Update from DECC and EST on the FIT

14 Feb 2012: Oh dear, so many acronyms!! But the DECC (Department of Energy and Climate Change), have lost Chris Huhne, but at least they have made their minds up over the Feed in Tariff.

  Heres a page on the Energy Saving Trust that summarises and explains the updates. The less digestible reading from the DECC is here. It is still worth doing PV, and a very good investment, but you should plan on the expectation of the 21p rate, and the 'better than very good' 43pence rate may be short lived unless you installed before December 12th of last year.

This EPC would require some work to improve it
but I gather that the proposed PV is part of the
calculation, so this 'F' rated house could be level 'C' with
added Insulation and the Photovoltaic.

     The good news is that the link to Insulation is less severe, now that they have settled on an insulation level of 'D'. The previous idea that it should be based on an Energy Performance rating for the house of 'C' was enough to kill the scheme altogether - it is estimated that only 9% of the country's houses would be eligible, and if ten percent of those house holders decided on PV, that would be less than one percent - that would make the UK impossible to catch up with Germany on renewables, would end the solar industry, continue our high carbon emissions, and guaranteed the future of only one industry, the giant nuclear power stations of the big generators.
  Insulation is incredibly important, but it's completely wrong to force them to be linked. They are both important but different.

Decision on FIT

31 Oct 2011: Well the announcement on FIT has been made and the details are on the Energy Saving Trust website.
http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/Generate-your-own-energy/Financial-incentives/UK-Government-proposed-changes-to-solar-PV-Feed-in-Tariffs

And the official page from DECC:
http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/news/gb_fits/gb_fits.aspx
This is going to be a tough decision for some. If you have determined to go ahead, you will have to consider the revised payback and balance that with your altruistic desires to 'do something good for the environment', or perhaps recognition that 5% return is still as good as the best deposit or Building Society accounts currently available. There is also reasonable evidence that having a house with good energy performance will have added resale value.
   If you have decided to go ahead and now wish to reverse that decision, there is the concept of the 'cooling off period' and some of you may be able to back out, depending on when you decided and how much you are out by.

Naturally, R-S hopes you will continue, after recalculating a more rational but very slow rate of return. Consider the position of those who installed prior to July 2009 who have never earned anything, and are only getting 3.1p per unit. I propose that the government could regain some lost friends if it balanced this reduction of the FIT for new installations by allowing Pre-2009 householder to have the 21p/unit.

Changes to FIT

30 Oct 2011: DNC writes: Congratulations to all who had the courage to go ahead and install PV during the last 2 years. If you are on the bandwagon, your investment is reasonably safe (although government still has the right to decide how index linking goes). Those who have not installed have to go ahead quick, as the Feed in Tariff changes expected for April 2012 may occur earlier, perhaps in December 2011.
If you have a system installed, but haven't yet registered it for FIT, do so very quickly, because there is a dealing coming up.
    The Guardian got this scoop off the Energy Saving Trust website, shortly before it disappeared again from the EST website. But the details were mostly confirmed by Greg Barker in the morning news of 29th Oct. The DECC website will show the details from Monday 31st Oct onwards.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/interactive/2011/oct/28/feed-in-tariffs-solarpower

     I don't altogether disagree with the policy. Degression was always going to be built in, but it needs to degress faster, due to the fall in the cost of installations. The original assumption was that Energy prices are only ever going to go up, and this has been true. The next assumption is that increasing world demand would balance with falling manufacturing cost keeping installation prices stable - this assumption was wrong, because costs of installations have almost halved in a couple of years due to vastly ramped up Chinese manufacturing, and competition in the installation industry. But most people will find the new rate is a serious discouragement, even if they are well intended to do something for clean energy and safer climate - 43p reducing to 21p will reduce payback to 5-6% (16-20 years), and the resulting cutback in installations will not bring prices down as fast as they have fallen since 2009.

   My 4kW installation was over £19K a mere two years ago, and now 4kW is reliably only about £11k, and some installers can beat even that. When I started doing Rushcliffe Solar estimations, we were getting paybacks of 8%-10%, and now prices have fallen so much that it's 12%-16% - this is too high a return, causing people to make rushed decisions for the wrong motives. The minister said that people should also consider the other long term things like improving house insulation and glazing, before rushing to instal electrical generation on inefficient buildings.

   Ironically, this decision is going to push PV prices up, as there are increasingly frantic order books, and shoppers can no longer shop around much - they just have to select whoever can fit them in before the new year. Companies who have moved into PV may be considering shifting out of it again. It is a blow for the nascent industry, to be sure.
See also:
http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2120568/feed-tariff-cuts-threaten-kill-solar-pv
http://www.clickgreen.org.uk/news/national-news/122739-consumers-and-industry-react-with-fury-to-leaked-feed-in-tariff-cut-plans.html

Green Deal - it could help you

1 Dec '10: All the energy pundits agree on one thing - that for all the small number of new ecohouses there are, there are thousands or even millions of homes in the UK that are poorly insulated or have inefficient boilers - the cumulative effect from them is more harmful than the good we might get by focusing only on New build.
The Green Deal is addressing the issue of existing homes and business premises. There is financial support for energy saving measures, including insulation, and energy generating schemes such as PV.

See the page on the DECC website that explains more.

See also the leaflet from the Energy Saving Trust.

Installations in Rushcliffe Borough

6 Aug: The Energy Saving Trust have kindly sent me a statistic from the Central Feed in Tariff Register.

Between 1st April and 6th August of 2010, there have been some installations in the Rushcliffe area.

Apparently there have been 22 domestic installations, totalling 53 kilowatts. There have been no installations on commercial or other building types. That is an average of 2.4 kilowatts per installation.

Hmmm.... I hope that the number will look better by December 31, 2010, and partially aided by our efforts.

Further Advice to householders

4 August: After our meetings with suppliers, and some extremely interesting conversations, we will be adding these clauses to each of our reports. If you have already had one of our report, please note the clauses carefully. We will add these to our 'Frequently Asked Questions' pages.

Roof thoughts: If your roof is very old and fragile, and if you do not have underfelt, or you suspect rot in the timbers, undersized rafters, flaking tiles, slipping slates, chimneys about to shed pots or bricks, ridge or hiptiles about to fly..... do not continue. The panels last over 25 years and if your roof needs a significant refurbishment or felting sooner than 25 yrs it would be expensive to take all off, add felt, retile and refix panels - do it now, then put the panels on after. On the positive side, a mesh of strong alloy rails attached to your roof will make it stiffer, and the rainscreen effect of the panels will protect your roof against future weathering - but the roof must be sound in the first place.

Insurance thoughts: The panels become fully part of your house and your insurer will usually add these freely in when you your system is fully commissioned - but if you haven't told them, they wouldnt know, and you would not be covered - so phone them.

Reflections on energy conservation: If you already have a very high energy consumption, do not forget that there are cheaper ways to cut your bills than to spend several thousand on a Photovoltaic roof. Do an energy audit on your house and lifestyle......

• improve insulation
• see if windows are adequate
• instal energy efficient light bulbs
• turn off standby devices at night
• reduce your thermostat by a couple of degrees
• have more showers than baths
• turn off external spotlights, garden lights
• adjust your central heating programmer to turn off earlier in the evening and later in the morning.... 
• ......and many more such ideas, some of which cost nothing. 
• Keep all your energy bills, and look at them going back for the last two years, calculating both your energy consumption per year for electricity and gas, and setting savings targets for next year. If you make some energy improvements to the house, note your energy bills for the next quarter and compare them with the same quarter the previous two years. 

The Energy Savings Trust website has a very comprehensive list of ideas. 

Where do you live and what's happening?

1 July: Energy Saving Trust have an interesting page called Where I Live, and you can enter your postal code and it tells you forthcoming events related to energy sustainability - such as Green Festivals, Lectures etc. If you have an event you want to promote, or you want to attend, please keep an eye on this page.

PV Costing Seminar at EvoEnergy

24 June: Some of the Rushcliffe Solar team went for a 2 hour seminar with EvoEnergy today, working up a formula for providing safe but independent budget estimates of installations. The idea is to be able to give people an idea of payback before they get into the more complicated business of seeking three tenders from suppliers etc.
Income would be based on the amount of PV installed, where it is on the building, and the Feed in Tariff. Cost is affected by currency, volume manufacturing, scaffolding, building shape etc, but we managed to agree with EE a 'ballpark' figure for varying sizes of installation, up to a maximum of 4kW installed. Payback is a ratio of cost to income.
In the photo: Yu Wei Luo (UoN), Tim Saunders (EST), Chris Brookes (EE) and David Nicholson-Cole (UoN)