.

It needs to be remembered that the FiT scheme has been confirmed by one of the rent-a-roof concerns to having been designed for microgenerators and small operators with other schemes being available for larger projects on this very thread.

Regards

Jon_Tiffany

zeupater wrote: »

Hi

The figures look about right to me for 6000 3.3kWp installs.

So 3p per year is not that bad is it ? ..... however that's just 3p/year from each household in the country which is being paid to one rent-a-roof scheme operator over and above what the FiT scheme would pay if the generating capacity were to be aggregated for their 6,000 installations ... what about the 18,000 installations planned by ISIS ? .... and the 100,000 planned by HomeSun ? .... then there's the multinationals which are becoming interested, how many are they considering ?.

Regards

Ok, lets times that by 100 to give 600,000 installs.

So it then becomes £3 per year

You could easily save that (and more) by having some free solar panels put on your roof!

I think £3 is a small price to pay, we all benefit from an increase in renewable energy, regardless of how we get there.

I was lucky enough to be able to buy my own panels, not everyone has that sort of cash available, so I'm more than happy to pay £3 per year if helps others get some panels.

I'll put aside £3 from my FIT payments to cover the cost

skelly01

This thread has degenerated into a laughing stock. The petty squabbles and debates of late are absolutely nothing to do to with the thread title.
The threads on here are supposed to inform people to make a decision. It's time some people posting stood back , stopped squabbling like little schoolkids and got back on track as to what the thread is about....... Free Solar Power, Is it a scam.
From the very early posts on here, and to reiterate on the facts no it is not a Scam.Yes there are loopholes but a scam clearly not.

Cardew

Jon_Tiffany wrote: »

ASGs 6000 installs will produce 15,840,000kWh per year
The difference of 12p equals £1,900,800

Well not sure how you work this out.

If you assume that each installation gets their minimum output of 2,800kWh pa(they investigate if it is below that) that is a minimum of 16,800,000kWh. I suspect they will get more than the minimum from each installation.

However 6,000 x 3.3kWp systems are 19.8MWp.

The rate of 29p/kWh only applies for installations up to 5MWp that is the maximumum for payment of FITs. Above that figure it reduces again - I believe it comes under the ROC payments.

P.S.

Industry and comerical will pay the buk of this, lets say leaving £750,000 to be paid by consumers

Do you have anything to support your statement that industry pays over 60% of the levy?
Even if they did - it is still us that will pay that cost to industry.