Solar Panels fitted - pre-payment meter problems

GamerInfo

Due to a grant, my housing association are running a pilot scheme and installed solar panels to our property just over a week ago. Since the installation we've noticed a big increase in the amount of electricity we are putting in to our pre-payment meter - our normal weekly electricity top-up is around £25-£30, our property has storage heaters and water heater that heat up during the night (economy 7) - we are an electricity only property.

Since Friday evening we've topped up £35 in our meter and tomorrow evening we will need more.

We contacted the contractors who installed the solar panels and explained our situation, we were told that solar panels and some pre-payment meters are incompatible - we were advised to turn off the solar panels and contact our electricity provider (british gas). When we spoke to british gas they said that all pre-payment meters are incompatible with solar panels and that are only option would be to switch to a credit meter - we failed the credit check for this and so was told our only option was to permanently switch off the solar panels.

After speaking with other neighbours who've had the panels fitted, they too are on pre-payment meters and are also with british gas - according to them their panels are working perfectly and they've had no problems.

A further phonecall with british gas and they have told me that my meter is set to a standard rate - when asked why im not on economy 7, they didn't have any answers!!!!

So how can i get a credit meter fitted?
Can solar panels be run alongside economy 7 rates (as there is no way to manually set our storage heaters and water heater turn on/off timings)?

Any help would be greatly appreciated

undaunted

Never heard of that before, so curious I googled it & found Chevin Housing association, twin valley homes & Ipswich council all have schemes that state it is possible to run solar panels with pre payment meters.

http://www.chevinha.co.uk/files/Chevin_Photo_Voltaic_Panel_Info_sheet.pdf

http://www.twinvalleyhomes.com/files/ART484_SolarPV%20Infopack%20v9.pdf

http://www.chevinha.co.uk/files/Chevin_Photo_Voltaic_Panel_Info_sheet.pdf