Meeting with greg barker

[19simon]

I emailed my mp who has secured a meeting with barker tomorrow. My mp has asked me to email summary of main points and any help by other members of the forum would be very helpful in case I have forgotten anything.

 

[Somecamel]

Hi Simon,

I am in a meeting with Greg Barker today in Bexhill. Is this the meeting your talking about?

 

[The Solar King]

Please ask for the link to EPCs to be removed. Microgeneration actually lifts the EPC of a property. The idea has not been thought through and is there purely as a barrier. Like reducing the Tariff in an ordered manner, no one is arguing with the need to improve the energy efficiency of buildings. The argument is about linking in this way.

Also ask why he feels the need to keep using misleading information. In the debate in Parliament he quoted £80 per bill payer as the cost of FITs, previously it was £26, and yesterday it was £26 again according to Chris Huhne on Question Time. The price keeps going up and down like a -----'s draws. The £26.00 is also misleading as this is based on a notional cost of FITs with no change for the next 9 years and no reduction from the current level. In 9 years we will have passed grid parity and staged reductions would have reduced it to zero. There is also no reference to take up levels. The comparisons with Germany are also wrong. Their tariff has a different structure (pays far higher figures for larger installations) making the comparison meaningless. The German situation is nearing maturity unlike the UK.

Ask why he and Chris Huhne have not approached the Treasury for permission to reconfigure the underspends within several budgets to provide an uplift to the FITs budget. If he says there are no underspends he is not telling the truth. There is £1bn subsidy rejected by Scottish Power for Carbon Capture and Storage; the list goes on and on. Incidentally, according to DECC's own figures the cost of FITs for the first 15 months was £21m, an underspend of £34m in year one.

The Government are today announcing a programme to ease youth unemployment, throwing £400m at temporary job creation schemes. All well and good. At the same time the changes to FITs could cost 39000 real jobs.

The industry now employs more people than the nuclear industry. It contributes more to the treasury than the FIT programme costs.

Please ask for the cut off date to be moved to April to avoid the current madness and further embarassment for the Government when it looses in the courts over this issue.

Ask that the Link to EPCs be broken.

Ask that the Electricity companies pay a realistic price for power exported to the grid. They cannot generate a unit for 3p so why is it that is all they pay? It should be 50% of their highest non pre-pay tariff. At least this would go some way to linking FITS to energy costs.

Ask that the initial reduction in FITS be to a level that allows the industry to continue, rather than have a situation where massive job losses will occur.

Ask for a sensible and structured route map of digression to grid parity that gives certainty to the industry.

 

[SRE]

At the risk of upsetting some again - ask if the break with EPC'c could be countered with an agreement that basic energy efficiency measures, those identified in the normal energy efficiency hierarchy, be installed if not already installed as a pre-condition to solar pv. This offers a solution instead of just another opportunity to tell the government that they are rubbish and don't know what they are talking about.

Whether you like it or not, the way to influence people is not to bludgeon them with their failings but to offer sensible options that allow them to back down whilst keeping face.

 

[Richard-gosolar]

As the comments above the grade C EPC is the major kill point for the industry, retraining/employing additional labour to get further involved with the insullation side etc to meet this requirement is just so unrealistic given the uncertainty they have caused in the green industry. As a small company we cannot risk this given their ability and willingness to make such radical changes at a whim. This is not a game this is our real life situation, this is keeping our mortgages paid and children fed not an excuse to gamble at the bookies which is how it feels right now!!

I would like you to point out to them that they need to accept that the EPC C grading (and by the sounds of things a D grading wouldn't be much better) introduces a reality of a a 9p rate not 21p, that means an 80% reduction in FiT for less than 4kWp systems.

I really hope some sort of sensible suggestion like Biggs suggestion in another thread can be reached around energy efficiency.

Considering the 21p rate (which as above isn't real its a 9p rate!!) those generally with a bit of disposable income (generally 50+ years old in our experience) don't want to wait 15years plus for the payback - many of our custmers have questioned the 6-8 year payback we did have at the current rate!! So there wont be 2 installations for the price of 1 with their new rate!! And double the jobs as they quoted in the debate on Wednesday!! Madness.

1 more point is the statement around the FiT being swallowed by PV when it was meant for a range of technologies - I do not understand why if something is going so well and other industries aren't they think they should kill PV - surely thats more of a reason to support PV. If the green argument stands why would we wait around saving budget hoping some people will want to have complicated intrusive installations when PV is proving so popular with customers working towards decentralisation.

NB/ I have researched tariff rates WW and can only find lower tariff rates (and this is than the 21p not the realer 9p) in Hawaii and Malaysia!! Thinking their irradiance levels are likely to be quite a bit higher there!!

How can they not look to take a percentage of the payments for PV FiT rates from the Big 6 if the talk of the £175/year profit per household is true - I mean what will that figure be by 2020!!

I wish you luck - I wrote a fully referenced (to back up all my points) letter to my MP and watched her get up and defend the cuts twice within the parliamentary vote on Wednesday - she didn't even mention us - atleast some conservative MPs had the decency to mention their constituents.

 

[SRE]

Hey guys, how did you get on with Greg Barker???

 

[MorganPVI]

At a guess, nada, zilich, nothing. Doubt Greg even has the courtesy to give a quick reach-around whilst he and the rest of DECC are shafting the SME PV installers. Bad show imo. Best everyone vote Green next time round, effing hippies would't have cut the FiT!!

 

[Somecamel]

The meeting went as well as expected. No new news I'm afraid and very tight lipped about the future of Solar PV.

I made my points the main one being what am I meant to sell from the 12th December up until the release of the consultation sometime in January as 'legally' I can't sell a system at 21p until I definitely know it's going to be 21P.

 

[SRE]

So what was the response to how we market post 12/12?

 

[Somecamel]

There was none- He genuinely seemed a little shocked and looks like it was another point that DECC had missed in this whole mess.

 

[SRE]

Not surprising really, scary to think how many other industries they are doing similar things to. What really makes my blood boil is the strike on Wednesday. It must be really awful to have a final salary pension!

 

[Elysium]

My heart bleeds for them - I had to cash my pension in to put into the business so it looks like I will living off Aldi beans if and when I ever retire.

 

[SRE]

Beans will be good for the digestion when you get to retire at 80 and it makes a change from mince :rofl:

I've been waiting to get iron intrvavenously before an op and guess when the date has come through for that - 30th November! No doubt that will be postponed again!

Teachers especially nark me, it must be really, really hard having a final salary pension AND 13 weeks holiday a year. You wouldn't see many of them woring extra hours/days/weeks in a crisis. If they tell me one more time how they work from 9 - 5/6 not 9 - 3 like some people think I'll scream. Try working 7 - 11, am - pm that is and then getting kicked in the nuts - now that's something to complain about.

 

[moggy1968]

don't forget the teachers standard 32.5 hour week either!!
mind you, still wouldn't fancy it as a job!!

 

[alarm man]

Beans will be good for the digestion when you get to retire at 80 and it makes a change from mince :rofl:

I've been waiting to get iron intrvavenously before an op and guess when the date has come through for that - 30th November! No doubt that will be postponed again!

Teachers especially nark me, it must be really, really hard having a final salary pension AND 13 weeks holiday a year. You wouldn't see many of them woring extra hours/days/weeks in a crisis. If they tell me one more time how they work from 9 - 5/6 not 9 - 3 like some people think I'll scream. Try working 7 - 11, am - pm that is and then getting kicked in the nuts - now that's something to complain about.

to be fair sre,i do a lot of schools alarms,and i go in after 3.30 when the kids have gone,most teachers are still there when i leave at 5,tho my biggest gripe with teachers,while everyone battles thru the snow to get to work,they seem the only ones who cant make it..:shocked3: