Solar energy - Feed-in Tariff payment delays - your experiences?

tunnel

EricMears wrote: »

I've moved my account for imported electricity away from Scottish Power (twice now) but left them with the FIT account.

They are still paying me by BACS - albeit much slower than was their norm. Hard to believe they'd be so petty as to 'punish my disloyalty by slowing down payments deliberately though. And actually it's even harder to believe they have enough control over their accounting systems to realise the situation exists

It is slightly different with mine Eric. My provider has to OK the "extra" payment each time so even though my FITs payment may be ready to send, until they've "ok'd" their c*ck up i'm left in limbo. It can be a pain as I start chasing them after 4 weeks and giving them grief, continually threatening that if they don't speed up their end i'll hold them to the full extent of the contract they gave me. Cheque normally arrives a few days later

John_Pierpoint

I am not sure I understand the above posting, I have been with B.Gas since late February 2012 and changed supplier from EDF -> N.Power -> S.Power. Touching as lot of wood, it has been seamless. I have had no problems (other than B.Gas trying to redefine 3 months as 2 months and about 20 days.).

I signed up with B.Gas originally because they could do the task (mostly) by email and so I avoided the black hole where one was wondering if any paperwork had been received let alone registered in time to avoid the changes in the FiT deal.

tunnel

Hi John,

Long story short...my first panels went on in 2011 which attracted the 43p FIT rate. In the t's & c's it stated that I could extend my system within 12 months and receive the original rate. Unfortunately my FITs provider should have updated them before my original install to include a piece of government legislation that had come into force that stated any install after oct 11 wasn't eligible for the extension rate.

Fast forward to 2012 and I increased my generation capacity to 4kWp which was "allegedly" only eligible for the 16p rate yet I received a contract with the then 45.4p rate on as per my original t's & c's. I was then paid at this rate for my first quarter after install

When they then paid the next payment at 16p and not at my contract rate I brought to their attention my contract rate. They believe I wasn't entitled to it.

I've now negotiated a deal with them whereas they now pay the 16p rate for the 2nd install from the FITs pot and the top up(around 30p per kWh) is made up as a good will gesture...that's the part which they drag their heels over paying me as it has to be ok'd from the top every quarter before they'll pay.

They say this is a unique case but I can't bring myself to believe it as they didn't update their t's & c's until May 2012, some 7 months after government legislation changed. You can't tell me i'm the only person that extended in that time. There's possibly a lot more people entitled to a lot more money.

jimjames

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

I am not sure I understand the above posting, I have been with B.Gas since late February 2012 and changed supplier from EDF -> N.Power -> S.Power. Touching as lot of wood, it has been seamless. I have had no problems (other than B.Gas trying to redefine 3 months as 2 months and about 20 days.).

I signed up with B.Gas originally because they could do the task (mostly) by email and so I avoided the black hole where one was wondering if any paperwork had been received let alone registered in time to avoid the changes in the FiT deal.

Exactly the reason why I signed up with BG as well.

I'm not bothered about their time definitions - if I send reading early I get paid earlier so benefits me. Or am I missing something?

EricMears wrote: »

I think cheques paid into the account I use for the purpose (RBS) become visible the same day. However, I still have to go well out of my way to visit the town centre to make the deposit. But even allowing another week for that, it's still a lot faster than the 30+ days Scottish Power have taken to make my last two payments.

My bank is internet based so all cheques get posted in free envelopes and no waiting in a branch to pay in. Money is now in my account and has transferred into my savings account.

So from FIT reading on evening of 16th Oct, I have the money available to use on 26th. Total 10 calendar days.

I would urge anyone who isn't getting the service they expect to vote with their feet and move to a provider who pays quickly. But if I did that BG might get swamped and not pay as fast - so please stay where you are!

cmc_2

I've found that BG pay within a couple of weeks which probably exceeds my expectations of them!

I haven't had a reminder for my readings this quarter though - the email should have come about 2 weeks ago. I've submitted readings regardless and assume they will pay - process is obviously a bit shoddy though!

dreaming

Scottish Power seem to have improved - I made my reading on 17th October and was paid on 4th November. However on the supply side they have suggested I increase my monthly payment (for both electric and gas) despite being in credit and on a fixed tariff. Hmm maybe not!

EricMears

dreaming wrote: »

Scottish Power . . . . . have suggested I increase my monthly payment (for both electric and gas) despite being in credit and on a fixed tariff. Hmm maybe not!

Suggest you ask them why ? And tell them that if they can't come up with a convincing reason you'll be invoking their high level complaints procedure !

And of course if you think your credit is enough that you'll still be in credit next April (when serious generation starts again) you ought to ask them to reduce your monthly DD or repay some of your stored up credit (or even both).

KevinG

dreaming wrote: »

However on the supply side they have suggested I increase my monthly payment (for both electric and gas) despite being in credit and on a fixed tariff.

To be fair, you would expect to be in credit at this time of year and being in credit does not mean your monthly payment should not increase. They should have given you a breakdown of your current balance and predicted usage over the next 12 months and used this to calculate the new monthly payment, they always have for me. You could take issue with their predicted usage if you have evidence that it is substantially wrong, but that's about it.

Edit: if the credit is above a certain amount (can't remember exactly how much but it's around £100, the info is on their website), they will repay it automatically rather than use it in next year's calculation.

zeupater

KevinG wrote: »

To be fair, you would expect to be in credit at this time of year and being in credit does not mean your monthly payment should not increase. They should have given you a breakdown of your current balance and predicted usage over the next 12 months and used this to calculate the new monthly payment, they always have for me. You could take issue with their predicted usage if you have evidence that it is substantially wrong, but that's about it.

Edit: if the credit is above a certain amount (can't remember exactly how much but it's around £100, the info is on their website), they will repay it automatically rather than use it in next year's calculation.

Hi

We had a number of problems with ScottishPower yo-yoing our DD ... they could never get their head around using little/no gas for most of the year combined with very little electricity all year round.

Although our property was built to a highly insulated standard, we've made efficiency improvements year-on-year for ages - for example, gas usage was well over double the national average at one stage but last winter it was less than 10% of average ...

SP used almost every excuse in the book to increase the DD .. they'd attempt to increase the payment in June, even though there was a reasonable credit balance, begrudgingly pay back the excess and reduce the DD to a figure slightly higher than my calculated figure, then bounce the DD up again at the next review ... :mad: ... in the end a senior supervisor/manager agreed that we could set our own monthly DD payment but we'd be liable to pay any shortfall as a single payment (which was never needed) .... didn't stop their 'usage estimation algorithm' screwing up every year, but seeing that there were loads of notes on our account, the normal banter simply became 'it's what's been calculated and is right' ... 'yes I'll check the notes, but we don't ...' ... 'okay, what would you like me to set the DD to" ...

Talking about the 'algorithm' ... on a number of occasions the complexity of the calculation seemed to be no more than (LastYearEnergy/10) per month (note the decimalisation error in their logic? ) then the applicable tiered pricing applied, with the usual overcharge 'scam' of applying short quarters to the tiered calculation in order to increase the tier1 ratio ....

Last FiT payment wasn't too bad, but considering that they quoted the T&Cs regarding payment a number of times when extending the payment period, we've started to submit the reading on the last day of the calendar month ... they've tried to use their T&Cs to their advantage, so I'll do exactly the same & use them to our advantage for a change ... :cool:

Needless to say, with the withdrawal of tiered tariff pricing (NSC), as a low energy user we've now moved the supply side to elsewhere (well, in the process of - why does it take so long ?) ...

HTH
Z

dreaming

EricMears wrote: »

Suggest you ask them why ? And tell them that if they can't come up with a convincing reason you'll be invoking their high level complaints procedure !

And of course if you think your credit is enough that you'll still be in credit next April (when serious generation starts again) you ought to ask them to reduce your monthly DD or repay some of your stored up credit (or even both).

I have already told them that I do not wish to increase monthly payment, and with a bit of persuasive explanation (that I have solar) they agreed not to increase. On the other hand this is the first autumn/winter I will be at home all day having recently retired so I am happy to leave the credit there as a buffer over this period to see how my usage pans out. With the recent milder weather so far I have hardly had the heating (gas) on, and even turn it off quite quickly as I have found it a bit stifling at times. With the improved insulation from a couple of years ago, and well lined curtains the house seems to retain heat quite well.