Standing Charge - Solar panels

Dontrushme

I have just had solar panels installed by my energy company and they are working fine and excess electricity is now being bought by them, hitherto I, like everyone else, have had to pay a standing charge to my energy company for the use of their equipment used to supply, as I have paid for the panel equipment and will be my responsibility to maintain it should my energy company be paying me a standing charge?

Netexporter

Of course they shouldn't. You wouldn't be able to sell your surplus if you weren't using the grid. I am slightly surprised there isn't an additional standing charge for an export MPAN.

wrf12345

You are supposed to consider yourself very lucky if you are getting as much as 15p/kw exported to the grid, which should cover the extortionate electric standing charge, part of which will pay for the grid upgrades and part of which is Green taxation for things like free solar, so if you actually paid out of your own pocket for the installation you definitely could make a case for not paying the latter but it is a lost cause... you can always go off-grid if you have a battery and very low usage. There are supposed to be zero standing charge tariffs coming in January but they have excluded low users in typically incompetent Ofgem/industry thinking. You pay Green taxes but if you consume in  a Green manner (low usage, solar etc) then you are treated terribly.

MforumSManE

No.

I too have just had solar panels and a battery system installed, and there's no way they will provide enough power 24/7, so I am still rely on the grid to supply energy when my system can't.

Qyburn

Dontrushme said:

I have just had solar panels installed by my energy company and they are working fine and excess electricity is now being bought by them, hitherto I, like everyone else, have had to pay a standing charge to my energy company for the use of their equipment used to supply, as I have paid for the panel equipment and will be my responsibility to maintain it should my energy company be paying me a standing charge?

Arguably you should pay a higher standing charge as the distribution network and the grid now has to carry your export as well as import. 

MattMattMattUK

Dontrushme said:

I have just had solar panels installed by my energy company and they are working fine and excess electricity is now being bought by them, hitherto I, like everyone else, have had to pay a standing charge to my energy company for the use of their equipment used to supply,

The standing charge pays for the network costs, power lines, transformers, etc. it does not cover generation. 

as I have paid for the panel equipment and will be my responsibility to maintain it should my energy company be paying me a standing charge?

No, because that is generation, not network.

MattMattMattUK

wrf12345 said:

You are supposed to consider yourself very lucky if you are getting as much as 15p/kw exported to the grid,

Which is the same rate that generators are paid (most of the time) for their power. 

wrf12345 said:

which should cover the extortionate electric standing charge, part of which will pay for the grid upgrades and part of which is Green taxation for things like free solar, so if you actually paid out of your own pocket for the installation you definitely could make a case for not paying the latter but it is a lost cause... 

You could make a case for just about anything, it does not mean it would be a valid argument.

wrf12345 said:

you can always go off-grid if you have a battery and very low usage.

This is the solution for anyone who whinges about the standing charge. If you want the use of the grid then you pay for it, if you do not then you disconnect yourself from it.

wrf12345 said:

There are supposed to be zero standing charge tariffs coming in January but they have excluded low users in typically incompetent Ofgem/industry thinking.

Just to be clear for other readers, you use the terms "incompetent Ofgem" because they refuse to force suppliers to sell energy to you at a loss. The fact that you continually demonstrate a complete lack of understanding of the energy supply does not mean that the suppliers should be required to operate at a loss until every one of them goes bust. 

wrf12345 said:

You pay Green taxes but if you consume in  a Green manner (low usage, solar etc) then you are treated terribly.

No people are not. All taxpayers, or at least all net taxpayers (there are very few), pay "green taxes". Those consumers who have low usage and/or solar are not treated terribly, just because you lack the ability to understand the energy supply network does not make it "terrible".

Scot_39

Try getting paid for export without a grid connection to carry the energy from your property.

Given the additional control / regulation headache and potential curtailment/ balancing costs for grid level generators - when solar exporters dump energy at times of often low local distribution network demand - they perhaps should if anything be paying a seperate network cost component and so higher standing charge.

So invest to save on import, by allmeans, but its a riskier proposition these days for export - with  over  12GW commercial peak delivery measured and over 5GW domestic potentially if not battery stored in homes available more than saturating daytime market when factor in all other generating capacity.

And as last year plus has shown - dynamic export rates outside peak demand windows have fallen - sometimes dramatically like on Octopus Flux.

As UK sees the impact of the so called renewables "Duck" curve.

So on a breezy sunny summers day there is little demand or need for domestic solar export for many hours including its typically midday peak output.

MeteredOut

Dontrushme said:

I have just had solar panels installed by my energy company and they are working fine and excess electricity is now being bought by them, hitherto I, like everyone else, have had to pay a standing charge to my energy company for the use of their equipment used to supply, as I have paid for the panel equipment and will be my responsibility to maintain it should my energy company be paying me a standing charge?

No, you should be paying it twice, since you're both receiving and exporting electricity, so using the grid more.

Not really, but no more ludicrous that what you're suggesting (and I'd not be surprised if exporters are charged for the grid-use in some future scheme).