Panels fitted this week

thenudeone

You should have been supplied with an MCS certificate with a blue MCS "heart" logo on it, which contains full details of the installer, their MCS number, full details of the equipment, the meter serial number etc. You can't claim FIT without that certificate.

You can choose whoever you like to administer your FIT payments. Personally I prefer to go with a 100% renewables company such as Good Energy rather than a big 6 utility who are only administering it because they are forced to.

Winter_Phoenix

thenudeone wrote: »

You can choose whoever you like to administer your FIT payments. Personally I prefer to go with a 100% renewables company such as Good Energy rather than a big 6 utility who are only administering it because they are forced to.

You make a very good point here. However, I decided to do the opposite and sign up with EDF - I saw it as doing my bit to increase the amount of renewable energy EDF had available to them!

thenudeone

Winter_Phoenix wrote: »

You make a very good point here. However, I decided to do the opposite and sign up with EDF - I saw it as doing my bit to increase the amount of renewable energy EDF had available to them!

I appreciate the intention but I'm not sure it would have the required effect.

My understanding is as follows:

The big companies are forced to use a certain percentage of renewables, whether anyone signs up for their renewable tariffs or not, or whether anyone signs up to supply solar (or wind) power by registering for F.I.T. with them, or not.

Buying a renewable tariff with them won't increase the amount of renewable energy produced unless they have already signed up green consumers using more renewable energy than the statutory minimum they are forced to buy anyway (which is very unlikely).

And if no-one uses the big companies for FIT, they would be forced to make their own investments in renewables (or increase the price they pay, to encourage others to invest) in order to comply; thus increasing the total amount of renewable energy produced.

However, I'm not an expert in this area. The above is a summary of my understanding from various sources.
We are in anger of getting off-topic, but perhaps it's something to investigate further?

EricMears

thenudeone wrote: »

You can choose whoever you like to administer your FIT payments. Personally I prefer to go with a 100% renewables company such as Good Energy rather than a big 6 utility who are only administering it because they are forced to.

I was quite impressed with the logic when 'thenudeone' (or possibly someone else ?) mentioned 'Good Energy' previously.

However, a look at their website showed that they were likely to be even slower in making FIT payments than Scottish Power so I decided to stick with SP.

thenudeone

The big utility companies have bucketloads of cash (as we all know) and can therefore afford to pay the FIT early if they choose.

Good Energy is much much smaller has to wait until it receives the funds (from Ofgem?) before it has the cash to pay its generators.

penrhyn

Indeed, these bucket loads of cash are collected from the poor punters who do not have solar PV panels. The sooner FIT payments are scrapped the better.

[Deleted User]

I would have thought the FITs levy at £7 was excellent value.

Cheaper than fags and a bottle of plonk

jimjames

penrhyn wrote: »

Indeed, these bucket loads of cash are collected from the poor punters who do not have solar PV panels. The sooner FIT payments are scrapped the better.

Well it shouldn't be for another 25 years if the agreement is to be believed

penrhyn

Sadly that's true, good news is that as the fit payments reduce so do the price of panels.

EricMears

penrhyn wrote: »

. . .as the fit payments reduce so do the price of panels.

It's actually the other way round !

As the scheme achieves its objective of increasing panel production and hence reducing their cost the need for support payments to incentivise them is reduced.