Fourth Anniversary Results

EricMears

Our SME Inverter was initialised at 13:45hrs on 16/08/2011
TGM read Zero at that point

Current Total Yield (according to Sunny Explorer) 14.701 MWh
TGM reading 14719kWh

(As an aside, that means the Inverter is under-reading by 0.12% wrt TGM)

System cost £12500
FIT payments collected (to end June) £6733.41
Earnt since last claim £261.40
Total earnings £6994.81
(I'm not attempting to calculate benefits from own generation used)

Earnings as % inst cost 56%
Crude APR 14%


I've also taken opportunity to compare my results with the PVGIS Climate-SAF forecast


Forecast 3517 kWh/year
My Average 3680 kWh/year
or 4.6% above PVGIS

Cardew

Interesting figures.


So by my calculations you have been paid approx. 47.5p for every kWh you have generated, and you need not have exported a single kWh.


That subsidy has been paid for by a levy on all electricity customer's bills.


A perfect illustration of the stupidity of the solar PV FIT system.


P.S.
As has been said many times, there is obviously no criticism of individuals taking advantage of a crazy system.

EricMears

Quite so.

But I'm still jealous of the nuclear generators !

Cardew

EricMears wrote: »

But I'm still jealous of the nuclear generators !

Presumably because they can generate 24/7?;)

EricMears

Cardew wrote: »

Presumably because they can generate 24/7?;)

No, I was thinking more of the level of subsidies they get.

Sterlingtimes

Cardew wrote: »

That subsidy has been paid for by a levy on all electricity customer's bills.

A perfect illustration of the stupidity of the solar PV FIT system.

I appreciate that the article cited below may not be authoritative but it provides a break down of energy bills.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jul/21/can-uks-solar-industry-survive-without-subsidies

The average UK energy bill is £1,338 per year and the levy per household on feed-in-tariffs per year is £10.

I am not clear as to whether the £10 per year is gross or net of the energy produced at a household level but the amount is not huge.

In the size of things, £10 is not a huge sum of money. Indeed, the ideal would be that solar (including other methods of household generation) produce a cash positive investment decision without the subsidy.

If the £10 levy were removed and households were paid only for their export at a commercial rate, would your objection to solar disappear? Is it just the £10 that gripes you?

Cardew

My objections to the solar FIT scheme have been well rehearsed in many posts - in this context the stupid subsidies paid for sub-4kWh systems on private houses.

I won't go through them in detail for fear of Martyn acting as the mouthpiece of the solar industry again.

Billpayer support for renewable energy has long been a political bugbear of the Tories. In 2013, Prime minister David Cameron called environmental policies that increased household bills “green crap”.
Last week, a source at the Department for Energy and Climate Change (Decc) told the Telegraph: “[Energy secretary Amber Rudd] is determined to get a grip of these out-of-control subsidies and make sure that hardworking billpayers are getting a fair deal.” Decc did not respond to a request to clarify or confirm the comments.




Recent research by the Policy Exchange thinktank found the contribution of FiTs and the renewable obligation (RO) amounted to £10 and £38 respectively. Jim Watson, the director of the UK Energy Research Centre said the contribution of solar to the RO was “relatively small” whereas the industry benefits from the vast majority of FiTs.

The part in bold sums it up well.


In answer to your question, yes if solar PV systems just attracted a sensible payment for exported kWhs(with no FIT) my objections would be removed.

Martyn1981

Sterlingtimes wrote: »

In the size of things, £10 is not a huge sum of money.

Yes, you're right, but I'm more interested in comparing the actual subsidy levels, particularly against nuclear, since it's the nuclear fan-boys that seem most upset by renewables and PV support, and particularly the distribution of subsidies to households, rather than to a few giant corportaions.

Nuclear has already enjoyed 50 years of subsidy support, and will get another 10 years now as the current UK fleet slowly retires. Then in 2025 (perhaps?) we'll get 3.2GW of 'new nuclear'. The subsidy will be £92.50/MWh, plus inflation during build out (due to the long time needed), so expect it to cost around £120/MWh when it starts, then 35 years of subsidy.

Compare that to large scale PV, which will get £80/MWh in 2016/17 (for 15 years). And costs are still falling.

Next consider domestic PV, which currently gets support of 15.35p/kWh (12.92p FiT and 2.43p export). This compares to the 9.25p/kWh (£92.5/MWh) for nuclear, as that comprises two elements, the price paid for the leccy, plus a subsidy top up.

Assuming a 2.5% inflation rate, the nuclear strike price will rise to about £120/MWh in 2025.

Assuming the minimum degression on domestic PV of 3.5% every 9 months, the FiT rate should drop to 7.8p/kWh in 2025, plus the export element (also at 2.5% inflation) of 3.1p, giving a total support level of 10.9p/kWh (£109/MWh).

Obviously the subsidy methods are not directly comparable, and predictable 24/7 generation has added value, but it's still fun to think that after 15 years of support domestic scale PV, could be cheaper than massive scale nuclear power that has enjoyed 60 years of support. And the added bonus that the subsidy element will be distributed to 1m+ UK households, rather than a few international investors.

Mart.

Cardew

So because you consider that Nuclear generation attracts subsidies, your logic is that private house owners with tiny systems were justified in being given stupid subsidies for solar PV?


At least Nuclear generates 24/7 in all weathers and the electricity it generates is exported to the grid.

legoman62

Cardew wrote: »

At least Nuclear generates 24/7 in all weathers and the electricity it generates is exported to the grid.

Unless you live near Fukushima:eek:

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/08/17/uk-japan-nuclear-tepco-legal-idUKKCN0QL0RX20150817

zeupater

Cardew wrote: »

My objections to the solar FIT scheme have been well rehearsed in many posts ....

.... if solar PV systems just attracted a sensible payment for exported kWhs(with no FIT) my objections would be removed.

Hi

Must say though, the FiT scheme has worked far beyond expectations as evidenced by the huge reductions in the FiT tariff. Beyond that, taking the reductions in renewables support over the last couple of years, it's possible that the level of subsidy per unit energy generation for renewables are already below that of nuclear with the total subsidy comparison calculated to be (Energy Subsidy Report - http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmselect/cmenvaud/61/61.pdf ) ... "Nuclear: at least £33 per MWh" vs "Renewables: £50 per MWh" (P26) as at Nov'13 ....

It would certainly be interesting to see the same report using current data (that's if you believe in the levels of investigatory competence of parliamentary committees) ...

HTH
Z