Okofen pellet heating

captainhindsight_2

In the whole supply chain for eligibility for any grant/incentive scheme for renewable heating easily adds about £2k to any renewable project install costs.

zeupater

captainhindsight wrote: »

In the whole supply chain for eligibility for any grant/incentive scheme for renewable heating easily adds about £2k to any renewable project install costs.

Hi

Maybe there's additional accreditation and registration costs today that weren't applicable then, but I seriously doubt that it "easily adds about £2k to any renewable project install costs" .... if that was the case the incentive scheme costs (MCS etc) alone on a 4kWp pv system would make up around 40% of the installed price, whereas, for a RHI/MCS registered solar thermal it's probably be closer to 60%, both of which, being unreasonably large proportions seem to dispute the figure ...

As with anything else in business, if you decide to invest in accreditation or capital assets without an intent to be proactive & chase the necessary volumes to dilute the effect on the unit-cost to the customer then you'll simply be uncompetitive or continue to support market stagnation ...

HTH
Z

captainhindsight_2

zeupater wrote: »

Hi

Maybe there's additional accreditation and registration costs today that weren't applicable then, but I seriously doubt that it "easily adds about £2k to any renewable project install costs" .... if that was the case the incentive scheme costs (MCS etc) alone on a 4kWp pv system would make up around 40% of the installed price, whereas, for a RHI/MCS registered solar thermal it's probably be closer to 60%, both of which, being unreasonably large proportions seem to dispute the figure ...

As with anything else in business, if you decide to invest in accreditation or capital assets without an intent to be proactive & chase the necessary volumes to dilute the effect on the unit-cost to the customer then you'll simply be uncompetitive or continue to support market stagnation ...

HTH
Z

Renewables is a fairly new market in the UK and the local colleges don't teach soon to be plumbers anything about biomass, heat pumps or solar thermal. They just teach combi swaps. So this puts the emphasis on the private sector and private companies to provide training which is expensive when you have over 20 tradesmen all of which have to go on training programs before they can do one days work.

In addition to this, because the market has been riddled with wanna be plumbers, joe blog gas engineers having ago and diyers who have carried out bad installs and almost ruined the market many manufactures will not sell their product unless you go on their training program. Again more expense in wages and some charge others dont.

Now all companies must be certified with RECC, MCS, HETAS, Gas Safe and OFtec as a minimum so work can be carried out on old gas or oil systems and upgraded to biomass or heat pumps. Each one of these certifications come with their own costs.

Part of all the above come a QMS, which costs money and must be followed religiously to maintain certification.

This brings about 0.5-1 days worth of admin to every installation.

Long Winded commissioning procedures required by the above also add about 0.5-1 days worth of labour depending on the technology.

Then there's the additional or third party labour required by the above, for example MCS and PAS2030 require a fully qualified electrician to fit a wireless thermostat.

Then there is ongoing audit fees, certification costs, update training and so on. The list can go on and on.

So as I have demonstrated, the amount extra work and expense that has to be carried out easily adds about £1.5-£2k to an average installation that is eligible for government incentives.

So no companies don't just put their prices up to match the incentives, the cost of install goes up with the incentives to offer additional consumer protection and accountability some of which I agree with and some I don't but it is what it is.

zeupater

captainhindsight wrote: »

Renewables is a fairly new market in the UK and the local colleges don't teach soon to be plumbers anything about biomass, heat pumps or solar thermal. They just teach combi swaps. So this puts the emphasis on the private sector and private companies to provide training which is expensive when you have over 20 tradesmen all of which have to go on training programs before they can do one days work.

In addition to this, because the market has been riddled with wanna be plumbers, joe blog gas engineers having ago and diyers who have carried out bad installs and almost ruined the market many manufactures will not sell their product unless you go on their training program. Again more expense in wages and some charge others dont.

Now all companies must be certified with RECC, MCS, HETAS, Gas Safe and OFtec as a minimum so work can be carried out on old gas or oil systems and upgraded to biomass or heat pumps. Each one of these certifications come with their own costs.

Part of all the above come a QMS, which costs money and must be followed religiously to maintain certification.

This brings about 0.5-1 days worth of admin to every installation.

Long Winded commissioning procedures required by the above also add about 0.5-1 days worth of labour depending on the technology.

Then there's the additional or third party labour required by the above, for example MCS and PAS2030 require a fully qualified electrician to fit a wireless thermostat.

Then there is ongoing audit fees, certification costs, update training and so on. The list can go on and on.

So as I have demonstrated, the amount extra work and expense that has to be carried out easily adds about £1.5-£2k to an average installation that is eligible for government incentives.

So no companies don't just put their prices up to match the incentives, the cost of install goes up with the incentives to offer additional consumer protection and accountability some of which I agree with and some I don't but it is what it is.

Hi

So, realistically, what you're saying is that on a £2k gas boiler replacement there's no materials or labour cost, just administration, registration, and certified body membership ? .... what about a £3k RHI solar thermal installation - administration, registration, and certified body membership is still £2k ? .... then there's the £4.5k MCS solar pv install - still £2k ?

Look, I know what you're saying ... we had exactly the same arguments from installers to justify high margins on pv 5 or 6 years ago .... the issue is volume related ... if your scheme buy-in costs for training and accreditation are ~£40k (I think that's what was claimed for MCS pv at the time) and you only expect to install 20 units the on-cost is £2k/install .... when the initial cost is recovered through amortisation, the on-going cost falls substantially. The problem faced is the volume over which the initial costs are amortised ... if you expect it to be (say) £40k over 20 units, of course it adds £2k, but the likelihood of selling 20 if inflated by £2k/unit falls rapidly if a competitor decides to chase the volume and spreads their costs over 100, 200 or 1000 in which case on a £10k job they could undercut your price by up to 20% and still maintain margins even if volume related economies don't kick-in elsewhere ....

HTH
Z

captainhindsight_2

do you not understand the term average?

Heres a link which might help

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Average

cheapest thing under a grant scheme I have been involved in would be loft insulation about £500 all the way up to an AD plant in the millions with most grant projects being in the £10,000-£30,000 range for typical renewable heating projects and solid wall insulation projects.

zeupater

captainhindsight wrote: »

do you not understand the term average?

Heres a link which might help

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Average

cheapest thing under a grant scheme I have been involved in would be loft insulation about £500 all the way up to an AD plant in the millions with most grant projects being in the £10,000-£30,000 range for typical renewable heating projects and solid wall insulation projects.

Hi

What's 'average' got to do with the previous post ? .... we're talking domestic boiler sized installations here which are currently priced at a level similar to that of pv around 5 years ago .... at that time there were discussions on these boards with industry insiders as to why UK pv installed costs were seriously higher than place like Germany (eg - https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/42164720#Comment_42164720) and also ones with insiders justifying high installation costs on accreditation, affiliation, training, membership, administration and insurance grounds (eg - https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/36853460#Comment_36853460 ) ... the only observation to be made is that with hindsight, the industry positions as posed at the time have simply not stood up to the test of time, evidenced by fully installed system now costing a fraction of what they did then (1/3?) .... the installers who didn't realise that they were wrong have either changed their minds or simply pulled out of the market due to lack of sales/customers - it's simple Darwinian evolution through selection, with the customer making the decisions which lead to business survival ... I see no reason to not expect that what happened to the pv sector due to the introduction of FiT wouldn't happen to the biomass sector with RHI ....

HTH
Z

captainhindsight_2

zeupater wrote: »

Hi

What's 'average' got to do with the previous post ? .... we're talking domestic boiler sized installations here which are currently priced at a level similar to that of pv around 5 years ago .... at that time there were discussions on these boards with industry insiders as to why UK pv installed costs were seriously higher than place like Germany (eg - https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/42164720#Comment_42164720) and also ones with insiders justifying high installation costs on accreditation, affiliation, training, membership, administration and insurance grounds (eg - https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/36853460#Comment_36853460 ) ... the only observation to be made is that with hindsight, the industry positions as posed at the time have simply not stood up to the test of time, evidenced by fully installed system now costing a fraction of what they did then (1/3?) .... the installers who didn't realise that they were wrong have either changed their minds or simply pulled out of the market due to lack of sales/customers - it's simple Darwinian evolution through selection, with the customer making the decisions which lead to business survival ... I see no reason to not expect that what happened to the pv sector due to the introduction of FiT wouldn't happen to the biomass sector with RHI ....

HTH
Z

Average has everything to do with it.

I said in a previous post that that additional work required for a company to offer an installation under any government funded grant/incentive scheme easily adds £1.5-2k on to any average install. At that time we were talking about biomass boilers but this principle applied to any installation whether it is a gas boiler under the hhcro scheme or a 2.5mw ad plant

zeupater

captainhindsight wrote: »

Average has everything to do with it.

I said in a previous post that that additional work required for a company to offer an installation under any government funded grant/incentive scheme easily adds £1.5-2k on to any average install. At that time we were talking about biomass boilers but this principle applied to any installation whether it is a gas boiler under the hhcro scheme or a 2.5mw ad plant

... Exactly what pv installers were saying 5/6 years ago to justify £15000-£20000 prices under the MCS/FiT despite a number of us continually referencing published international spot pricing for panels etc. ... of course, according to installer posts at the time, the German installers (with years of experience) were all going to go bust, but the Brit's (being new to the technology) knew better and prices would stay high (if they had anything to do with it) and the golden goose would continue to lay golden eggs ..... the system's still the same now, and neither the MCS or RHI "incentive scheme easily adds £1.5-2k on to any average install", else the prices wouldn't be what they are .... Comparing biomass boilers to pv isn't anything other than to illustrate that current prices (your £14000 installed including autofeed) are similar to where pv was a few years ago, so we're not talking major plant installations which could hugely influence any average, just some small biomass boiler installations where a couple of thousand pounds additional cost just for a little extra administration simply doesn't add up as evidenced by the costs of comparable installations (solar pv & thermal) which are administered under the same, or very similar, schemes (MCS/RHI), assessment requirements (GDAR/EPC), installation certification etc ...

HTH
Z

rrtt

captainhindsight wrote: »

Technology has moved on massively since then, even in the last 12 months biomass boilers in the UK have moved on with pretty much every boiler now being auto cleaning, their are now 100s of installers around the UK and 1000s of trained engineers where as when this article was written there would have been very few. Some of the biggest names in the biomass industry didn't even exist when this article was written. Your statement just demonstrates how little you know about the industry.

I agree with CaptainHindsight here; I had a Windhager Biowin XL 350-600 installed/commissioned just over a year ago; it's worked very well with no problems in either heating or hot water - until the installer gave it a first annual service! whereupon I was up most of the night trying to ascertain why I had no hot water ... turned out he'd forgotten to flick a small switch on the electrical unit back (not visible). Not the first time he's been inept and followed up by being incredibly rude, as observed by other tradespeople on site - avoid The Heating Company, Harrogate area.

Doesn't need cleaning more than once every 3 months, though I'm sorry to have just missed out on the auto-clean type. Incredibly expensive to buy, and payback time will be nearly double what installer said owing to reduction in oil prices (what I'm saving), him excluding maintenance and fuel delivery costs. Blown fuel delivery is £150 a load irrespective of quantity for a community delivery (can't pick date) and at least £200 for an individually specified date. Before buying, ensure you have suitable access for blown delivery!

Surprisingly, pellet costs haven't gone up that much, still in the region of £200/tonne. What makes it pay is the RHI; because there's an annexe to the house, we get the higher commercial rate for 2 properties. That, plus not having mains gas in the area, makes it just about even-stevens in terms of cost-effectiveness compared with oil. And, of course, you have the pleasure of knowing you're being kinder to the planet than if using oil.

The main pain as far as I'm concerned is the bureaucracy of getting accredited by Ofgem to receive RHI payments, and keeping up to date with their regs. and requirements. DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE this; it's complex, strict & took me best part of 100 hours - although part of that was online problems with their software, which by their own admission was rubbish at the time (I believe they've updated it now). But you can only do the scheme online, and this won't suit everyone. Just proving my ID took numerous hours, they seem to start from the basis that everyone must be out to defraud them, so you'll find yourself answering the most ridiculous questions (eg - "is your biomass boiler in an enclosed building?" !!).