Smart Export Guarantee:- No Payment During Set Up Time

BowScratcher

Hi All,

I installed solar at the end of May (using Effective Home.... decent experience btw).  I was accepted by British Gas Smart export guarantee scheme in August.  In the time between the install and acceptance for SEG I exported nearly 900 kw of electricity to the grid.  British Gas say that I will only be paid by them from the point that the SEG was approved.  The net effect is that I have provided free electricity to the grid which will have been sold to providers.  Is this correct?  If so, new entrants into to solar could miss out on hundreds of pounds of payments with the grid supplier the beneficiary.

Has anyone managed to be paid for this lead in period?

Netexporter

No. But Octopus set mine up within a week of application. I actually lost more time because I assumed it would take a while for the DNO letter and the MCS certificate to become available, but in fact they were both processed in a couple of days.

debitcardmayhem

When did you supply your G98/G99 and MCS certs to them ?

QrizB

BowScratcher said:

British Gas say that I will only be paid by them from the point that the SEG was approved.

This bit is correct. No provider will pay for electricity that was exported before your SEG was set up. It's lost.

BowScratcher said:

The net effect is that I have provided free electricity to the grid which will have been sold to providers.  Is this correct?

This bit is incorrect. No-one has "sold" your exported electricty as no-one knows it exists. It's simply reduced the apparent distribution losses in your leg of the network.

BowScratcher

Ah, my thought was  if my electricity has become part of the power available on the network then it reduces the demand on the grid, the grid charges suppliers based on what they charge their customers so , using my theory at least, total electricity sold will be less than total electricity supplied to the grid, meaning that the grid charges for more than it's supplied so it skims off some extra profit.   Obviously it's not so simple so thanks for clarifying 

QrizB

No problems

Per this article:

Electricity networks totalled 21.4TWh of energy losses in 2023

... so your 900kWh will be lost in the noise!