Solar Blog

You may or may not be aware of recent press coverage last weekend about a potential government review of the FIT system. The Managing Director of BSOLAR Peter Bladen has provided the following response for people who are still undecided about Solar PV installation.   

Feed in Tariff Review:

The recent articles regarding a possible review of the Feed-In-Tariffs paid to home owners who install Solar PV Panels has not gone far enough in describing what Government intentions and responsibilities are and will be. We understand that this article has raised serious concerns regarding solar panel installation investment with BSOLAR. I am pleased to be able to fill in the rest of the details by answering the obvious questions.

1)     You are correct in your understanding that Feed in Tariff’s (FIT’s) are not directly Government funded. FIT’s are established in law, under which the Government is responsible for regulating through the MCS. However, it is the energy companies that are responsible for paying their customers FIT’s.

2)     Your investment will be safe. If you sign a contract with your energy provider now it will not be subject to retrospective law changes.

3)     The current FIT rate payable to energy producers is at the moment set to remain until 2012 with a review planned for 2014. The Government are looking at bringing this date forward to 2012, after which the FIT rate for new installations after that date may be reduced. This change will affect new entrants into the scheme only, it will not affect contracts signed before then.

Anyone who is considering solar panelling installation would be advised to sign up before 2012 to receive maximum income.

4)     Your contract will be with the energy company who are your present suppliers.

5)     If in the future you do decide to change energy companies your FIT contract will not be affected. After commissioning you will receive your certificate from the MCS, the possession of which lets you register as a power provider, regardless of which energy supplier you use.

The recent article also mentions the deterioration in performance resulting in inflationary gains by 0.3%/year. We acknowledge that performance of solar panels do decline slightly with age, which has been factored into the manufacturers guarantee. By the end of the 10 year guarantee the panels in your system will still perform to 90% of their original capacity, by which time we have calculated the return on your investment should be complete. Your panels are still guaranteed to work to 85% of your original capacity after 25 years, by which time you will have made a substantial profit.

To close then, if you are seriously considering Solar PV for your property, the advice would be to proceed now and well before 2011. With a review of renewable heat incentives scheduled for October, the current FIT rate is also highly likely to come under scrutiny as well. Therefore our honest advice would be to install now or in the next few weeks in order to guarantee the FIT rate of 41.3 pence.