Leased solar panels - maximising benefit

paul991

out of interest do you have a separate generation meter , where is it sited and who reads it?

QrizB

paul991 said:

out of interest do you have a separate generation meter , where is it sited and who reads it?

 Often the generation meters on these systems are similar to early smart meters, reporting via the cellphone network.

Martyn1981

olbas_oil said:

Ectophile said:

The FIT is based on the amount of electricity generated.  So it depends a lot on how sunny it is.  It does not depend at all on how much you use vs. how much spare electricity goes to the grid.

OK, so the leasing company would still get the same income, if we were to fit a battery. So they should have no objections. I don't hold out much hope, because they do no maintenance, and were very difficult to contact when the vendor's solicitor was attempting to obtain the MCS.

You may want to double check. I believe the FiT deemed export rate can be kept if you fit an AC side battery, but I think the FiT provider still needs to be informed, and a schematic provided to confirm location of battery. I can't see that you would need any permission from the FiT lease owner to fit such a battery, but could get tricky about notifying the FiT provider (energy company). If a DC side battery is fitted* then you will need to have the TGM replaced with a bi-directional TGM.

*I don't believe you'll be able to do this, as the inverter will need changing, and I assume the lease company will refuse permission to change inverter and TGM.

Another possibility, might be to buy a portable powerstation, these come in loads of sizes from sub 1kWh up to about 5kWh, and add on batts. This won't be hardwired into the home system, but instead would be plugged into a socket, and then power a device plugged into the powerstation. It doesn't feed back through the house mains/consumer unit.

But you'll really need to know how much excess generation (export) there is, to charge the powerstation, or you'd risk importing day rate leccy and increasing bills.

I'm not 100% confident about this info, so apologise if I mislead you, but wanted to mention it, just in case, and before you do anything, so you can research and check.

QrizB

Martyn1981 said:

Another possibility, might be to buy a portable powerstation, these come in loads of sizes from sub 1kWh up to about 5kWh, and add on batts. This won't be hardwired into the home system, but instead would be plugged into a socket, and then power a device plugged into the powerstation. It doesn't feed back through the house mains/consumer unit.

I wonder whether there's anything in the Ecoflow Stream series that would work? Maybe the AC Pro? Their website is full of flashy graphics but seems rather light on technical information 🙄

https://www.ecoflow.com/uk/stream-series-plug-in-solar-battery

QrizB

The table with current FIT tariff rates is here:

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/publications/feed-tariff-fit-tariff-table-1-april-2025

Depending on the property's energy efficiency rating, and assuming a mid-3012 install, the FIT could be paying 24.53 p/kWh generated plus 5.25 p/kWh for half of that as deemed export.

If it's still generating the 3012 kWh/yr that it was originally expected to generate, that would be £818 a year. So just shy of £10k remaining to be paid out on the FIT over the next 12 years in today's money, indexed to RPI.

If you wanted to buy out the lease, I'd expect it to cost somewhat less than this since you're taking on the maintenance obligation (likely to include an inverter replacement at least once in that period) and all the risk of hailstorms etc. damaging the system.

Martyn1981

Hi QrizB, I thought that seemed a bit low, as I remember the tariff rate at the time was 21p/kWh, before index-linking. Dropping to 16p after the 1/8/12

I read that 24.53p as the rate for installs before the 1/2/13 tariff, or 16p index linked up. For July 2012, it'll be the tariff for installs after 3/3/12. However, unless I'm going mad, they appear to be in the wrong tab, labelled Apr 11 to Mch 12, instead of in the tab labelled Apr 12 to Mch 13.

So the Tariff rate is (now) 34.39p/kWh plus 50% deemed of export rate 5.25p/kWh, so approx 37p/kWh in total.

As a double check, next to that tariff is the 4-10kWp tariff of 27.51p that my 2kWp second install gets, and was installed on 28/7/12.

QrizB

Martyn1981 said:

So the Tariff rate is (now) 34.39p/kWh plus 50% deemed of export rate 5.25p/kWh, so approx 37p/kWh in total.

If it's 37p/kWh combined, that's £1114 a year.

OP needs to get all these numbers together if he's serious about buying out the lease.

See other thread:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6606331/discounting-income-payments