MSE News: Government to appeal High Court solar ruling

jimjames

grahamc2003 wrote: »

Interesting graph. If that carried on, it would only be a few weeks until everyone got £1500 a year in fits and the exported electricity, and had their electricity bills increased by £1700pa to pay them! (£200 going to soliciors/management consultants and others to advise on how to run the system).

I'm sure without the cut to FITs now the graph would have continued on its more gradual course and that peak would have happened in March not December. Either way I think a gradual deceleration was a very unlikely outcome in any event.

Kernel_Sanders

grahamc2003 wrote: »

The application for the 43p fit to remain in place until April was rejected in the ruling. As I read it, an unsuccessful appeal would mean the fit rate stayed at 43p just up to the end of the consultaion period.

The 43p rate was, is and still will be in place up to 31 March. I presume you mean beyond this date as well.

Martyn1981

I don't know if some numbers on domestic PV FITs will help to rationalise expenditure or throw petrol onto the flames. Either way, being bettered informed can't be a bad thing.

Assuming domestic installs are now around 200,000 (things changed quickly late 2011, so hopefully close to accurate), and average install will generate about 2,500units pa (may be more, may be less), then

500,000,000units at 43.3p = £216.5m pa
24m households = £9.02pa (costs actually distributed across all energy consumers, but worth considering total).

If installs continue at this rate (highly doubtful due to EPC C rating requirement and better future management of FITs!), but if they did, we could see (with current panel pricing trends) an additional;

2 years - 200,000 installs @ 21p
2 years - 200,000 installs @ 10p
2 years - 200,000 installs @ 5p

Or to simplify the maths, 200,000 installs @ 36p - an additional £180m pa or £7.50 per household. Giving a total of £16.52 pa.

Whether or not this is an acceptable amount is a question for each of us individually. We are effectively paying to artificially speed up the introduction of an additional energy supply, or for domestic purposes, maybe better described as an import reducer. One more tool in our toolbox to help diversify our future energy requirements.

To give you an idea how this money equates to other taxes we pay, but to stay within the energy market;

The govt expects to incur £56.7bn in nuclear decommissioning costs over the next 100 years (assuming no new build that would add more).

That represents £56.7bn / 100 years / 24m households = £23.63pa for 100 years.

Mart.

Cardew

Kernel_Sanders wrote: »

The 43p rate was, is and still will be in place up to 31 March. I presume you mean beyond this date as well.

The proposed cuts stated that for any installation, after 12 Dec 2011, that the 43.3p/kWh rate would stay in place until 31 March 2012. However those post 12 Dec installs would fall to the new rate of 21p/kWh(or 16.8p/kWh for Rent a Roof) from 01 April 2012

Installs registered prior to 13 Dec 2011 would carry on getting 43.3p with a new inflation adjusted price on 01 April 2012.

The position now is unknown.

HalloweenJack

the current reduction is actually more than germany pays for smaller systems and less for larger (they pay 24 cents per kwh for up to 30kw and 23 for up to 100) - which works out to be 19p and 18p.

anyway the `budget`

http://www.solarpowerportal.co.uk/news/spp_investigates_is_the_fit_budget_already_blown_5478/

we are allready 112% over this years budget (in fact if you read the figures, we are over the budget all the way to 2014 - the money has gone)

jamesd

Martyn1981 wrote: »

The govt expects to incur £56.7bn in nuclear decommissioning costs over the next 100 years (assuming no new build that would add more).

That represents £56.7bn / 100 years / 24m households = £23.63pa for 100 years.

Got a source for those numbers?

The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority expects to spend a total of 46 to 58 billion (page 25), of which a large proportion is being spent on cleaning up things related to nuclear weapons production, not nuclear power, and to cleaning up things related to Sellafield (32 billion) and its commercial fuel reprocessing business, which handles far more fuel than the UK's own nuclear power reactors use.

The relevant number here is cost per kWh of power delivered to consumers, including only the costs of power generation and supply. Nuclear is delivering far more power so it's pretty clear why it'd have a higher cost per consumer.

Cardew

jamesd wrote: »

The relevant number here is cost per kWh of power delivered to consumers,

Agreed.

What is also conveniently forgotten is that the cost of electricity fed to the grid by the small scale PV installations is way above the 43.3p/kWh

The 43.3p/kWh(+ 1.55p/kWh export) is paid to all householders/Rent a Roof companies for all electricity generated.

If someone uses 25% of that electricity in their house, then the cost of each exported kWh to the grid is 59.3p

If someone uses 50% of that electricity in their house, then the cost of each exported kWh to the grid is 88.1p

Brummie71

Cardew wrote: »

The proposed cuts stated that for any installation, after 12 Dec 2011, that the 43.3p/kWh rate would stay in place until 31 March 2012. However those post 12 Dec installs would fall to the new rate of 21p/kWh(or 16.8p/kWh for Rent a Roof) from 01 April 2012

Installs registered prior to 13 Dec 2011 would carry on getting 43.3p with a new inflation adjusted price on 01 April 2012.

The position now is unknown.

Minor correction - the reduction will apply to installs with eligibility dates ON or after the 12 December 2011.

Martyn1981

jamesd wrote: »

Got a source for those numbers?

The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority expects to spend a total of 46 to 58 billion (page 25), of which a large proportion is being spent on cleaning up things related to nuclear weapons production, not nuclear power, and to cleaning up things related to Sellafield (32 billion) and its commercial fuel reprocessing business, which handles far more fuel than the UK's own nuclear power reactors use.

The relevant number here is cost per kWh of power delivered to consumers, including only the costs of power generation and supply. Nuclear is delivering far more power so it's pretty clear why it'd have a higher cost per consumer.

James - source as requested HM Treasury;

http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/hc1012/hc16/1601/1601.pdf

3.59 The provision of £56.7 billion for nuclear decommissioning included the cost of dealing with
radioactive waste, nuclear fuels and materials, capital facilities, redundant facilities and contaminated
materials. The provision and recoverable balances were expressed at current price levels to take account
of the time value of money for the very long timescales over which work will be carried out, currently
expected to be over 100 years. The ultimate liability will vary as a result of the subsequent information
and events, and may result in significant changes to the overall costs of decommissioning.

Please note, this isn't the cost of subsidising nuclear power generation, this is 'only' the cost of cleaning up afterwards.

It's unlikely that PV will ever reach the scale of nuclear in Britain, it may, but I have my doubts. However my numbers were the cost of birthing PV, not ongoing subsidies if PV reaches financial viability. Something which I believe it has just done for 20kWp+ commercial installs, but only for optimal conditions. We'd need another 20% reduction in panel prices for this to become more viable across more of the UK and less optimal installations.

Mart.

grahamc2003

Martyn1981 wrote: »

It's unlikely that PV will ever reach the scale of nuclear in Britain, Mart.

That's very astute of you.

No doubt you also think it's unlikely that there'll ever be a Muslim Pope.

Just to flesh out your thoughts, could you tell the board how much solar energy and Nuclear energy was generated in 2011?