Southern electricity

[MCS Renewables]

We have a customer who says that Southern Electricity will not pay him for his FITS back to zero on the generation meter as they only pay from day of contact or contract.

We have never had this before, all of our other customers have been paid retrospectively back to the generation meter reading of zero on commissioning date as per the MCS certificate.

As his system has only been in a week it hardly matters in the long term ....I told him to place the FITS contract with another supplier.

Any comments appreciated, thanks

 

[Markc]

I was under the understanding the MCS certificate stated the starting point of payment from the gen meter. May be tell Southern about their responsibly under the consumer code!

 

[TedM]

The start of a FiTs contract is the Eligibility Date for the system. This is the later of:

1 - date of receipt by OFGEM of a written request for ROO-FIT accreditation (where applicable > 50kW)
2 - date of receipt by a supplier of a written request for MCS certified registration (where applicable < 50kW)
3 - date of Commissioning of the system
4 - date of Implementation of FiTs (i.e. 1st April 2010)

Meter readings would then have to be made available by the owner to the supplier in accordance with the terms of the contract.

FiTs payments for pv run for 25 years from the Eligibility Date.

I've got a SSE contract here somewhere - let me check it.

 

[TedM]

The SSE contract defines Eligibility Date in slightly different words but with the same meaning as I used.

I have suggested that all new system owners contact their electricity supplier before their system is installed to pre-warn them that they will want to arrange a FiTs contract and to get the paperwork in place prior to commissioning. They should finalise the details (meter serial number, etc) and return the Application Form on the day of commissioning - with a zero meter reading.

 

[SRE]

I'm not sure it really matters, if you are paid for 25 years from commencement it doesn't really matter if the reading is 0 or 500, it would be 25 years from that point so you wouldn't be losing out. For example if the gen meter is at 1 when you commission it but you don't send your fit off for a month and it's then on 170 then the only difference would be that you would be paid 25 years from Month 2 starting at 170 rather than 25 years from month 1 at 1.

Does that make sense ...

 

[edexlab]

we've also had this happen to several customers recently some are with the same suppliers as customers who have been paid from day one, and I think that Tedm's idea to precontact the supplier is the best idea and to email the MCS certificate on day (or next day) of commissioning , this is something that due to being busy is'nt always acheived and sounds to me like the possible cause of the problem