Fit – Feed in Tariff was implemented by the government to encourage the uptake of solar. this, with grants lead to a wide range of scam solar installations across the UK, and still has its legacy effecting solar today. However FIT scheme ended in April 2019 with a wide range of complaints and suffering.
Replaced by the Smart Export Guarantee (SEG): The SEG scheme replaced the FIT scheme for new installations. It offers a different payment structure, often based on a fixed rate per kilowatt-hour (kWh) exported.
FIT Payments would receive two types of payments:
Export Tariff: A payment for each unit of electricity exported to the National Grid.
Generation Tariff: A payment for each unit of electricity generated, regardless of whether it was used at home or exported to the grid.
There are still rip off systems out there and if you are not careful you may fall into the 50% trap.
This robbery is where you generate power and the company claims that you use 50% of that power, this is utter rubbish, and here is why… and what to do about it.
Older solar installations were Grid tied, they had no battery so they made power during the day when no one was home, if you were lucky you would use some power in the morning before work and maybe after work, meaning that you would use around 2-3 hours of solar at the start and end of the day.
At these times solar production is low, and you may be drawing power from the grid which of course you are charged for.
The image above is from a 870w solar installation. If you have a smart meter, you can see the power use in the morning is around 1kwh and in the evening (between 15:00 and 18:00) you are likely to see 2kwh of usage Without solar.
Giving you a total of 3kwh of usage. So here we have 4.5kwh – 3kwh = 1.5kwh
This may seem like a good deal, if you got 50% of the total, but you would be wrong as you would get 2.25kwh as a payment.
What you do not take into account is that in the morning you may have only produced 0.2kwh and by the evening 0.2kwh therefore you were charged for the power use used by the power company. The actual export of 4kwh (say) was between 09:00 and 15:00. you exported 4 kwh.
You are lightly to have a much lager system than the one above, and the bulk of the export will be during the day only. Back then the meters did not record the export of power and the production was recorded by a secondary meter fitted between your home meter and the main distribution meter ( your bill meter)
There are a number of meters around, if you are being ripped off, just tell your FIT payment company that you are having an AC coupled inverter installed. If they are around within hours to change the meter, then they are ripping you off and know it, but the claims they make of your usage are generally false.
I would estimate that homes left empty for most of the day would use around 1.8Kwh of power between 9-3.
SMET2 meter can show you your export and you should be paid the full amount for your export as it will be only export rather than the estimate they have been offering you.
Personally I would charge them by sending an invoice for the underpayment as you should look at the 50% as a estimate as when they bill by estimate.
You can find out more about smart meters here ( opens in new tab).
To see your export, you need to have a meter that records it, SMET 2 does.
There is a BIG list of how to’s here. ( opens in new tab) this link covers how to see the export reading from other meters.
Landis & Gyr E470 (SMETS2) ( meter shown above)
To get a reading from this smart meter:
Press the A button to wake up the display so that ‘Credit Mode Bal’ appears
Press and hold the green ‘A’ button for 3-5 seconds to get the time, and then keep pressing A to cycle through until you see Total Act. Export
Your export reading should now be visible on-screen
Now that you have the total export you can compare this to your payments and records they have and send your bill accordingly.
REMEMBER – this is on your Main meter not the solar meter, so in the box with the big black fuse for most of you.
If you were able to see your power export on your main meter, the company would have seen this and know this is grid side readings, therefore a very accurate measure of your export and if you were paid less, then you are a victim of fraud. just to be clear, the measure is your actual Export after usage in your home.
Fraud and sales of stolen goods.
If you are not paid for your product, this is an actual item knowns as electrons, the exported electrons are sold to other people. this means that not only you are victims but those who were charged for what was taken from you. This completes the criminal liabilities of fraud. Take by deception, sell others property which they did not own for profit.
HOW MUCH SHOULD FIT PAY?
Most homes with FIT should get around £450 in the summer months. but this varies depending the installation, the size and the maintenance (clean and clear panels).
Modern solar installations of ten panels would make around 35kwh per day At 0.2286 kwh or about £8.00 per day, or £2,200-£3,000 per year with export only, the load (usage) would lower this amounts value by around £0.50 per day.
How Do I turn the table?
To turn the table you must use all your power production, an off grid system which is charged from the FIT system, with a ATS to switch to your stored power to avoid any grid power use.
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