Rent-a-roof Solar, batteries and EV charging

wrf12345

I had one of these free systems fitted in a previous house and was under the impression that their export meter determined their income and the export meter was just what the solar generated rather than solar minus what the householder used, they are usually for 25 years contract.

Reed_Richards

wrf12345 said:

I had one of these free systems fitted in a previous house and was under the impression that their export meter determined their income and the export meter was just what the solar generated rather than solar minus what the householder used, they are usually for 25 years contract.

So you had a generation meter, not an export meter.  That is the norm for a domestic PV system installed under the FIT scheme.  I've had a generation meter since my PVs were installed in March 2019 but I've only been able to measure actual export since I got a smart meter in August 2023.

Ectophile

Your biggest mistake was asking them.

If it says nothing about an EV in the contract, you can install one.  It has no effect on their FIT payments.

A battery system shouldn't affect their FIT payments either, provided it is installed on your side of the generation meter.

mmmmikey

Ectophile said:

Your biggest mistake was asking them.

If it says nothing about an EV in the contract, you can install one.  It has no effect on their FIT payments.

A battery system shouldn't affect their FIT payments either, provided it is installed on your side of the generation meter.

...the problem is that it potentially effects the export payments which are part of the same FIT contract and typically (always?) goes to the panel owners rather than the householder. In order to benefit from discharging the batteries to the grid (and even if you don't now it's quite possible you will want to in the future) you'd need to get a smart meter installed to measure export and doing so would open up a can of worms. 

Reed_Richards

mmmmikey said:

Ectophile said:

Your biggest mistake was asking them.

If it says nothing about an EV in the contract, you can install one.  It has no effect on their FIT payments.

A battery system shouldn't affect their FIT payments either, provided it is installed on your side of the generation meter.

...the problem is that it potentially effects the export payments which are part of the same FIT contract and typically (always?) goes to the panel owners rather than the householder. In order to benefit from discharging the batteries to the grid (and even if you don't now it's quite possible you will want to in the future) you'd need to get a smart meter installed to measure export and doing so would open up a can of worms. 

The one thing the rent-a-roof company absolutely cannot do is to block you from getting a smart meter.  You can do that any time you like; perhaps you already have one?  

mmmmikey

Reed_Richards said:

mmmmikey said:

Ectophile said:

Your biggest mistake was asking them.

If it says nothing about an EV in the contract, you can install one.  It has no effect on their FIT payments.

A battery system shouldn't affect their FIT payments either, provided it is installed on your side of the generation meter.

...the problem is that it potentially effects the export payments which are part of the same FIT contract and typically (always?) goes to the panel owners rather than the householder. In order to benefit from discharging the batteries to the grid (and even if you don't now it's quite possible you will want to in the future) you'd need to get a smart meter installed to measure export and doing so would open up a can of worms. 

The one thing the rent-a-roof company absolutely cannot do is to block you from getting a smart meter.  You can do that any time you like; perhaps you already have one?  

Yes, just to clarify my post getting a smart meter isn't an issue in itself at all. My point simply is that if export is metered then having a battery system potentially effects the payment the panel owner would receive. Lots of ifs, buts and possible maybes in there though - the key word is "potentially" .

Scrib0101

Thanks for all the replies which I will try to reply to and give an update.

The reason I contacted them is there is a gateway device I am going to install that gives UPS capability and I was looking to move the connection from solar that goes in to consumer unit to gateway. In the lease I have to contact them if I plan to touch anything related to their system. As it turns out I can get the batteries installed without moving that cable. I am also in dispute with the solar panel owners and they are basically ignoring me now. Before that every question got the default answer of the lease does not allow you to install batteries but they could not say where that was in the lease.

Tomorrow I will be paying a deposit for the batteries which will be installed in a few weeks. If the Solar panel owners want to go legal then fine. I am more than comfortable with my position so it will be what it will be. As the solar generation is so small, I may just set any excess from that to go to grid anyhow. It is simply not worth the time to argue over.

The reason I am going with Economy 7 is I do not have an EV. Plus economy 7 does not mess about with any feed in tariff which is fine for me as I will not be exporting anything from batteries. I will fill the batteries up during the 7 hours, then during the day run off solar and top up from batteries instead of grid.

Essentially I will be paying 4p per KW instead of 22p which is a reasonable saving when I use around 6000 KW a year and expect my usage to increase.

I do have a smart meter installed and they have a meter between their inverter and my consumer unit. They have no viability of my property usage, they can see what solar generates and I assume what goes to grid as they would get any credit for that but know nothing of usage in my house. In reality they could not see if I use the excess solar to charge batteries as much as they could not see if I am using a kettle 50 times a day.

If anyone wants to know details of the system I am getting installed it is the Sigenergy 6kWh inverter system with 3 x 8kWh batteries and the Gateway.

Thanks again for all the helpful replies

Reed_Richards

Scrib0101 said:

I do have a smart meter installed and they have a meter between their inverter and my consumer unit. They have no viability of my property usage, they can see what solar generates and I assume what goes to grid as they would get any credit for that but know nothing of usage in my house. In reality they could not see if I use the excess solar to charge batteries as much as they could not see if I am using a kettle 50 times a day.

I very much doubt that the solar panel owners can see what goes to the grid.  To do that they would need a meter or a clump-on current detector between your consumer unit and your mains fuse.  The norm for FIT payments is that your export is not measured but deemed to be 50% of what you generate.  

Scrib0101

Reed_Richards said:

The norm for FIT payments is that your export is not measured but deemed to be 50% of what you generate.  

That is what I do not get. If they are not measuring what goes to the grid and their payments are based on 50% of the generation is treated as export. Why would it matter to them in anyway how much of the solar I use. The only thing I can assume is they just want to be awkward for the sake of awkwardness.

Reed_Richards

If you have a smart meter it should tell you what you actually do export.  If you get a battery then that will also have the capability to export and some people make use of this, charging their batteries when electricity is cheap and then exporting it again when they can get a higher rate for export.  You won't be able to do this because there is no way to distinguish export from your solar panels from export from your battery.  I presume your rent-a-roof company fear that you might be tempted to want to do this if you get a battery and this would upset the applecart of their deemed export payments.