• UK Government Plans to cut home feed-in-tariffs from 12.92p /KWh to 1.63p
    8 replies, posted
[QUOTE] The UK government says it plans to significantly reduce subsidies paid to small-scale green power installations. Under the proposals, the amount of money paid to home owners and businesses producing electricity from roof-top solar and small wind turbines will be limited from January 2016. ... Solar and wind energy installations of less than 5MW are supported by feed-in tariffs - schemes that pay producers a subsidy for the electricity they generate, plus a bonus for any electricity exported back to the national grid. Under the new proposals, the amount to be paid from next year will fall to 1.63p per kilowatt hour from a current level of 12.92p for a new residential solar system. ... In their risk assessment published with the proposals, the government acknowledges that there is a chance that the changes may result in "significantly reduced rates of deployment" but they expect the industry to prove resilient, and point to the fact that the UK has already exceeded installation levels for small-scale solar and wind that were expected by 2020. [/QUOTE] Source: [url]http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-34073541[/url] While I can understand them cutting the rate down a bit, cutting it this much is going to seriously hinder the industry. I'm not sure but I think under these new rates they wouldn't even be able to pay for themselves in any meaningful time, unless you had a battery installation. I guess Tesla picked a good time to get into the home battery industry...
We don't even get paid anything here. They will try and force you to be connected to the grid but if you generate enough to be zero you won't ever get a power bill but you won't ever get paid anything.
[QUOTE=Morgen;48592699]Source: [url]http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-34073541[/url] While I can understand them cutting the rate down a bit, cutting it this much is going to seriously hinder the industry. I'm not sure but I think under these new rates they wouldn't even be able to pay for themselves in any meaningful time, unless you had a battery installation. I guess Tesla picked a good time to get into the home battery industry...[/QUOTE] That's the point. You can't keep propping up an industry forever with mandatory feed-in tariffs. Solar panels have consistently demonstrated that even with obscene tariffs paid for by the taxpayer or the electricity user (which make up pretty much the entire population) that they are not financially viable. [editline]2nd September 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=Passing;48592728]We don't even get paid anything here. They will try and force you to be connected to the grid but if you generate enough to be zero you won't ever get a power bill but you won't ever get paid anything.[/QUOTE] You're horribly wrong. The solar feed in tariff in Australia varies state-by-state but for home-sized solar arrays it's anything from 20c/kwhr to 60c/kwhr. Except for new arrays in SA approved after 2013 where it's zero (thank fuck).
[QUOTE=download;48592739]That's the point. You can't keep propping up an industry forever with mandatory feed-in tariffs. Solar panels have consistently demonstrated that even with obscene tariffs paid for by the taxpayer or the electricity user (which make up pretty much the entire population) that they are not financially viable.[/QUOTE] While yes I agree it shouldn't be propped up by taxpayers, I disagree that solar panels aren't financially viable. 12.9p /KWh is probably about average for what you would pay for using 1 KWh from the grid. The issue here isn't that solar panels can't produce enough power to be viable it's that they produce so much power that all of it can't be consumed by the home they are installed on so it gets fed into the grid to be used by others. Getting paid about 12.9p for that means the energy companies aren't really making any profits off of it. Cutting it to 1.63p is going to let them make a massive amount of profit off of it since they will have to buy less power from power plants yet only pay you a 10th of the cost. Now battery installations to store the energy rather than feeding it back into the grid are going to be pretty much mandatory to save money by having them. This is a problem because it increases the cost of installation by a couple more grand and thus significantly reducing how many people get them installed. [QUOTE=Passing;48592728]We don't even get paid anything here. They will try and force you to be connected to the grid but if you generate enough to be zero you won't ever get a power bill but you won't ever get paid anything.[/QUOTE] Well it generally just takes it off your power bill. You won't directly get paid unless you have a pretty hefty solar array.
[QUOTE=download;48592739]That's the point. You can't keep propping up an industry forever with mandatory feed-in tariffs. Solar panels have consistently demonstrated that even with obscene tariffs paid for by the taxpayer or the electricity user (which make up pretty much the entire population) that they are not financially viable. [editline]2nd September 2015[/editline] You're horribly wrong. The solar feed in tariff in Australia varies state-by-state but for home-sized solar arrays it's anything from 20c/kwhr to 60c/kwhr. Except for new arrays in SA approved after 2013 where it's zero (thank fuck).[/QUOTE] Solar energy is a high-risk venture that requires large amounts of capital investment before any payoff can be expected. However, it is believed to bring a net benefit to society should it succeed. This is why it is subsidised: so that private companies will see it as a more attractive investment and thus try to develop it. Without subsidies, I am certain that far less investment will be made into this area. This is exactly what happened with US oil and gas exploration in the early 20th century, because at that time, it was viewed as a high-risk venture that required large amounts of capital investment. There's nothing wrong with subsidies at all.
[QUOTE=Morgen;48592794]While yes I agree it shouldn't be propped up by taxpayers, I disagree that solar panels aren't financially viable. 12.9p /KWh is probably about average for what you would pay for using 1 KWh from the grid. The issue here isn't that solar panels can't produce enough power to be viable it's that they produce so much power that all of it can't be consumed by the home they are installed on so it gets fed into the grid to be used by others. Getting paid about 12.9p for that means the energy companies aren't really making any profits off of it. Cutting it to 1.63p is going to let them make a massive amount of profit off of it since they will have to buy less power from power plants yet only pay you a 10th of the cost. Now battery installations to store the energy rather than feeding it back into the grid are going to be pretty much mandatory to save money by having them. This is a problem because it increases the cost of installation by a couple more grand and thus significantly reducing how many people get them installed. Well it generally just takes it off your power bill. You won't directly get paid unless you have a pretty hefty solar array.[/QUOTE] That and I predict that, once that catches on (storing the energy in batteries), they'll find some other way to get money out of you, maybe even pass some bullshit law that says you HAVE to be connected to the grid.
If that's not a thinly veiled attack on renewables idk what is
in texas it's your electric company's responsibility to pay you for excess energy production, and they must pay you the same amount they charge you per KW/h. uk should just do that
Okay looking at the [URL="https://econsultation.decc.gov.uk/office-for-renewable-energy-deployment-ored/fit-review-2015/supporting_documents/IA%20for%20FITs%20consultation%20August%202015%20%20FINAL%20docx%20esignature%20included.pdf"]DECC's impact assessment[/URL] (on page 39) of this change.. If we kept the Feed in tariff as is right now by 2020/21 we would have a total of 1,634,800 small scale solar installations. If they cut it as proposed we would only have 761,020. Here's a graph: [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/pcXR5aQ.png[/IMG] [editline]1st September 2015[/editline] [QUOTE=meppers;48593155]in texas it's your electric company's responsibility to pay you for excess energy production, and they must pay you the same amount they charge you per KW/h. uk should just do that[/QUOTE] We sort of have a system like that in place but the rate is currently so low that it doesn't add up to much. We have the feed in tariff which is getting cut here and the export tariff. The feed in tariff should really be called a generation tariff since you get paid for every KWh you generate, even if you use it yourself. The export tariff you get paid 4.85p /KWh (iirc) exported to the grid, this is really to low to be viable as the average cost of getting 1 KWh from the grid is 13p. At these rates according to Npower (energy company) an installation of a 4KW array that cost £8k to install (that's the average) and assuming you used 50% of the energy produced (which IMO is a very high estimate) you would save £379 a year. This would take a little over 21 years to pay off. Got the £379 figure from Npower's estimate of a 4KW array generating 3,419KWh per year, FiT would generate £55.73 (down from £781!!), export tariff would generate £83 and you would save £240 from using power yourself.
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