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Q&As
Missing out on Solar PV subsidies
I was very interested in the article on “Solar PV and Battery Storage”, particularly battery storage. I bought my new build house last year, completing in May 2016. It included Solar PV and so I was looking forward to receiving feed-in tariff. However, although everything seemed OK when I applied, I am entitled to nothing! According to Ofgem, this seems to be because the MSC certificate was issued before 15th January 2016 (actually September 2015) and the application for FIT was after 1st April 2016. It does not seem to matter that it was impossible for me to meet the criteria on dates laid down by Ofgem.
1. Do you know of this policy of Ofgem and whether there is any way around it if the meeting of the criteria was impossible for me?
2. The article also mentions an export tariff. Is this also paid as a result of an application for FIT or is it applied for separately?
3. I guess that the battery storage may be more likely to be economically viable if I cannot receive FIT or export tariff. However, I need to know how to work this out. Are there guidelines to such calculations available?
Keith Hutchinson
Answers
Hi Keith,
1. I’m afraid I can’t help you on this – new builds didn’t qualify for RHI (I inspected these for Ofgem) unless they were self-builds but I never had to inspect for the FiT.
2. Yes this is included within the FiT – the FiT has two components – generation tariff and export tariff.
3. No – the FiT wouldn’t affect the viability of battery storage. Take the cost of the battery system and divide by the number of guaranteed cycles to work out cost per cycle. Work out how much energy you waste per cycle by not having storage, convert this to cost. Compare the two.
This website contains useful information on battery storage: http://www.cornwallsolarpanels.co.uk/battery-storage/
Nigel Griffiths (Build It Expert)
Hi Keith,
To add to Nigel’s comments, I know there was some initial confusion about the eligibility of self-build projects for the FIT, as the original criteria was that the house must have been lived in for six months before you could apply.
This obviously penalised self-builders because they had to wait for that long before they could apply and claim the cashback.
It seems you attempted to follow this route but for some reason Ofgem refused – do you have any more details on their reasoning?
The current guidance on self-builds since been clarified, although right now I can only track down Ofgem’s RHI-related definition: http://www.ofgem.gov.uk/key-term-explained/custom-builds
Whether that’s of any use to you I’m not certain!
Best wishes,
Chris (Editor, Build It)
