DECC launch FIT review

[Somecamel]

The postcode of Hastings Town Hall is TN34 1TL.

Stick it into: Microgeneration Certification Scheme - Installer Search

Look at the first one on the list - you couldn't make it up !!

Seriously, it would be nice if one of her own constituents could go along and explain about the effects on their business.

Greg Barker was my MP on the last major cut, was all just Lip service in the end

 

[Gavin A]

Just banged this out on facebook via the Leeds Green Party pages, I think we need to get these petitions bumped up over the weekend as much as possible, and get MPs emailed so they've all got emails about it for when they're getting back to parliament.

I'm hoping to work via the Green Party to get Caroline Lucas to submit an early day motion on it, which we can then all work on our MPs to sign.

When the statutory instrument goes before parliament, if there's an EDM on it with enough signatures then this means it must be debated in parliament, so this is potentially a way that one Green MP can actually make a significant difference.

I recently became Leeds Green Party campaigns officer, and do the social media stuff for them and some national stuff, so hopefully can work within the party to get this to happen.

If anyone wants to cut and paste any of this text and send it round to get more signatures / emails to mps, feel free.

Could anyone who cares about climate change and supports the development of renewable energy in the UK please sign & share this petition, and if you fancy doing a bit more please write to your MP.https://you.38degrees.org.uk/…/stop-the-uk-government-killi…
www.writetothem.com/
Last week the government announced an 86% cut to the Feed In Tariff support for solar PV, which would take the support down to just 1.63p / kWh from 1st January.
Including the export payments this means the electricity companies would be paying just 6.3p per kWh for the solar generated electricity supplied to the grid, but charging 12-15p / kWh when they sell it to the neighbours.
Nuclear has been promised a guaranteed price of 9.2p / kWh for the planned new plant, so this proposal would mean that owners of solar PV systems would be getting paid 1/3 less for the electricity they supply than the French and Chinese state owned companies who would own the nuclear plant would be getting paid.
If this is implemented it's likely to result in tens of thousands of job losses in the solar industry, and be a massive set back to this countries efforts to reduce our carbon emissions just at a point where the solar PV industry has ramped up to the point where we're making a serious difference.
A framework was already in place to reduce costs, with support already having reduced by 50% since the last massive cuts in 2012, or 73% from when the scheme started in 2010, and reducing further every quarter, so this measure now is completely unnecessary and counter productive.
It risks undoing everything that's been achieved thanks to the funding that's already been committed to. With a phased reduction in support the industry aims to be able to exist without subsidies by 2018 anyway, but this sort of overnight cut risks destroying most of the industry and increasing costs because we'd lose the economies of scale that we need to keep reducing costs.
Thanks for you support,

Gavin Andrews, Leeds Solar

 

[whinmoor]

Nice work, Gavin. This is certainly something we can all do, especially those with Tory MPs. (Mine is Andrea Jenkyns, who kicked out Ed Balls in May).

 

[TedM]

I'd probably have dropped the reference to the 12-15p sale to neighbours bit, as this adds confusion about retail/wholesale and opens Use of System charges as a defence.

And "this countries efforts" should be "this country's efforts".

Otherwise spot on.

 

[Gavin A]

I'd probably have dropped the reference to the 12-15p sale to neighbours bit, as this adds confusion about retail/wholesale and opens Use of System charges as a defence.

For public consumption though, people know how much they pay, and can easily see that if they / their neighbour is only getting paid half of that for the electricity they're selling to the grid, then the electricity companies must be making a hefty profit from it.

Puts a different spin on it.

Personally I'm starting to think that the best thing we could actually do is ask for net metering instead of FITs.

I don't buy the grid usage argument anyway, as most people pay a standing charge for that service already.

 

[SibertSolar]

Good work Gavin. I'm trying to encourage people to respond to the consultation too, these petitions need 100k signatures to be taken notice of don't they?

 

[Gavin A]

the 100k is really on the main government petitions site, unfortunately someone's put up a rubbish petition on there that's doing nothing, whereas this one's got some traction, got Friends of the Earth and 38 degrees behind it etc.

 

[Gavin A]

btw, here's the facebook link I'm pushing at the moment, if people could like and share it that'd be good. It's getting a decent response so far, but still only relatively small numbers.

I'm on the national green memes committee for making facebook / twitter memes to be shared via local green party groups, so will be working up infographics for release via that medium, which should get a few tens of thousands of people, if we can get shared on the national page then that goes up to hundreds of thousands.

and will be discussing with the GP national energy spokesperson soon as well.

Sod this, I didn't campaign for 15 years to get the FIT scheme in place just to let the tories destroy the entire industry at this stage. These proposals are so obviously half baked they should be getting slaughtered for them, just got to find the key messages to get out there about it, and come up with more sensible alternative proposals - the tories have had a habit of kite flying with ridiculous measures, then rowing back on them and ending up with something not quite so bad if they create too much of a backlash. They also have a tiny majority.

 

[SRE]

btw, here's the facebook link I'm pushing at the moment, if people could like and share it that'd be good. It's getting a decent response so far, but still only relatively small numbers.

I'm on the national green memes committee for making facebook / twitter memes to be shared via local green party groups, so will be working up infographics for release via that medium, which should get a few tens of thousands of people, if we can get shared on the national page then that goes up to hundreds of thousands.

and will be discussing with the GP national energy spokesperson soon as well.

Sod this, I didn't campaign for 15 years to get the FIT scheme in place just to let the tories destroy the entire industry at this stage. These proposals are so obviously half baked they should be getting slaughtered for them, just got to find the key messages to get out there about it, and come up with more sensible alternative proposals - the tories have had a habit of kite flying with ridiculous measures, then rowing back on them and ending up with something not quite so bad if they create too much of a backlash. They also have a tiny majority.

Shared on personal & business page. Keep going Gavin you're doing a great job.

 

[Gavin A]

Got to balance campaigning with sorting our business out too, otherwise I'd happily spend the next 4 months full time ripping amber rudd a new arsehole.

eta wow, that got through the swear filter

 

[Gavin A]

ok I'm bored of the social media stuff now, get amongst it please folks.

new bank holiday game, think of likely sympathetic people with big twitter / facebook followings and tweet them asking for a retweet with the link to the petition.

 

[Worcester]

ok I'm bored of the social media stuff now, get amongst it please folks.

new bank holiday game, think of likely sympathetic people with big twitter / facebook followings and tweet them asking for a retweet with the link to the petition.

George Monbiot at the Gruaniad is your man.

 

[Gavin A]

George Monbiot at the Gruaniad is your man.

Is that tongue in cheek?

He wrote a polemic against FITs when the scheme first started, and afaik hasn't ever retracted it.

 

[Worcester]

Yeps, he's completely against subsidies for any energy, he shouts at solar, then shouts at fracking saying we should use biogas, yet then says it shouldn't get any subsidy as we'll do the wrong thing with it..

 

[TedM]

I've been going through the Impact Assessment trying to find holes in it.

There are minor, inexplicable differences between figures quoted from sources and the final calculation but nothing large enough to get excited about, and some balance out anyway. The IRR part I am not certain about.

The 1.63p for 0-10kW PV is based on this:

a 3 kWp system, cost £4950,
cost should be £1700 * 3 = £5100

with 20 year annual operating costs £63/year
should be £102/year (based on £34/kWp/year given in the IA)

Generation 2980 kWh per year
Should be 2970 kWh based on 3 kWp * 8760 * 11.3% load factor where 11.3% is based on SW England with an ideal south facing roof.

Export income (2980 * 50% * 4.85p * 20 years) £1340
This should be £1445 but that is an adjustment in the 'wrong' direction and pretty much balances the 'wrong' cost figure above.

Offset import saving (2980 * 47% * 20 years * 15.03p) £4210
47% here is obviously very arguable, but using a higher rate puts the value up anyway.

The tariff is supposed to bring an IRR of 4% for 2980 * 1.63p = £50/year or £1000 over 20 years
There are different ways of working this out so I am not sure on this but I make it £149.50/yr income needed over 20 years to give an IRR of 4% given the initial £4950 investment and allowing for the other annual income. This would put the tariff at 5.02p.

The IA excludes RPI (or CPI) from all calcs, and any allowance of falling generation from the panels over time.