Solar Panel sell back to Grid rates 9 February 2022 at 10:40AM in Green & ethical MoneySaving 7 replies 316 views

Kevin_Elaine

Hi Martin, is there any opportunity of campaigning for a higher return on sales back to the grid? 54% would be a nice starting point for the Feed In Tariff. I have had panels on last 2 houses but more recent tariff is not worth having (£13 last period). kevin

Petriix

Kevin_Elaine said:

Hi Martin, is there any opportunity of campaigning for a higher return on sales back to the grid? 54% would be a nice starting point for the Feed In Tariff. I have had panels on last 2 houses but more recent tariff is not worth having (£13 last period). kevin

I don't think you'll find Martin on here these days, but the FIT is uplifted at RPI each year. This year it's a not too shabby 7.5% on 1 April. I believe Octopus recently increased their SEG rates, and their Agile export rate has been rather generous recently.

As for the 54% you mention: that's just the price cap. Many (most?) people will be experiencing a far bigger percentage increase than that. My flat rate was just 12p per kWh last year with 10p per day standing charge totalling ~ £340 per year for my 2500kWh usage. On the April price cap I would be paying ~ £850, a 250% increase!

ispookie666

As much as I empathise and fully support, not sure much can be done.  
Looking from a company's perspective, its probably not worth increasing the price unless they are forced to.  Maximising profits is what comes to mind!

QrizB

ispookie666 said:

Looking from a company's perspective, its probably not worth increasing the price unless they are forced to.  Maximising profits is what comes to mind!

FITs rates paid to generators are set by Ofgem and are funded via a levy on energy bills. We all pay for them as part of the Policy Cost Allowance. The cost for Oct 21 - Apr 22 is £6.85/MWh, falling to £6.03/MWh for Apr 22- Oct 22.

SEG rates, on the other hand, *are* set by the energy companies and AFAICT are paid by them from their revenues.

ispookie666

QrizB said:

The cost for Oct 21 - Apr 22 is £6.85/MWh, falling to £6.03/MWh for Apr 22- Oct 22.

Is that per household?  Why is it falling?  AFAIK FiT was started in 2010 and the cost will be increasing according to RPI and we have another 8 years before they start falling.  The only way I can think of, if the number of billed consumers are increasing 

QrizB

ispookie666 said:

QrizB said:

The cost for Oct 21 - Apr 22 is £6.85/MWh, falling to £6.03/MWh for Apr 22 - Oct 22.

Is that per household?  Why is it falling?  AFAIK FiT was started in 2010 and the cost will be increasing according to RPI and we have another 8 years before they start falling.  The only way I can think of, if the number of billed consumers are increasing 

It's per megawatt-hour, as stated. If you'd prefer, that's 0.685p/kWh on every kWh you buy from the grid now, falling to 0.603p/kWh from April.

Why is it falling? I don't know   but can think of a few possibilities:

• The UK is using more electricity, so more MWh are being used, allowing the FIT costs to be spread more thinly. (I don't know whether this is true or not.)
  
• Rising wholesale electricity prices means the value of the FIT-generated energy is higher, and so the cost of the FIT scheme has fallen.
• FIT-eligible systems are being decommissioned early and so there are fewer FIT payments being made. (This does happen for various reasons, eg. someone wants to build an extension and has to remove their solar panels to do so.)
  

Spies

On Outgoing I'm averaging 20p a unit which isn't too bad, unsure if it would go up proportionately come April but I suspect not. 

2nd_time_buyer

I have a suspicion that Octopus are being very canny by cornering the market on solar export.

The vast majority of their customers will be on the fixed export rate, which is still well below market price. They must have grown their market share significantly with a number of the other energy suppliers with competitive rates going under.

It would be interesting to know what proportion of their energy supply comes from domestic solar (?).