Latest on the court challenge!!!

[TedM]

BTW this is still not a done deal. Either House of Parliament could vote to throw out the draft. Then it would be back to square one.

This is unlikely, however.

 

[mdovey]

OK, so

installations before the 12/12 will almost certainly be 43.3p until 1 April, and 43.3p after 1 April.
installations between the 12/12 and 3/3 will almost certainly be 43.3p until 1 April and will almost certainly be at least 21p but may be 43.3p after 1 April depending on the court case
installations between the 3/3 will almost certainly be 43.3p until 1 April, and will most probably be 21p after 1 April depending on parliament approval.

I'm glad it is all clear now!

 

[pwboston]

I still cant get my head round how long the courst case is taking, from expecting a decision last Friday afternoon to hearing nothing?

Anyway, anyone installing a system now gets the 21p with the "chance" of getting a higher tariff thats basically what we are saying

 

[BruceB]

Ted, Have you deliberately said the FIT bands are based on DNC rather than TIC?

 

[FIT-PV]

Anbody hear this??

"Solar firms call for High Court case to be dropped to end uncertainty around rates for customers"

 

[Noddy67]

OK, so

installations before the 12/12 will almost certainly be 43.3p until 1 April, and 43.3p after 1 April.
installations between the 12/12 and 3/3 will almost certainly be 43.3p until 1 April and will almost certainly be at least 21p but may be 43.3p after 1 April depending on the court case
installations between the 3/3 will almost certainly be 43.3p until 1 April, and will most probably be 21p after 1 April depending on parliament approval.

I'm glad it is all clear now!

that is clear, thank you. I seem to remember we're not supposed to be at the clients house for more than two hours selling our wares. Does this include or exclude the 30 minute explanation time of the above?

with that and the "how does it know to take the electricity from the PV system not the grid" question and I've only got an hour left.

 

[TedM]

Ted, Have you deliberately said the FIT bands are based on DNC rather than TIC?

I hadn't noticed TBH. I just copied that direct from the DECC announcement. I suspect it is a mistake, though I haven't seen the actual draft of the Standard Licence Conditions yet,

 

[mdovey]

I agree with Ted that it is probably a mistake - however, the "Written Ministerial Statement on Solar PV Feed-in Tariffs" published by DECC definitely states "Band (kW Declared Net Capacity (DNC)" (notice the missing bracket too!), so it does raise the element of doubt that there might be a move afoot to move from TIC to DNC for calculating FITs (I wonder what the legal situation is if someone manages to install a >4kW TIC but <4kW DNC system before DECC issue a correction?)

OK, so I got confused between TIC and DNC yesterday, but you would have thought that a Minister of State who has already lost the confidence of the solar and renewable industry, whose competence has already been questioned by a parliamentary committee and the judiciary, would have taken more care in a written statement to parliament supposedly intended to provide clarity to confusion caused by that minister!

 

[Broadswordcalli]

Noddy67,
What about the hour trying to answer the question " What's to stop any of the numpties in Parliament changing their mind in the future" question, which in my experience seems to be asked more and more and why I am I not surprised about that....

 

[Eco Deal]

any news on C RATING AFTER 3rd march !!!!1

 

[mdovey]

Noddy67,
What about the hour trying to answer the question " What's to stop any of the numpties in Parliament changing their mind in the future" question, which in my experience seems to be asked more and more and why I am I not surprised about that....

You'd like to think that the almost dead cert of a class action lawsuit might at least make them pause..

 

[sambotc]

One good thing about the rent a roof schemes then, enough money to file a lawsuit if it ever did actually arise, would be very suprised if it did though.

 

[JMT]

So I am not quite sure what this announcement gives us any more info on what we already knew. To me it doesnt take away any of the uncertainty tbh.

We already know if the government lose their appeal it was going to go back to 43.3p until end of march, and that the rate is currently sitting at 21p according to the announcement the decc had on their website a few days ago.

So to me the only thing that is different is that if they lose instead of the cut off date for 43.3p being end of march it is now beginning.

Have I Got that right?

 

[TedM]

That's right.

All that has really happened is that DECC have started the 40-day parliamentary clock ticking in order to implement these changes. They were going to have to do this anyway to meet the 1st April implementation date for any of the consultation changes and the annual RPI updates. Those will now follow-on with yet another draft of the Standard Licence Conditions being laid before parliament before the end of February.

 

[Earthstore]

There is still no clarification that if you sell a system after the 12th of dec it will stay on the tariff that you sold it at (whatever that may be).

The original statement was; if you sell a system after the 12th dec it will be 43.3p until April, then that tariff will be reduced to a proposed 21p.

The only difference seems to be that, now, until March it will be a minimum of 21p.

Greg Barker has not followed any procedures to arrive at this feeble attempt to console the Industry, so far all he has actually achieved is lose one court case for making the changes illegally.

 

[moggy1968]

I think the idea is this only becomes relevant if the government lose their court action so they can still bring in the 21p rate from early march. I fthey waited until the end of the court decision they would have to wait 40 days for the due legal process before the rate could be cut to 21p. This might, they fear, lead to another feeding frenzy. Installs done after 12th of dec but before the march date would get the 43.3 rate for the 25 years if the rate change that affected them is deemed illegal.

If they win then this is irrlevant as all installs after 12dec get 21p after march

it's CYA

 

[solarsparkie]

Electricity is consumed from the PV system rather than the grid as the output voltage is slightly higher than grid voltage which would be as to water it must flow downhill

that is clear, thank you. I seem to remember we're not supposed to be at the clients house for more than two hours selling our wares. Does this include or exclude the 30 minute explanation time of the above?

with that and the "how does it know to take the electricity from the PV system not the grid" question and I've only got an hour left.

 

[Markc]

I think the latest release does tie some loose ends up. Certainly for the <4kWp system also.

Given this announcement we can with certainty, possibly, maybe, perhaps say anything installed after 3rd March will be at 21p. Anything installed between now and then will get 43p until end march then 21p after unless the appeal is lost then it will be 43p for 25yrs unless installed after 3rd March which will be 21p. Clear?

On another more constructive note. I do not now buy into the assumption the 21p rate will be under threat due to the volumes of installations taken place in Nov/Dec 2011 if they lose the appeal. It was clear form the outset the numbers of installations would rocket and they knew this. The bigger plan is to introduce the Green Deal at what ever the cost as this looks good to voters. They harp on about being the greenest government yet and the plan is to show in three years time the green deal has introduced and helped X amount of homes become more energy efficient and so reducing X amount of CO2 etc etc.

They needed to act on the rate we all understand this and no mater what some say if you run the sums 21p is workable as 41p was in the beginning. The bigger picture is the EPC cert IMO and until this is conformed it is difficult to plan past April 2012. Regardless of what happens on the fiasco being the appeal it is after April we should be looking at now.

 

[TedM]

Further to the DNC/TIC point that Bruce picked up:

DECC have now confirmed that using DNC was a mistake and have amended the document to use TIC.

Thanks, good spot - the licence conditions are correct but we've updated the table in the condoc and WMS to TIC.

Written Ministerial Statement on Solar PV Feed-in Tariffs - Department of Energy and Climate Change now says:

Band (kW Total Installed Capacity)	Current generation tariff (p/kWh)	New generation tariff from 1 April 2012 (p/kWh)
≤4kW (new build)	37.8	21.0
≤4kW (retrofit)	43.3	21.0
>4-10kW	37.8	16.8
>10-50kW	32.9	15.2
>50-100kW	19	12.9
>100-150kW	19	12.9
>150-250kW	15	12.9
>250kW-5MW	8.5	8.5
stand alone	8.5	8.5

 

[BruceB]

Impressive you can have the DECC website updated within 24hrs!

May I trouble you on another point which I expect you can answer off the top of your head to save me scouring documents? Does the EPC Level C requirement proposed feature in the draft regulations, or are we waiting for more to be published? And any exemptions, eg for listed buildings?

Regards
Bruce