Commercial Supply and Solar Panels

Cookieboo1001

Hi, I hoping someone can point us in the right direction. This is quite convoluted and I hope my frustration does not make this too jumbled. Any advice would be helpful. 
We are a SME in the Southeast. In 2017, we purchased a new premises that houses the electric meters for three other businesses. We currently buy our supply from EDF (we have no problems with them) and bill our neighbours accordingly. The neighbour to our right is brilliant and pays on time month-after-month. The neighbour to our left, never pays and has accrued so much debt we shut his meter off. Then the neighbour paid a good portion of the £20K owed and we turn their supply back on. However, we have again had to shut the power off to the neighbour on the left as they still owe us about 8K.The neighbour to our left is actually a landlord of two properties and we purchased our current premises from him.
There are several issues. The neighbour to the left is a landlord with two tenants. We bill him for the electric and then he bills his tenants in turn. One tenant insist they have paid the landlord for the electric, but he has not paid us. We are not happy to shut off their power, as our problem is not with them. However, in the current climate we cannot allow so many bills to go unpaid. The other tenant apparently is struggling and shut when the Covid-19 lockdown was first ordered.
Now the other issue we have is with Solar Panels. During conveyancing, the seller, our tenant to the left, never notified us of his existing PPA with Lightsource. So for the last 2+ years we have been purchasing solar from the tenant to the left. There are panels on our roof and his roof. The meters, however, are in our property. For over two years we have not been happy wit the mark-up he puts on the solar invoices. He is trying to charge us 14.5p when the rate he is paying is 5.5p. We have decided we cannot tolerate this any longer and effective May 1st, we will not solar from him. We also tried for years to get the PPA transferred to us, which as far we know contractually he was obligated to do.
Today we received an e-mail from Lightsource telling us we had to turn back on OUR electricity supply. We have no agreement with Lightsource, so how can the demand this? Lastly, are we not in our right to shut off the tenant to the left's electricity supply is he does not pay? We have written to our solicitor, but feel we need to find someone who is a specialist in these things and any suggestions would really help. Thanks!

JC_Derby

So could you clarify for me a number of things....
what is an SME? You state that the meters for the three businesses are within your property...are these meters that are owned by the supplier or private/sub meters, what is the metering arrangement on site.
If your neighbour sells his generated electricity to light source(as per the PPa) how is it you are paying him for the electricity?
could you also clarify who Lightsource are please as their are a couple of companies with similar names,
your last question, the answer is no. You are not allowed to turn off the electricity to your neighbour, UNLESS you are paying the bill and it is in your name. 

Clarification of those points would certainly help you get a more accurate answer.

Also why didn’t your solicitor pick up on some of these points

from the little information you have given, I think it would be wise of you to tell your neighbour that they need to contact the local DNO to request their own independent supply to their building.
that would certainly then remove your billing issues.

ElephantBoy57

Cookieboo1001 said:

During conveyancing, the seller, our tenant to the left, never notified us of his existing PPA with Lightsource. So for the last 2+ years we have been purchasing solar from the tenant to the left. There are panels on our roof and his roof. The meters, however, are in our property.

It does sound rather complicated. But if you own the building, your tenant cannot install solar panels without your consent. Would Lightsource have any responsibility for that? Your roof and his roof, maybe he owns part of the building too?

Cookieboo1001

JC_Derby said:

So could you clarify for me a number of things....
what is an SME? 
SME - Small Medium Enterprise - Small Business - Sorry. We are a manufacturing company with 25 employees.
 
You state that the meters for the three businesses are within your property...are these meters that are owned by the supplier or private/sub meters, what is the metering arrangement on site.
All three meters are located within our premises. We pay for all the electric and the agreement we have with the other business is that we pay for all the electric and then bill them for their usage. Meter 1 is ours, Meter 2 is the billed to business to the left and Meter 3 is billed for two businesses to our right (they split the cost).

If your neighbour sells his generated electricity to light source(as per the PPA) how is it you are paying him for the electricity?
Sorry, we pay the entire grid electric to EDF and then we generate invoices for the others to recoup their share of the costs. The company on the left pays without issue. The companies / owners on the right is the problem. The businesses on the right are tenants. We bill their landlord, who also happens to be the original owner of our premises. He in turn invoices his tenants. As for the solar panel electrics - there are panels on our roof and panels on the businesses to the right. The former owner of our building is billed by Lightsource and then he bills us for our usage. He bills us 6.5p for the panels on our roof and bills us 14.5.p for the panels on his premises. We think this is outrageous.

could you also clarify who Lightsource are please as their are a couple of companies with similar names,
The solar panel PPA is with Lightsource BP (Lightsource Midscale). The previous owner of our building still maintains the contract with LightsourceBP, though we have now found out he was supposed to transfer the PPA to us or terminate his agreement with LightsourceBP.

your last question, the answer is no. You are not allowed to turn off the electricity to your neighbour, UNLESS you are paying the bill and it is in your name. 
The electricity is in our name and we pay the bill every month via direct debit. Our bills are in the region of 10-12K per month. We use approximately 40% of the grid electric and the other companies use about 60% between the three of them. We have an intricate spreadsheet that is transparent.

Clarification of those points would certainly help you get a more accurate answer.

Also why didn’t your solicitor pick up on some of these points
The solar panel contract with Lightsource was not disclosed during conveyancing. Once we were aware we spent months trying to get Lightsource and the previous owner to transfer the PPA with no joy.

from the little information you have given, I think it would be wise of you to tell your neighbour that they need to contact the local DNO to request their own independent supply to their building.
that would certainly then remove your billing issues.
The only billing issues we have is non-payment. He is not disputing the invoicing for his portion of the Grid Electric. We will not turn back on the electric to his site until he pays us. We have also notified him we will no longer purchase solar from him and we will shut down the connection to the panels on our roof on April 30th. When we notified him of this, he contacted Lightsource and Lightsource have demanded we turn the electric back on to our neighbour. We are really perplexed as to how they can demand this. We have no PPA with them. They also have now asked if we want a PPA with them. We tried for months and have Lightsource transfer the PPA to us and have the correspondence to prove it Thanks for your help. Hope I have clarified this better.

 

Cookieboo1001

ElephantBoy57 said:

Cookieboo1001 said:

During conveyancing, the seller, our tenant to the left, never notified us of his existing PPA with Lightsource. So for the last 2+ years we have been purchasing solar from the tenant to the left. There are panels on our roof and his roof. The meters, however, are in our property.

It does sound rather complicated. But if you own the building, your tenant cannot install solar panels without your consent. Would Lightsource have any responsibility for that? Your roof and his roof, maybe he owns part of the building too?
Hi there, the panels were already on the roof when we purchased the building. The person we are having the problem with is the former owner of our building who still owns the premises to the right of us which he rents out. He should have notified Lightsource he had sold the building (Our Building), which he did not. As there on panels on our roof as well as the buildings he still owns, we believe he thinks he retains the right to maintain the PPA with Lightsource and profit from electric generated by the panels. However, looking into it further - as the export meter is located within our premises we believe he has to transfer the PPA to us. This is what our solicitor is now trying to ascertain.

Talldave

It sounds like you're taking the right approach.  Just a thought (as a total amateur), as you're effectively re-selling electricity to a customer who regularly doesn't pay, it seems you're right to cut them off whenever the bill isn't paid, but can you also charge them an extortionate rate (to reflect the effort in invoicing & chasing them), so their mind is focused onto getting their own supply installed?

JC_Derby

Cookieboo1001 said:

JC_Derby said:

So could you clarify for me a number of things....
what is an SME? 
SME - Small Medium Enterprise - Small Business - Sorry. We are a manufacturing company with 25 employees.
 
You state that the meters for the three businesses are within your property...are these meters that are owned by the supplier or private/sub meters, what is the metering arrangement on site.
All three meters are located within our premises. We pay for all the electric and the agreement we have with the other business is that we pay for all the electric and then bill them for their usage. Meter 1 is ours, Meter 2 is the billed to business to the left and Meter 3 is billed for two businesses to our right (they split the cost).

 

Please can you confirm whether these are meters that the supplier owns? ie are you receiving three separate bills from the supplier ie one for each meter, or are you receiving one bill only?

UnclaimedEnergy

1. Are you responsible for their meters (and supply payments) out of choice or due to the site set up? - If the meters/MPANs aren't linked on Ecoes then I would think you should be able to split the account and have three seperate ones? - of course if all 3 meters are in the same unit then this could cause issues with the supplier(s) then obtaining readings. - It may require a total change-up of the meter set up for this.

2.  If you're unable/don't want to split up the supply account - instead of the tenants paying him for utilities to then pass onto you - is there any possibiliy to arrange for the tenants to pay you directly? This would cut out the 'he said/she said' and the landlord potentially holding onto money he shouldn't be... However you still could have the same issue but with one of the tenants not paying instead.

3. If the panels were already installed but weren't mentioned/included in the sale, then unfortunately you don't own them and they're still owned by the person who sold the building to you... You need to check the document which states what is included in the sale of the building (fixtures etc.) to see if they're mentioned... if not then not much you can do. - This is the definitely the case for FiT - it's likely the same for PPA but not 100% certain - look up rent-a-roof schemes for clarification - also look up requirements for a Change of Ownership on FiT

4. The PPA with Lightsource will be for any exported electricity - if you turn off the electricity for a meter than electricity won't be getting exported. Lightsource would likely question the old owner of the building about lack of  export - hence why they have asked/told you not to turn of the electricity - speak to your solicitor about where you stand on this though, I doubt anyone on here will be able to advise you properly on this as the answer will likely very based on certain unknown factors.

5. Don't pay any money from the power from the panels... The person with panels would likely be claiming FiT payments for each kWh generated - on top of that he might be charging you for the entire generation (included exported) instead of generation - export..... If you don't have a contract saying you have to pay it - Don't

Cookieboo1001

Hi everyone, sorry I did not get a notification that I had more replies!
So things have really digressed with the landlord of the commercial properties we sell electric to. After weeks of  still not paying or answering us, on Thursday he sent us an e-mail asking for April's meter readings and he would settle all invoices. Great we thought. (Oh and to clarify, I made a mistake in my original posts about how the meters are set up. My husband corrected me as this is all foreign to me. We have one meter with EDF and three sub-meters for usage and billing purposes I hope this makes more sense now. We pay for all electricity used from the grid and then bill out accordingly.) 
Near the end of the day Thursday, the delinquent landlord sent us another e-mail. A truly bizarre e-mail with cut and pasted replies from the solar company, a flowchart of how the solar works and an excel spreadsheet (created for the purposes to claim he has not actually used any grid electric, but only solar power and that we had overcharged him nearly £53,000 for the grid electric since January 2018). Huh? Anyone can create a spreadsheet and generate any numbers in their favor if they want. In the same e-mail, he also suggested we have a conference call with him and his two tenants as they refuse to pay the price per unit we are charging. Then he stated he was going to sue us for the rent he is losing from his tenants as they are refusing to pay the rent as they have no electric.  We have no agreement with his tenants, so we will not be speaking with them. He has never quibbled about the billing, just never responded and not paid. How can he sue us for loss of rent when he has not paid his bills? If he paid his bills, we would switch the power back on immediately.
As for the solar panels, now that we have shut them off, Lightsource is eager to do an agreement with us. However, we will not enter into a contract with them as long as we are tied to the delinquent landlord next door.
We no longer have any goodwill and will go full legal now. We just need to find a corporate solicitor who can give us sound advice about the electric and solar.
I just wish there was a way we did not have to supply him electric and he get his own! We are exhausted with chasing and dealing with him. 
Its a real mess! Thanks for reading my rant.