The following is an introduction only. Please take full advice on costs and benefits from other independent sources and from several installers before making any decisions about installing renewable energy. Always check that the installers and also the products they are recommending are fully registered with the Microgeneration Certfication Scheme.
The Feed-in Tariff Scheme opened in April 2010. It means that your energy supplier pays you a set amount for all the electricity you generate from renewable sources (as long as the installation was commissioned after the end of July 2009).
Solar arrays (known as photovoltaics or PV) are the most popular electricity-generating technology so far. Around 200 people in the Stroud District have already installed PV arrays and signed up to the FiT scheme to claim their payments (see the FIT Installations Statistical Reports on the Central FiT Register website for latest figures).
The highest feed-in tariff rate, at 43.3 pence per kWh (or unit) generated, is for the smallest PV arrays. You are paid the tariff you start on for the nominal lifetime of the installation (25 years for PV). People signing up for the feed-in tariff from 1 April 2012 will get approximately 37.8 pence per unit generated, not 43.3 pence. There are further planned steps down in tariff beyond this date.
The additional export tariff for all technologies is 3 pence per unit. The export tariff is usually paid for half of the units you generate. In other words the amount you export is “deemed” not metered.
For some people the FiT Scheme makes installing a photovoltaic array pay for itself in around the first half of its life. PV costs about £3,000-£4,000 per kilowatt peak of capacity (kWp) to install. In this country you get about 800 units of electricity per kWp of capacity, per year.
At the present time, with small PV, for every 2kWp of PV you install, you can earn around £660 per year generation tariff, plus around £24 export tariff (less after the first step down in tariff in April 2012). If you actually do use half of the electricity you generate, you will save about £120 on your electricity bill in the first year for every 2kWp of capacity you have installed, at current prices.
If you actually use more than half of what you generate, you could save more off your bill, with no impact on your tariff income (because the export is presently deemed not metered).
To claim the Feed-in Tariff you must install a registered product and use a registered installer (registered under the Microgeneration Certification Scheme). To find local registered installers visit our Target 2050 website. Please look around our Target 2050 website for case studies, advice and links too.
In October 2010 the coalition Government announced that it would make changes to the Feed-in Tariff Scheme. The scheme will be “refocused on the most cost-effective technologies”. Changes will be made in April 2012 or earlier “if there is higher than expected deployment”. We have no information about what this latter statement means in practice. See latest Department of Energy and Climate Change information about FiTS.
A note about exporting electricity and metering with PV installed
All PV installations come with displays which tell you how much electricity the array is generating. You should use as much as possible in your home. This enables you to use less imported electricity and should cut your electricity bill in the short term and insulate you from future price rises in the longer term.
Any electricity you don't use at home is “exported” or “spilled” onto the national grid.
If you have a mechanical electricity meter (with a disc that spins round in it), not a digital one, it may sometimes go backwards when you are generating, as well as forwards as you are used to, once your PV array is commissioned.
Unless you ask your PV installer to fit a device to display and monitor how much electricity you are exporting to the grid over time you will not be able to accurately record your weekly or quarterly electricity consumption from a mechanical meter.
This may cause you problems with billing or with adjusting your monthly direct debit or electricity tariff (price) down to a more suitable rate.
You can ask for your supplier to change your electricity meter to one that does not go backwards but this may take time, so it may be wise to arrange this before the PV is installed.
Although changing your meter to one that does not go backwards allows future electricity bills for imported electricity to be accurate, you still cannot monitor your total use of electricity in the home (imported + x% of home-generated electricity) unless you install a device that can monitor what you actually export. If you are used to keeping any kind of energy diary and want to continue to do so, you should fit a device to monitor export.
Official certified “export meters” are a different matter. These can only be fitted by your supplier. If your supplier fits one you then have to use the readings from it to claim your FiT export tariff (currently 3p per unit). Some suppliers may prefer not to fit such meters, some may charge a one-off or annual fee for doing so which may outweigh any potential gain in export tariff to you. Smart meters are due to be introduced across the UK between 2012-2020. Smart meters should be able to monitor the export from a domestic PV system as well as displaying live and historical information about total energy consumption.
If you have a prepayment meter it may need to be changed to a credit meter (where you pay bills) for the PV system to work properly. If it doesn't need to be changed you still need to be aware that the PV system cannot generate when there is no credit on the meter.
A note about carbon savings from PV
800 units of grid electricity (the amount you would probably use on-site) is associated with around 400kg of carbon dioxide per year. The electricity you don't use directly (the other 800 units) is not sold on to anyone else. This means that your exported electricity does not count towards national renewable electricity generation or carbon saving figures; although the capacity (in kWp) of your installation might be put towards a total microgeneration capacity figure for the UK .
If you want to be confident about the carbon reduction impact of the electricity you are making, you should use it at home.
“Spilled” electricity cannot be resold to other users by the energy suppliers and so your electricity is of no direct financial benefit to them. However, for technical reasons your spilled electricity can provide energy suppliers with a potential financial benefit. Ofgem (the gas and electricity market regulator) sorts out the balance of costs and benefits of the FiT Scheme as a whole for each energy supplier taking part (levelization).
