FIT payments

Baldytyke88

Generation Payment: Pays you for every unit of renewable electricity your system creates, whether you use it in the house or not.

Export Payment: Pays you separately for the surplus energy you send back out to the national grid.

I don't understand why there are two separate payments; my provider is Good Energy.

Is there an old and a new way of working out payments?

QrizB

I don't understand why there are two separate payments

Because there always have been. That's how the FIT scheme was set up. In principle the "export" payments should be based on metered export. When the FIT scheme started no households had export payments so the idea of "deemed export" was introduced, where you're assumed to export half of whatever you generated.

You'll find that if you have an export meter (eg. as a result of fitting a smart meter) you're meant to inform your FIT supplier and they're meant to start paying you based on metered export, not deemed export. Mostly, FIT suppliers aren't that bothered so you can choose whether to switch to metered export or not.

If you choose metered export, you can also choose to forego the FIT export payments and instead sign up for a supplier export tariff.

For some people (eg. me) switching to metered export and then choosing an export tariff works out more rewarding.

Is there an old and a new way of working out payments?

The way payments are calculated hasn't changed.

Ectophile

Is there an old and a new way of working out payments?

Yes. When everybody had non-smart meters, they had no idea how much you exported. So they assumed that you used half of your generation and exported the other half.

SMETS2 meters are calibrated to measure export. So it's possible to pay for the actual export. If the energy company can be bothered, and not all do bother.

SMETS1 meters could measure export, but for some reason were never certified to do so.

Reed_Richards

it's possible to pay for the actual export

So if you export more than half the energy you generate that would work to your advantage. If you use more than half the energy you generate then deemed export works to your advantage.

QrizB

So if you export more than half the energy you generate that would work to your advantage. If you use more than half the energy you generate then deemed export works to your advantage.

It's a bit subtler than that.

Deemed export is paid at either 5.43p/kWh (FIT contacts beginning up to 31/07/2012) or 7.64p/kWh (FIT contracts from 01/08/2012). Metered export can be paid at those rates, or you can choose a non-FIT export tariff which potentially pays more.

In my case, I gave up the lower rate of deemed FIT export and am now getting 12p/kWh for metered export. Even if I use 75% and only export 25% of what I generate, I'm still ahead on the deal.

Hypothetical example: if I generated 1000kWh, on deemed export I'd be paid for 500kWh at 5.43p/kWh which makes £27.15. If my metered export was 250kWh at 12p/kWh, I'd be paid £30.

Reed_Richards

you can choose a non-FIT export tariff which potentially pays more.

It's even more subtle than @QrizB states. To qualify for a non-FIT export tariff that pays more than the FIT export tariff you almost certainly need to buy your electricity from the same company that pays you for your export. If you don't, you are liable to find that the non-FIT export tariff is far worse. For example, Octopus will pay a paltry 4.1p per kWh for export if you don't buy your electricity from them, but 12p per kWh if you do.

The one exception to this that I know of is Fuse, who currently pay 13p per kWh to all comers.