Solar panels and cancellation of your FIT by Ofgem

jasee

Pulpdiction said:

I would suggest you have a contract by conduct, not the best link, but the fact that you, for 6 years have submitted a claim that have been paid and it was the intention of both parties to enter into the agreement then I would complain through OFGEM sighting this fact and that for 6 years it was fine.  You have not been given a reasonable period of time to rectify the issue, you have not been given any advice or acceptable way to rectify the issue and therefore you believe the contract should stand as it has been honored by the conduct of both parties.  I also think if you took this to small claims court then the court would view your case favorably.  

https://www.upcounsel.com/acceptance-by-conduct-contract-law

I was thinking of this. But I think i should be claiming against the electricity company, surely my contract is with them?  I thought I would give them my readings. Ofgem have opologised for waiting so long before they told me and also for giving me wrong information, a senior officer told me in writing that there was an MCS committee I could appeal to. He later admitted that there was no such committee

ispookie666 said:

@jasee something does not add up. 
How big a system are we talking about? For you to receive £1000/yr fit payment for a system installed 2016, sounds like a massive system. 
I'm with @Reed_Richards on this, your FIT provider can request the monies to be paid back as it would be a breach of contract. 

It's not big, it's 4kilowatt. I have another system elsewhere for which I am just getting paid £230 now for three months, remember what I get is linked to the current cost of electricity,

Not like the owners of solar farms who presumably pocket the market rate for the energy they get for free

Who is breaching their contract? not me, I'm happy to send the electricty company my readings as I have been doing for six years but since March thet haven't sent me a claim form.

In point of fact the MCS 'system' isn't they say anything to do with contract law, they say it is outside contract law. It doesn't protect you if the installer goes bust and it doesn't work as I have found out.

I submitted by MCS certificate, it was accepted. Yet six years later they revoked it.

However I think I do have a contract to supply electricity to the grid which they have accepted. If I had somehow not been giving the readings or the meter was giving them faulty readings, then maybe they could stop paying me by breach of contract, but otherwise I don't see how they can.

Look at the terms here of MCS if anything goes wrong

https://mcscertified.com/complaints-compliance/

It's ridiculously complex.

Try complaining to Ofgem, I've done all that. The bottom line is they can take away your FIT, but they can't reinstate it.

QrizB

jasee said:

ispookie666 said:

@jasee something does not add up. 
How big a system are we talking about? For you to receive £1000/yr fit payment for a system installed 2016, sounds like a massive system. 
I'm with @Reed_Richards on this, your FIT provider can request the monies to be paid back as it would be a breach of contract.

It's not big, it's 4kilowatt. I have another system elsewhere for which I am just getting paid £230 now for three months, remember what I get is linked to the current cost of electricity,

FIT payments are not linked to the current price of electricity.

Who is breaching their contract? not me

I don't want to sound harsh but you are in breach of contract. Your FIT contract requires a MCS-certified system and your system isn't MCS certified.

It's ridiculously complex.

Your fundamental problem is that your complaint is against your installer, and they've gone bust. You think thefre should be some redress elsewhere but, sadly, there isn't.

On the plus side, you've had six years of FIT payments and you're still got a 4kWp system on your roof that's generating electricity for you to use during daylight hours.

jasee

Reed_Richards said:

The question is, does the fact that it is now known that your installation lacks an MCS certificate give your FIT provider the right to discontinue their agreement.  They could certainly do that if you added more solar panels or, I think, if you removed some of them.  In effect your "certified" panels are no longer there, replaced by uncertified ones (even though they are the same panels).  Be careful you don't back yourself into a corner and your FIT provider starts asking you to pay back the money they wrongfully gave you in the past.  

My inverter (which appears to have some features not found on many other inverters) has a software control which allows me to limit my export power, down to zero if I wish.    

I eventually found out, no one told me! That the installer's membership (which they had had since 2011) of REC had expired just THREE days before the installation was completed! In reality, does this actually make the system dangerous in some way or what?

I would love them to try to get their money back, I wouldn't pay and they'd have to claim through the court. What an embarressment!

Interesting that you can limit your export, I've not heard of that. I can't see the point. Maybe if you have batteries and you don't get enough energy to charge them fully during the day?.

Reed_Richards

jasee said:

Interesting that you can limit your export, I've not heard of that. I can't see the point. 

The point is to allow me to limit my export to the 3.68 kW allowed by the DNO as standard.  But as this is set in software I can set whatever limit I choose (although I have never tested this). 

Reed_Richards

jasee said:

I would love them to try to get their money back, I wouldn't pay and they'd have to claim through the court. What an embarressment!

It would be more than embarrassing to end up with a court judgement against you: https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/debt-and-money/borrowing-money/county-court-judgments-and-your-credit-rating/

jasee

ispookie666 said:

Difficult position to be in.  
If your installer (Electrician) had not renewed the registration, not much can be done - unless they are still trading.  It is possible the solar panel installation company was different to the Electrician.  

@Reed_Richards is correct - with problems in the paperwork, you should not have been able to claim FiT.  I do not know if they can claim the FiT payments back.   If you are concerned about feeding free electricity - you could put the export to 0.  

Maybe add a few more panels as incentive for the New installer to help with MCS certification?  

I hope Ofgem come up with some resolution for this.  

The installer and the electrician were the same.

There is no control with my system to put the export to zero.

I can't add any more panels, I'm already at 4K.

Ofgem have always said that their only function is take FITS away, they have no remit to renew FITS (they say) whatever the reason

Petriix

My suggestion is to find a friendly MCS registered installer to certify your installation. Pay them £200 or whatever, send that to your FIT provider and see if you can continue where you left off.

jasee

Petriix said:

My suggestion is to find a friendly MCS registered installer to certify your installation. Pay them £200 or whatever, send that to your FIT provider and see if you can continue where you left off.

Thanks but I think it is highly unlikely that any installer would do it for anything like £200, it might be worth asking my electricity provider (first) then Ofgem whether it would still be able to get payments at the same rates, However, they all seem to be so inflexible, I imagine they wouldn't allow it.

jasee

Reed_Richards said:

jasee said:

I would love them to try to get their money back, I wouldn't pay and they'd have to claim through the court. What an embarressment!

It would be more than embarrassing to end up with a court judgement against you: https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/debt-and-money/borrowing-money/county-court-judgments-and-your-credit-rating/

If they won

jasee

QrizB said:

jasee said:

ispookie666 said:

@jasee something does not add up. 
How big a system are we talking about? For you to receive £1000/yr fit payment for a system installed 2016, sounds like a massive system. 
I'm with @Reed_Richards on this, your FIT provider can request the monies to be paid back as it would be a breach of contract.

It's not big, it's 4kilowatt. I have another system elsewhere for which I am just getting paid £230 now for three months, remember what I get is linked to the current cost of electricity,

FIT payments are not linked to the current price of electricity.

Who is breaching their contract? not me

I don't want to sound harsh but you are in breach of contract. Your FIT contract requires a MCS-certified system and your system isn't MCS certified.

It's ridiculously complex.

Your fundamental problem is that your complaint is against your installer, and they've gone bust. You think thefre should be some redress elsewhere but, sadly, there isn't.

On the plus side, you've had six years of FIT payments and you're still got a 4kWp system on your roof that's generating electricity for you to use during daylight hours.

AFAIK FIT payments are linked to the current price of electricity not directly of course but from what I can recall they follow it?

It woul of course be nice if my installer was still around. I'd get him to renew his membership of RECC, maybe, only maybe I'd then be able to get a new MCS certificate and maybe only maybe my electricity company would maybe only maybe allow me to resume .payments if maybe only maybe Ofgem gave me a FID.

But failing that my redress is against my electricity  company. Who have stopped paying me for that which they have been paying me for six years. In that respect nothing has chanbed

I don't have a contract (according to Ofgem and MCS) their rules are not the rules of a contract. A contract is about supplying something to somebody and getting paid for it. I am still doing that, just they are not now paying what they have been paying for for the last six years