Solar PV Feed In Tariffs - Good or Bad?

jamesingram

From silcon ingots grown in Oxfordshire ? it's a global market places

I'd agree Uk FITs has done little to bring down global panel prices,
but it's brought down UK install prices without a doubt.

albyota

The price of panels reduced, due to the amount of panels being shipped to the UK, to start with there was a couple of containers full on a ship full of mixed merchandise, nearer to the end of last year there was several dedicated ships full of containers with panels, reducing shipment costs, and electrical wholesalers and the like setting up warehouse storage facilities and distribution arms set up all over the UK.

The installation costs were high to start with due to gearing up with training, MCS inspection / office audit / certification, insurances, REAL membership, stationery, brochures, advertising, google adwords, vans, cars, tools, software, hardware, office staff, surveyors, company overheads, wages etc. sourcing / getting best prices for, inverters, rails, brackets, fixings, cable, isolators, meters etc. finding suitable scaffolders / roofers to 'learn' new skills.... and just when the costs were probably as low as they could get........

don0301

it's the export tariff part of the FiT thats wrong

i produced 18.7 kWh today, no way i used anywhere near all of it

yet i only get paid 50% of 3.1p per unit!

meanwhile the energy company passes it onto my neighbour at 10-14p!

that's £300-400 a year of my money!

jamesingram

Don ,
Ok , how about we stop your 43.3p generation subsidy and give you the 12p ish for what you export
Does that sound fair ?

don0301

nooooooooooooo!

Martyn1981

jamesingram wrote: »

Don ,
Ok , how about we stop your 43.3p generation subsidy and give you the 12p ish for what you export
Does that sound fair ?

Quick Don hide, he's after your FITs!

Prices now are getting near the point that net metering could work, with no subsidy (well ignoring the subsidy the company would be 'swallowing' to administer it).

Not good £350 / £8,000 = 4.4% less inverters, lost interest etc, but getting a little closer each day as prices of PV come down, and leccy prices go up.

Mart.

Martyn1981

Doubt it will change much regarding PV, FITs or much else, but looks like Huhne is on his last legs now.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/blog/2012/feb/03/chris-huhne-speeding-penalty-energy-secretary-live-updates?CMP=NECNETTXT8187

Who's next?

Mart.

grahamc2003

I wonder if Huhne's charge of perverting the course of justice to do with his speeding or introducing fits?

jamesingram

Perhaps it's for just general all round perverting ?

zeupater

Cardew wrote: »

... Although I appreciate the subject grates a little with you, a correction. Britain doesn’t ‘manufacture’ any solar panels but ‘assembles’ imported Far East technology for a Japanese firm who built a facility in Wrexham with the aid of regional grants.

Hi

I wish we could actually get past this point .... Sharp 'manufacture' panels in the UK, the plant is an assembly plant, but assembly plants are manufacturing plants. Gone are the days when iron-ore enters through 'Goods inwards' and finished vehicles drive through the despatch doors as was the case in Dagenham in the middle of last century ... components are now sourced from plants across the globe to final assembly plants in almost every consumer goods industry. We have had this very discussion before and it seems that the point that by weight, added value, labour content or any other likely measure which could be applied, the proportion of the ex-works price of panels leaving the Wrexham plant would be heavily weighted towards being a UK product, and once more, that proportion is growing due to the main commodity, glass (Pilkington St Helens ?) not reducing in price.

Seemingly, having a political view that all forms of subsidy are bad, you would simply be content if Sharp closed it's UK plant and relocated overseas, a very strange position for anyone with a social conscience to formulate .... surely you have access to information to help support this viewpoint ?, this would necessarily include analysis of what the level of regional grant was compared to the benefit to the regional economy, the national tax-take, previous unemployment & social costs, the balance of trade ... etc, etc .... this is exactly what grant scemes do ....

HTH
Z