Slowness of feed-in-tariff payments

I'm with Scottish Power and enter my solar readings every 90 days. They then pay into my bank in the last week of the month in which I enter it. No problems in the 12 years we've had the panels.

My payments (by cheque) have always been 3 months behind. First with SSE who then moved us to Ovo Energy.

Why doesn't the meter just go backwards?

Some old spinny disc ones would but later models had a ratchet or freewheel to stop this. As to why, no electricity company wants to pay you as much as they charge!

Tim

Any ideas how old they need to be to spin backwards?

If you end up with negative consumption during a billing period, do they pay you? At what rate?

Theo

Sorry, dunno. If it has a ratchet there is a symbol printed on the dial to indicate this. Take a picture and share it if you’re not sure.

I doubt there is a mechanism for the power company to pay you in these circumstances if you don’t have an official export tariff set up. As long as you don’t go negative you’re effectively cancelling out your consumption at the same rate you’re paying.

A solar panel fitter is supposed to check that your meter *doesn’t* go backwards, and if it does should inform the power company so that they can upgrade the meter.

Sometimes it gets forgotten and in these circumstances it pays to keep shtoom and plead ignorance. ;-)

Tim

Found an example. (You’ll have to scroll down a bit).

I know of a 1984 one goes backwards.

Hypothetically:

If it were me; through the late Spring to early Autumn I'd probably submit the previous months readings with one or more units added on so it accounts correctly on the suppliers records.

By end of September or October readings I would expect all "credit" units to have been used up and then I'd start submitting correct readings.

All hypothetical of course. <VBG>

Thanks. The meter number says it was installed 1990 and it's a Landis & Gyr something but I don't know the details - I'll have to take a look.

Theo

Not only are they now paying more slowly but in their wisdom they have decided to not make payments into building society bank accounts.

Who are "they"?

Eon - yearly in arrears, annual payment received about 3 weeks after the 1st year anniversary.

I generate more than I consume - I'd guess most people do? So even if you have a meter that works that way, they're going to owe you . . .

Tangentially, I realise we're getting some exceptional weather, but I hadn't expected such an increase from last year in solar generation. May was 30% up, and April beat last year's peak generation month (June) by 20%.

Not if the electricity you use when your panels are not working cost more than that what you get for exporting. The days of large FIT are possibly gone with newer installations.

Doesn't this highlight the problem with the country relying on variable output solar and wind. How much do you install? Enough capacity or the worst case, for the average case or the best case.

It was 42p/unit when the FIT scheme started but that only lasted for a couple of years. It's been reducing ever since. Don't know the current rate.

There is no intention of reying on renewables. That's why Hickley C, and possibly Sizewell B, power stations are being built, to provide at base. And Rolls Royce has just been contracted to provide modular nuclear stations as well.

Not quite sure how to express it, then. There are times when I use electricity from the grid. But that's more than offset by the surplus generated at other times. The surplus either goes to the battery, or exported to Eon.

I haven't paid anything for electricity over the past 12 months. Better?

Eon pay 16.5p. I pay 22p. Plus about 55p/day standing charge.

The country doesn't rely on wind and solar alone. Many other sources exist.

Generally, as much as you can - that'll get you the best return. Helps a lot if you have a battery.

Yep.

Scottish Power were very good this month. I entered the reading on the

The problem with intermittency is simply storage. I read this morning (I've not checked into the figures), that all the storage in the world is only sufficient for 10 minutes of world demand.

Not just storage.

Unless the storage is co located with the intermittent source, you have an overspecified cable that mostly gets underused connecting the source to the store = more waste and environmental impact