Solar Panel Guide Discussion

zeupater

Cardew wrote: »

High Z,

Not it is not the same thing at all.

The 'Public Purse' is funded by all forms of Taxation - Income Tax, VAT, Corporation Tax etc etc. We contribute according to our income and expenditure.

Rich Mr Smith might pay £millions in various forms of Tax.

Poor Mr Jones on a minimum wage will pay virtually nothing in Tax

The FIT 'pot' is funded by a levy on electricity bills which all consumers have to pay - even Mr Jones. That levy is proportional to their electricity bills.

Mr Smith pays a lot more toward Police, Aircraft carriers etc.

Hi

Probably the wrong thread to go into detail, but how does that help and not be self contradictory ... poor Mr Jones still contributed to the public purse even by the definition you raise .... "The 'Public Purse' is funded by all forms of Taxation - Income Tax, VAT, Corporation Tax etc etc. We contribute according to our income and expenditure." ... of course some contribute more in terms of monetary value, and others in term of percentage of income or wealth, but they still contribute ... it's almost impossible not to even if the entire income is state funded a good proportion goes back into the 'public purse' ...

It's pretty simple really .... If you are saying that HM Treasury no longer account for the levy on MCS FiT as a form of taxation and that is actually the case then you are correct ... however, if it is treated on the books as any form of government income (taxation) and it's collected from the public as a result of any form of legislation then it's obviously funded from the 'public purse' and you are simply wrong ....

The very fact that there is a disagreement with a form of taxation doesn't mean that it needs to be classified in a different way ... everyone dislikes some form of taxation or other ... £500/year for roadtax, VAT on pasties, fuel duty, council tax, income tax, national insurance, death duty .... all for wildly varying levels of return ... some have no children, some have many, some are healthy, some not, some spend and get taxed, others save and get taxed, some have pv, others not ... all contribute towards the 'public purse' at varying levels and all have varying levels of return for their contributions ...

HTH
Z

Martyn1981

Cardew wrote: »

They should have listened to Martyn though as he has done the figures to prove they are not as efficient as sub-4Kp systems

I see you disagree with my 'bigger is not better' quote regarding PV panels.

I keep forgetting that you don't actually know anything about PV. I keep making the same wrong assumption each time, that somebody that spends 2.5 years complaining about something, has actually researched it first.

So go on then, show me some super giant panels that are more efficient. Maybe, sticking with the earlier discussion, you are aware of a single giant 10MWp panel? Maybe this super giant 10MWp panel is so efficient it actually produces 20MWp.

So 10MWp of panels are 10MWp of panels. With PV it's all modular, so bigger is not better, just bigger. There may be financial economies of scale when buying panels, but there aren't efficiency economies of scale.

Is this just another dodge, to get away from fictitious tariffs, or another dodge to avoid admitting that generation is generation regardless of whether it exports or off-sets import, or another dodge to get away from 'doing the numbers' regarding PV farms.

You seem to be an extremely dodgy person!

Mart.

Martyn1981

Cardew wrote: »

The FIT 'pot' is funded by a levy on electricity bills which all consumers have to pay - even Mr Jones. That levy is proportional to their electricity bills.

Mr Smith pays a lot more toward Police, Aircraft carriers etc.

So rather than have an honest, transparent green levy on energy consumption - 'the polluter pays'. Is it better to hide massive energy subsidies in general taxation, where they are unclear, and largely not understood. Out of sight, out of mind.

Let's be fair here, if this small subsidy, was hidden with the vast nuclear subsidies, would that be ok then? Nothing to see, move along now.

It appears that it is the very honesty of this subsidy that galls you the most.

Mart.

Cardew

don0301 wrote: »

it just doesn't stack up does it?

It stacks up perfectly!

If we have no choice but to pay a levy for the FIT pot, it is the lesser of two evils to get more electricity generated at a lower cost.

I would rather the levy on my electricity bill go to a solar farm which produces that electricity for a lower subsidy; than pay a higher subsidy to houses with a sub-4kWp system and allowing them to not even export all the electricity for which they receive a subsidy.

Cardew

zeupater wrote: »

Hi

It's pretty simple really .... If you are saying that HM Treasury no longer account for the levy on MCS FiT as a form of taxation and that is actually the case then you are correct ...
HTH
Z

The money(levy) for FITs does not go to the Treasury.

Electricity companies contribute to the FIT pot(which is administered by Ofgem). Those paying out FIT draw the money from that pot and distribute to those with solar panels.

http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/meeting_energy/renewable_ener/feedin_tariff/feedin_tariff.aspx

So if you are very rich, and I am very poor, and we both have a, say, £500 electricity bill - then we both contibute the same amount to the FIT pot.

This is why the FIT scheme has been dubbed a transfer of wealth from the poor to the well off.

zeupater

Cardew wrote: »

That is excellent news - they will no doubt appear in the statistics to which Zeupater linked. Let us hope there are more.

Hi Cardew

For clarification for all ... the discussion was regarding the upper FiT bands 50kWp+ through to the maximum allowable under FiTs which is 5MWp. Costs, subsidies and returns discussions were taking place based on DECC published FiT tariffs for historical upper band installations whilst there were no installation registered in the MCS FiT database and assertations were being made that the reduction in the level of tariff had effectively killed off larger systems .... my input has simply provided information in order to stop an exchange which would be similar to discussing future world politics on a basis that the Spanish Armada had landed in 1588, or a certain Mr J.Caesar had fallen overboard and drowned .... it's history, it didn't happen and is therefore unnecessary to pursue further ...

Large systems which have been registered under the RO (ROCs) scheme weren't being considered and incorrect calculations and assumptions were being made .... I suppose that the discussion will either move on or we'll start debating the relative costs of ROC 1.5 -vs- 2 ROC 2.0 now .....

HTH
Z

zeupater

Cardew wrote: »

The money(levy) for FITs does not go to the Treasury.

Electricity companies contribute to the FIT pot(which is administered by Ofgem). Those paying out FIT draw the money from that pot and distribute to those with solar panels.

http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/meeting_energy/renewable_ener/feedin_tariff/feedin_tariff.aspx

....

Hi

And that's not what the unedited quoted text referenced text actually says .... the budget applied to the scheme is a result of legislation and must be accounted for on the governments income and expenditure accounts by HM Treasury - this is treated as a form of taxation which is being administered by OFGEM and their appointed agents, the energy companies .... OFGEM themselves do not administer the collection of the levy or the payment to the registered systems but still would act as budget holder responsible to HM Treasury ....

This would be exactly the same as a small business using an accountant .... the accountant does not need to physically handle the cash, just the receipts and any other transactional documentation, but they're still the financial accounts and off the back of these calculations any VAT due for each transaction isn't put in a separate box as payments are made, it's simply accounting for tax which will eventually be paid and consolidated onto HM Treasury's books ....

This is probably best described by HM Treasury themselves ...

"Levy-funded spending will not be regarded as a regulatory burden to be covered by the „One-in One-out‟ commitment, but as taxation and spending overseen by the Treasury"
(http://hm-treasury.gov.uk/d/control_framework_decc250311.pdf)

So according to the official and undisputable source, it's taxation and expenditure overseen by the Treasury and is therefore classified as being raised from the 'public purse' therefore, as previously stated, jamesingram was correct to use the term 'public purse' and the assertation that "The 'public purse' does not fund FIT subsidies" was factually incorrect .... QED

I'll take this opportunity to quote the full text which was selectively quoted in the above post so that it can be re-evaluated, both in the context it was originally delivered and in context of what HM Treasury describe ....

zeupater wrote: »

It's pretty simple really .... If you are saying that HM Treasury no longer account for the levy on MCS FiT as a form of taxation and that is actually the case then you are correct ... however, if it is treated on the books as any form of government income (taxation) and it's collected from the public as a result of any form of legislation then it's obviously funded from the 'public purse' and you are simply wrong ....

... I believe that in light of the above further discussion, without withdrawal, would provide unnecessary loss of face ...

HTH
Z

Cardew

zeupater wrote: »

.pdf)
So according to the official and undisputable source, it's taxation and expenditure overseen by the Treasury and is therefore classified as being raised from the 'public purse' therefore, as previously stated, jamesingram was correct to use the term 'public purse' and the assertation that "The 'public purse' does not fund FIT subsidies" was factually incorrect .... QED




Z

Hi Z,

You are grasping at straws, the scheme is overseen by the Treasury in that they control ofgem.

You know full well that the 'public purse' is taken to mean revenue raised by taxation and distributed by Treasury.

Funds for the FIT pot are a levy only paid by electricity customers.

Someone who doesn't pay an electricity bill doesnt pay towards the FITs funds.

To use your analogy, all taxpayers contribute toward the funding of an aircraft carrier; they don't all contribute toward FITS.

This is a good explanation of how FIT is funded:

http://www.fitariffs.co.uk/FITs/principles/funding/

<H1>Who pays the FITs?

The money doesn't come from the Government, but from the energy market
Who pays my tariffs to me?



Although the FITs are established in law, rather than coming from the government, the tariffs are actually paid by the energy suppliers.
When you register a system for the fits you nominate which energy supplier you want to use. Under the legislation, this supplier is called the 'FITs Licensee'.
Where does the money come from?

It comes out of the pockets of the supply companies because they are really nice guys!

No seriously...
The suppliers pass on the cost of the Feed-In Tariffs scheme to all their electricity customers.
... so the bottom line is that people who don't install renewable energy systems pay for those who do!

</H1>
If you feel this semantic game has proved your point, so be it.

However nobody here is in doubt what 'public purse' means and the 'public purse' does not pay for FIT.

No doubt you will get lots of thanks and inane posts in support!

don0301

Cardew wrote: »

Hi Z,

You are grasping at straws, the scheme is overseen by the Treasury in that they control ofgem.

You know full well that the 'public purse' is taken to mean revenue raised by taxation and distributed by Treasury.

Funds for the FIT pot are a levy only paid by electricity customers.

Someone who doesn't pay an electricity bill doesnt pay towards the FITs funds.

To use your analogy, all taxpayers contribute toward the funding of an aircraft carrier; they don't all contribute toward FITS.

This is a good explanation of how FIT is funded:

http://www.fitariffs.co.uk/FITs/principles/funding/

</H1>
If you feel this semantic game has proved your point, so be it.

However nobody here is in doubt what 'public purse' means and the 'public purse' does not pay for FIT.

No doubt you will get lots of thanks and inane posts in support!

This is so laughable, who would that be then?

the 99% or the 1% that you love to quote?

Martyn1981

grahamc2003 wrote: »

In keeping with the crazy logic world of some posters on here, I was half expecting a reply to my post - which stated that all the solar on roofs generated less energy than a coal fired station can do in 2 days, was actually wrong and the facts are that it's the other way round - i.e. the panels generate the station's annual energy in two days.

That's weird, you seem to have started misquoting yourself now!

In this context you seem to be implying 'all roof top solar', but previously you linked it to a separate paragraph, that referred only to installs carried out May - July. So you've misrepresented yourself. What an odd thing to do?

Also, you are now simply referring to 'a coal fired station', which is not suitably detailed to allow any useful consideration. In fact, as data goes, it's pretty useless. How odd?

As regards anyone being so badly informed, or incompetent to get the ratio the wrong way around, an error factor of 1,000's, well I can only think of a single person fitting the criteria:-

Martyn1981 wrote: »

grahamc2003 wrote: »

Regarding solar (and any local generation) - then yes, when it generates there'll be no transmission losses, obviously. The overall effect? Well, given that last year, Drax produced the total yearly prodution of home generated solar every 12 minutes (on average). Maybe next year, it may take 20 minutes for Drax to produce the annual home solar output, but you get my drift.

12 mins, interesting, very interesting, and there was me suggesting you sometimes misrepresent the real figures.

Others of course may not be as trusting as me. In fact some might even suggest that you are out by nearly 1000:1

But what would a simple googler like me know?

Mart.

Now those were simpler times, such fun, just sitting round eating popcorn and pizza - and humble pie!

Mart.