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

KevinG

zeupater wrote: »

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.

That's interesting because they've always done a pretty good job with mine. OK, they will tend to round it up a little bit, which I would expect, but otherwise I've no real complaint.

John_Pierpoint

08nov13 reading taken & form filled on-line.
11nov13 cheque printed.
16nov13 postie delivered cheque

£400 (approx)

tunnel

My reading went in on 01/10 and i'm yet to receive my payment, my FITs provider really are dragging their heels, luckily i'm not desperate for the money so i'll continue to badger them for my "goodwill" payment.

Lord knows how they'll cope next week when my next 2.5kWp system goes live:(

legoman62

Sent reading on 14th Nov to E.on and cash was in my bank at the close of the 20th Nov.

Well done E.on:T

nobby1963

EDF
Sent reading via email Sunday 1st Dec.
just checked internet ( here in the Maldives ! - sorry had to get that in !! ) & the money was in the account yesterday.

Excellent from EDF ( & the Maldives BTW ).

Nobby.

Uitlander

My FIT supplier is SSE, I signed up with them when my electricity was supplied by Atlantic Energy who had very good customer service, it turned out that Atlantic Energy is a brand of SSE. My PV system was installed in July 2010 and for the first year or so I received FIT payments by BACS within a week or two of submitting my reading. I was very happy with that.

However, things have gone downhill in the last year or so. My last FIT reading was submitted on 1st November and I am currently chasing SSE about when they are going to pay up (with no response so far). My previous FIT reading was submitted on 1st August and paid after 6 weeks delay (and some chasing) in mid-October. From memory the time taken for SSE to issue payments for the two readings prior to that was 4 weeks or so from the date the reading was submitted.

Overall I'm very unimpressed with SSE - their service has gone downhill. I would like to change to a different FIT supplier, but I do not know if this is possible whilst retaining my current FIT tariff. Does anyone know how you go about doing this?

Martyn1981

Uitlander wrote: »

Overall I'm very unimpressed with SSE - their service has gone downhill. I would like to change to a different FIT supplier, but I do not know if this is possible whilst retaining my current FIT tariff. Does anyone know how you go about doing this?

Hiya Uitlander. You can change FiT providers but there are conditions. I'm not sure if the info is still fully up to date, nor comprehensive, but section 9 of the PV FAQ thread (post #37) is a starting point:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/57831489#Comment_57831489

If you discover anything new, please feed back, so the thread can be updated. Cheers.

Mart.

EricMears

Pleased to report that Scottish Power seem to have got their FIT turnaround time back to normal.

I deliberately delayed my last report from 15th Nov to 26th Nov just in case they were sticking to their previous advice of "payment will be made before end of month following that when reading was taken". In fact, payment arrived in bank on 9th December. Total delay of 13 days but that includes two weekends and no doubt another couple of days whilst BACS system tries to earn some interest on my loot (good luck with that chaps !) so probably less than a working week delay from SP.

EricMears

Uitlander wrote: »

Overall I'm very unimpressed with SSE - their service has gone downhill. I would like to change to a different FIT supplier, but I do not know if this is possible whilst retaining my current FIT tariff.

I'm sure you can (& Martyn explained how whilst my back was turned) but doubt it's worth the effort.

All of them will claim they're entitled to delay payment until end of month following you reporting month so you can always force payment in 32 days if you report close to end of month.

And all of them sometimes do a lot better than that.

I take the view that I don't really care if the cash turns up next day or six weeks later - it's a bit of a bonus really and I'm not depending on it to pay any bills. But agree it would be nice if they just got on and paid on receipt of readings - anything else must be costing them money to keep a transaction 'active' when it could have been paid & filed.

John_Pierpoint

I wish I could agree with you Eric - once upon a time there were two General Electric Companies. The English one has drifted into near oblivion but once upon a time it had a near monopoly of its sector of the electrical engineering industry, bolstered by the military industrial spending.

The subsidiary I had to deal with employed someone whose job was to NOT pay their suppliers; I suspect his annual appraisal was "well done our creditors are now waiting 4 months to get paid on 30 day terms"


It is a cynical game played by finance directors hoping to become bankers - it may well help to explain the tensions within the Euro area, as it is an anathema to the Germans..