On-grid domestic battery storage

thevilla

I was hoping there'd be some news on vat for retrofit from last week's 'budget that isn't a budget '.  Nothing as far as I know 😕

zeupater

thevilla said:

I was hoping there'd be some news on vat for retrofit from last week's 'budget that isn't a budget '.  Nothing as far as I know 😕

Hi

Economically, that makes perfect sense .... I really don't follow the need for the introduction of schemes to spend taxpayer money up front in order to encourage the growth of whatever the political 'current thing' pet project is when it can be done for effectively £zero up front and achieve the same goal faster ...

Considering the current size of the domestic battery sector the total VAT take must be relatively closer to £zero than any meaningful sum therefore the anticipated 'risk' to the government's revenue stream for removing VAT on ESS is low, so what's the issue? .... 

Simply stimulating the uptake of ESS through the initial removal of VAT would encourage consumers to move towards a more balanced energy environment far more readily than bunging £billions into pretty useless schemes such as smart-meters ... our home is currently importing 330W and I'm stating that without reference to a smart-meter that we're continually told we need to do so in order to raise the profile of personal energy usage & therefore save the planet (subtext - costing £500+ up front of everyone's money which needs to be replaced on a regular basis!) .... when the sector has successfully grown to an agreed threshold, the VAT rate for the ESS could even be raised to the lower (5%) rate which is applied to domestic energy without any real administrational fuss, just advise it's happening beforehand and press a button on the appropriate day, so no worries of dismissing armies of government or related agency employees: there you go, a low cost (/almost no cost), self funding solution towards the net zero goal with the added benefit of eventually creating a 5% VAT revenue stream to pay the salaries of all of those well paid civil servants that haven't got a clue on how strategic thinking works .... now, don't even get me started on how to scope/build subsidy schemes which would encourage overall installed costs to fall dramatically & thus accelerate uptake!!

Here end-eth today's sermonic rant on inept governance ....    - Z     

Netexporter

More distributed storage would mean less would be needed to be spent on grid reinforcement. Make better use of the 50% of grid capacity that is unused at night and reduce daytime demand. Win-win.

zeupater

Netexporter said:

More distributed storage would mean less would be needed to be spent on grid reinforcement. Make better use of the 50% of grid capacity that is unused at night and reduce daytime demand. Win-win.

Exactly !!!!

orrery

zeupater said:

Netexporter said:

More distributed storage would mean less would be needed to be spent on grid reinforcement. Make better use of the 50% of grid capacity that is unused at night and reduce daytime demand. Win-win.

Exactly !!!!

Err, Euston, we have a problem ...

This, with solar PV, is all generation "behind the meter". Why do you think that FIT schemes were cut so dramatically (effectively closing hundreds of small PV companies) by the Tories? Because they were lobbied by energy companies to stop these schemes, where there is no income for the energy suppliers. They argued that it was fine for them to build big solar PV and wind schemes, where the power could be metered and paid for, but they couldn't cope with providing emergency 'last resort' generation for little or no ongoing payment.

Netexporter

orrery said:

zeupater said:

Netexporter said:

More distributed storage would mean less would be needed to be spent on grid reinforcement. Make better use of the 50% of grid capacity that is unused at night and reduce daytime demand. Win-win.

Exactly !!!!

Err, Euston, we have a problem ...

This, with solar PV, is all generation "behind the meter". Why do you think that FIT schemes were cut so dramatically (effectively closing hundreds of small PV companies) by the Tories? Because they were lobbied by energy companies to stop these schemes, where there is no income for the energy suppliers. They argued that it was fine for them to build big solar PV and wind schemes, where the power could be metered and paid for, but they couldn't cope with providing emergency 'last resort' generation for little or no ongoing payment.

[citation required]

The FIT scheme was designed to pump-prime the solar market, which was virtually non-existent at the time. The other thing that was virtually non-existent were smart meters. Once smart meters were widely available then the SEGs schemes became possible, so that actual exports could be reimbursed, rather than notional deemed exports.

orrery

Netexporter said:

The FIT scheme was designed to pump-prime the solar market, which was virtually non-existent at the time. The other thing that was virtually non-existent were smart meters. Once smart meters were widely available then the SEGs schemes became possible, so that actual exports could be reimbursed, rather than notional deemed exports.

The FIT scheme was cut catastrophically and basically halted PV installs at the the time, with companies going bust all over the place. That wasn't priming the pumps.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jun/05/home-solar-panel-installations-fall-by-94-as-subsidies-cut

This is the same issue as the abandoning of the net-zero requirement for new homes which was in place to start about 2017 and was canned. This was also due to government lobbying by the industry -  which, like any lobbying isn't on the public record, but has been admitted since.

zeupater

orrery said:

Netexporter said:

The FIT scheme was designed to pump-prime the solar market, which was virtually non-existent at the time. The other thing that was virtually non-existent were smart meters. Once smart meters were widely available then the SEGs schemes became possible, so that actual exports could be reimbursed, rather than notional deemed exports.

The FIT scheme was cut catastrophically and basically halted PV installs at the the time, with companies going bust all over the place. That wasn't priming the pumps.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jun/05/home-solar-panel-installations-fall-by-94-as-subsidies-cut

This is the same issue as the abandoning of the net-zero requirement for new homes which was in place to start about 2017 and was canned. This was also due to government lobbying by the industry -  which, like any lobbying isn't on the public record, but has been admitted since.

Hi

Maybe the scheme was cut prematurely, but it was always going to be cut ... it'd be a little immature to have been aware of the reasoning behind the FiT scheme and continue to assume that it would be either permanent or a long-term entity ... yes it was reduced & then cut, yet I still see new PV installations ... so what's the point being made???

Effectively, the UK FiT scheme was operated alongside similar offerings across much of the world towards a goal of creating an environment where demand stimulation created a manufacturing sector with appropriate economies of scale to force competition led cost and price reductions ... as such the scheme must be considered as being pretty successful ... when we first looked at a system (~2009/2010) typical prices for a 4kWp system were around £22k, this being more related to sector margin aspirations than material/wholesale costs, even in an immature supply chain, however, competition in an expanding market led to considerable reductions by early 2011 when many became aware of the support scheme and this trend continued as global manufacturing ramped up .... by the time when the FiT scheme was wound up typical installations were less than a quarter of the cost used in the original FiT scheme justification ... job done, time for market conditions in what is effectively a consumer sector to normalise .... 

Anyway, it's not a case of 'It's the nasty Tories wot dun it' as any government would have had the same economic conditions before them and be confronted by the same truth that the scheme had achieved it's original goals, evidenced by installed prices having effectively started to bottom-out .... whether red, blue or yellow politics are involved, the decision process & outcome would have been the same, no matter what the colours not in power say when they're not in power .... always be wary of the words used by a politician, but be especially sceptical of the words used by those not in power!

Where I do tend to agree with your position is that the energy industry aren't too happy with having new competition which erodes their various revenue streams ... there are plenty of players that shout 'Green', 'Climate Change' & 'Net Zero' from the rooftops as loud as possible as long as there's a return for themselves, but when it comes down to something which can achieve the same goals without resorting to their effective monopolies on what has, until recently, been vastly capital intensive solutions of course they'll reveal their true colours, but then again, everyone would be exposed to their true level of hypocrisy .... it's effectively now the same for ESS as it once was for PV, it's just that unlike PV, ESS solutions are yet to receive a coordinated form of stimulation to drive both manufacturing economies of scale and, typical for the UK, more realistic installer margin aspirations ....

HTH - Z 

   

paul991

yes the FIT scheme was always  going to end but it was the speed of the ending which meant many of the companies good and bad could not survive. Which meant a lot of  good people  left the trade    

Netexporter

The usual Tory pandering to the RWNJ community.