Solar PV Feed In Tariffs - Good or Bad?

jamesingram

How about looking at the cost of FITs to the consumer in these terms.
FITs cost / kWh supplied to electric consumers (all)

So if it's agreed FITs budget for 2011-15 is currently £1064m
1064/5 = £213m/year
from DUKES. total UK generation for 2010-11 (use this as an estimate)
361,112 GWh

cancelling zeros and converting to kWh
213/361,112 = £0.00059 /kWh
please check my maths , I'm rusty

average 3000kWh usage pa for domestic customers ?
£1.77 pa additional cost for FITs

average 5000kWh pa usage = £ 2.95
this would be for all FITs installs not just PV.

statistics can take you anywhere you like depending on your biase and the source data you choose to use.
Unless we have real info. on where the suppliers choose to recover there cost of FITs then it's just speculation.

SallyKing

don0301 wrote: »

867m/22539000/4

£867m for 11-12 to 2014-15

22539000 households

over 4 years

= £9.62 per household per year?

No, less than that becuase you havn't included industry and business who also pick up the tab.

Try about £4.50 per household per year.

EDIT - ok, just finished catching up and reading the other posts, see this has already been discussed in previous posts.

To be honest, does it matter if its £2 a year or £10 a year? Either way its a trivial amount of money.

My car insurance has gone up by way more than that in year, the additional cost going towards subsidising dodgy whiplash claims.

Which is a more worthy cause?

Cardew

jamesingram wrote: »

Yes, hypothetically , but "They take this money from their working capital and settle any cross-funding amongst themselves via the FiTs levelisation process administered by OFGEM. "
covers your point doesn't it ?

No, it doesn't cover my point which I obviously have not made clear. The above simply describes the process.

It was this part of your post to which I was referring:

There is nothing in the FiTs legislation that requires them to recover these costs from their electricity customers - via a specific levy or anything else.

In the hypothetical case(where E.ON paid out all the FIT money) why would that company and its customers bear the whole burden while others pay nothing?

FIT is just an expense that has to be absorbed by the companies and the whole point of the levelisation fund is to ensure companies contribute pro-rata.

Martyn1981

Sally, well done for having the guts to call it trivial. You are of course right, but some are desperate to blow it out of all proportion.

My gas bill has doubled, proportionately in the last 5 years from £250 to £400 (despite 20% reduction in consumption from energy saving expenditure).

The total cost of PV fits over the 25 years is generally quoted in today's money at about £8bn.

To place that in context;
4 times widening the M1
2 times Heathrow Terminal 5
1 times the UK tax revenue from tobacco
1/3 the cost of replacing Trident
1/4 the cost of the recently proposed high speed rail link

Storm in a PV cup as far as I can see.

Mart.

jamesingram

SallyKing wrote: »

To be honest, does it matter if its £2 a year or £10 a year? Either way its a trivial amount of money.

Yes and all speculation/guess work really .

As I only use around <2000kWh/pa I like my version above

I think if you're anti PV then it's just more fuel for the fire.

Mr Monbiot did have a reasonable point (read it back at time of publishing) re. the route taken by FITs and has perhaps been proved right by the governments mismangement of the whole affair.

jamesingram

Cardew wrote: »

In the hypothetical case(where E.ON paid out all the FIT money) why would that company and its customers bear the whole burden while others pay nothing?
FIT is just an expense that has to be absorbed by the companies and the whole point of the levelisation fund is to ensure companies contribute pro-rata.

Sorry a bit confused why doesn't " settle any cross-funding amongst themselves via the FiTs levelisation process administered by OFGEM. " cover your original point ? seems it does fine.

Cardew

SallyKing wrote: »

.

To be honest, does it matter if its £2 a year or £10 a year? Either way its a trivial amount of money.


Which is a more worthy cause?

Surely the point is that 99% of the population(including the poorest in the land) are directly paying that 'trivial amount' to 1% to make a profit. That 1% being home owners who can afford £10,000 or venture capitalists funding 'Rent a Roof' companies.

Opinions vary on the merits of solar generated electricity. However surely even the proponents of solar cannot argue that reducing the subsidy will enable more electricity to be generated for the money.

jamesingram

Cardew wrote: »

FIT is just an expense that has to be absorbed by the companies and the whole point of the levelisation fund is to ensure companies contribute pro-rata.

Yes,

Also they clearly will recover from the consumer, but how and who is speculative.

Martyn1981

Cardew wrote: »

Surely the point is that 99% of the population(including the poorest in the land) are directly paying that 'trivial amount' to 1% to make a profit. That 1% being home owners who can afford £10,000 or venture capitalists funding 'Rent a Roof' companies.

Opinions vary on the merits of solar generated electricity. However surely even the proponents of solar cannot argue that reducing the subsidy will enable more electricity to be generated for the money.

But that 1% argument is a complete farce. Cheery picking at it's absolute best. Last year you could have said 0.5%, next year maybe 2%!

PV FITs could be beneficial to around 20% of the households, but why stop there,

what about FITs for other micro-generation, such as hydro, wind and bio-mass, but why stop there,

what about the Green Tariff that FITs sits in, that offers free or subsidised loft insulation, cavity wall insulation, energy bulbs, advice and guidance, but why stop there,

anyone that reduces their energy demands (gas or electric) will have a positive effect on fuel prices for everyone else through simple supply and demand economics. If 50% of car owners invested in higher efficiency / hybrid / electric cars, then I'd benefit from the reduction in demand for petrol / diesel.

Time to start looking at the big picture. Picking out 1% and using it, does you a disservice each and every time you quote it.

Mart.

jamesingram

jamesingram wrote: »

Mr Monbiot did have a reasonable point (read it back at time of publishing) re. the route taken by FITs and has perhaps been proved right by the governments mismangement of the whole affair.

Cardew , yes , 1% benefit at the cost to all .

Until the full potential of Pv is seen and also how FITs subsidy may benefit the 100% in the long term , then it's unclear.

It's not realistic to try to value the effects of a subsidy in the early stage or expect clear value for money in £ relative to the alternative/current generation model ,
R&D wouldn't exist if this was the case.
Most investment is a bit of a gamble.