UK Microgeneration Tarriffs Slashed

quentingargan

Those who were looking for a more generous feed in tariff for microgenerators will be unimpressed by the slashing of such tariffs in the UK.

Some of us here had pointed out that the UK tariff erred on the over-generous side, while the Irish tariff is too low. It was widely expected that the UK tariff would be reduced next April, in line with falling installation costs, but the decision to bring this forward, with possibly a much deeper cut in the tariff has caused chaos in the industry.

See here. So do folks still think that Ireland should follow the UK example?

Coles

quentingargan wrote: »

Those who were looking for a more generous feed in tariff for microgenerators will be unimpressed by the slashing of such tariffs in the UK.

This is just the REFiT for PV, right?

quentingargan

Coles wrote: »

This is just the REFiT for PV, right?

Yes - that seems to be the case, though the details haven't been announced. What had taken people by surprise was that this was reneging on previous clear commitments that the prices would hold until April. So people who had got planning permission and raised funding on the basis of one scenario are now scrambling to buy panels, inverters etc., before the December deadline.

It follows a previous U turn on FIT commitments in Spain where the terms of a Royal Decree were reversed.

Point is that renewable energy is a long term investment, and I guess it gives us all the wobbles if you can put in PVs on the assumption that you will get one price, only to find out later that the price no longer applies.

That said, the situation in the UK had been bizarre, and the return on investment was ludicrously generous. The whole scheme had been badly thought through and they should have had more regular, and smaller reviews in the tarriff to keep things steady instead of the roller coaster that the industry there has had.

ei.sdraob

OP How about having no tarrifs :rolleyes:
the state subsidised and encouraged construction and building for years look where that led the country
if your business can not survive without subsidies then it should not exist
i dont get any subsidies or help (nor want any) from the state in my business despite paying **** load in taxes, all while having to compete tooth for nail with companies from china, india and the rest of the world

why should i pay even more taxes and have even more expensive electricity (i already had to move most of the hardware outside of Ireland where electricity is much cheaper) just so your business can exist? its perverse


/end rant against subsidies

quentingargan

ei.sdraob wrote: »

OP How about having no tarrifs :rolleyes:
the state subsidised and encouraged construction and building for years look where that led the country
if your business can not survive without subsidies then it should not exist
.....

That's precisely the policy that has resulted in Ireland now buying its wind farm turbines from Denmark and Germany, both of whom subsidised wind farms 20 years ago, and are now reaping the rewards.

During a transitional period, any renewable energy will have to be subsidised to compete with oil or gas. By building market share, you hope to end up with a lead role in that industry in the future.

As it happens, I think Ireland (or the UK) is unlikely to end up with a lead role in solar, which performs much better further south, but domestic wind turbines are an area in which Ireland could be a world leader.

Also, to quote Hugh Piggott, "why should it be necessary to compete against cheap power from polluting engines?".Competing with energy that comes from a sludge sucked out of the ground requires a subsidy which acknowledges the true cost of energy production when all the hidden costs of climate change, acid rain etc., are taken into account.

Coles

ei.sdraob wrote: »

OP How about having no tarrifs :rolleyes:
the state subsidised and encouraged construction and building for years look where that led the country
if your business can not survive without subsidies then it should not exist
i dont get any subsidies or help (nor want any) from the state in my business despite paying **** load in taxes, all while having to compete tooth for nail with companies from china, india and the rest of the world

why should i pay even more taxes and have even more expensive electricity (i already had to move most of the hardware outside of Ireland where electricity is much cheaper) just so your business can exist? its perverse


/end rant against subsidies

Ok, but 'subsidies' are a very common way for Government to implement policy in industries where they see a long term strategic or economic benefit, or to create much needed employment. There are subsidies in everything including the infrastructure on which you run your business and the education of your employees.

The difficulty here, as QG as already mentioned, is that there is a serious inconsistency in government policy.

ei.sdraob

A world leader at the expense of other businesses and people in economy who are already struggling

here pull the other finger

some cheek you have to be basing your business model at the expense of others

quentingargan

ei.sdraob wrote: »

.....some cheek you have to be basing your business model at the expense of others

Our children and grandchildren may have a similar thing to say about climate change

ei.sdraob

quentingargan wrote: »

Our children and grandchildren may have a similar thing to say about climate change

Here in the real world

Our children and grandchildren would be too busy repaying the debts ran up by the last time the state decided to subsidize and industry (the construction industry)

Thats if they have a job that that is, considering all the jobs are moving to Germany, China etc who are both very busy building coal power plants despite various "green" rhethoric
And Ireland is already uncompetitive thanks to ex state power monopoly and now crazy wind policy which is making power more and more expensive

Coles

If that's your understanding about what happened during the 'Celtic Tiger' decade then you're badly mistaken, but perhaps it's a debate you should have in the 'After Hours' section? It had nothing to do with 'subsidies' for an industry, and everything to do with corruption, greed and stupidity.

It is a governments job to find the correct balance to provide support for an emerging industry (for a whole host of reasons) and to ensure that that industry will be sustainable. This debate should really be about how to achieve that balance rather than arguing about whether or not subsidies should exist.

Can we move this on a bit now?

muffler

We can leave it at that now and stick to the topic please. Thanks

quentingargan

The ESB promise of free meters and a 10c per KwHr supplement for microgenerators is due to expire at the end of February. Also, according to an email from ESB;


..."the original expiry date for the ESB Electric Ireland Micro-generation Scheme (9 cent / kWh) was ....extended by one year to 31st December 2011 ...ESB Electric Ireland is reviewing the current situation at present"


Up to now, industry lobbyists could point to the UK as showing the way on supporting microgenerators, but that is no longer the case.



Anyone got a heads up on what might happen next?

Coles

quentingargan wrote: »

The ESB promise of free meters and a 10c per KwHr supplement for microgenerators is due to expire at the end of February. Also, according to an email from ESB;


..."the original expiry date for the ESB Electric Ireland Micro-generation Scheme (9 cent / kWh) was ....extended by one year to 31st December 2011 ...ESB Electric Ireland is reviewing the current situation at present"


Up to now, industry lobbyists could point to the UK as showing the way on supporting microgenerators, but that is no longer the case.



Anyone got a heads up on what might happen next?

The UK REFiT system is still massively more supportive to this sector than the Irish system. Even taking the new FiT for PV, it is almost triple what is available in Ireland.

The support given by the ESB to micro-generation is a complete joke. An extra 10c on 3000kWhrs? Given that it is clean renewable energy that requires no changes to existing infrastructure, has almost no transmission loss between point of production and point of use (it is used locally) etc etc etc, the ESB should at least be reimbursing the producer the full resale value. 9c per kWH is ridiculous, and as a percentage of the resale price, one of the worst rates in Europe.

Given how disastrously slow the uptake in micro-generation has been in this country I think there is no option but to increase the rate.

Incidently, I heard a rumour that the 10c bonus (a maximum of €300 per annum) hasn't actually been paid to any producers, but I could be mistaken.

Coles

A good overview of the UK REFiT rates. GoodEnergy.CO.UK

The UK REFiT system is designed to encourage the industry, and it certainly appears that their policy was very generous, but this has been the case across much of Europe.

I've made up a chart that compares the amount of money paid per kWh for exporting small scale PV and Wind energy to the grid compared to the cost purchasing that electricity in the various European countries.



Ireland's position is quite shocking.

quentingargan

Coles wrote: »

Ireland's position is quite shocking.

Greece's position is equally shocking on solar considering the conditions that prevail both fiscally and solar-wise.

However, for Irish PV installations, I think the few systems that have been installed would be in the 19c bracket, which is above 100% of retail.

One thing really lacking in Ireland is a feed in tariff for commercial users. Most of the enquiries I see for solar come from companies wanting to "do their bit". When they hear that there is no feed in tariff at all in their case, that's pretty much the end of the call. Likewise, GAA pitches or sports clubs wanting to put up small turbines are excluded. I can see no reason why our miserable feed in tariff is exclusively for residential users.

dowtcha

QG, I'm sure that a bit more national stats on microgeneration in Ireland would be welcome, without of course infringing on individual privacy

I think in a related post you say in 2010 there was 413 microgenerators registered

What I'd be interested to see what the national number of kWhrs exported to the grid are. You claim most of the 55 solar installations are in this bracket. If you looked at the 413 registered installations I wonder how many export over 1000kWhr annually or receive at least 100 euro from ESB Networks. I would say less than 25% of the 413, only a wild guess??
Coles quotes a rumour that no money for electricity exports has been paid - it wouldn't surprise me. As you say it's not all about economics, but as we have seen in the UK solar tariff it certainly is a strong stimulant

Coles

dowtcha wrote: »

QG, I'm sure that a bit more national stats on microgeneration in Ireland would be welcome, without of course infringing on individual privacy

I think in a related post you say in 2010 there was 413 microgenerators registered

What I'd be interested to see what the national number of kWhrs exported to the grid are. You claim most of the 55 solar installations are in this bracket. If you looked at the 413 registered installations I wonder how many export over 1000kWhr annually or receive at least 100 euro from ESB Networks. I would say less than 25% of the 413, only a wild guess??
Coles quotes a rumour that no money for electricity exports has been paid - it wouldn't surprise me. As you say it's not all about economics, but as we have seen in the UK solar tariff it certainly is a strong stimulant

The SEAI released a report on microgeneration in August (there's thread on it in this forum), and it gives a bit of detail on such things.

The average size of PV installations that were 'Grid Tied' in Ireland were 2.2kW capacity, but I would genuinely love to know what the ROI on such schemes were. I suspect there are other benefits to such schemes that might be harder to account for (an A rating for a residential BER, dinner party conversation starter, etc.).

Of course there are other ways to use the energy from PV cells without doing a 'Grid Tie' and I can't imagine the 3000 kWh bonus (€300) being very attractive when you can get the same financial benefit from the electricity by using it yourself, provided you are offsetting genuine demand.

Is there any argument against reimbursing small/micro scale renewable energy producers for the full resale value of the power they provide the grid?

Are there any good Irish case studies for PV, particularly a full project ROI, EROEI?

dowtcha

Coles, maybe I'm incorrect in my understanding, but I assumed all microgeneration power feeds into an existing meter installation, to primarily displace imported mains power and secondly to earn a few scheckels from the export of electricity to mains where the microgeneration kWh is greater than imported electricity ??

Coles

dowtcha wrote: »

Coles, maybe I'm incorrect in my understanding, but I assumed all microgeneration power feeds into an existing meter installation, to primarily displace imported mains power and secondly to earn a few scheckels from the export of electricity to mains where the microgeneration kWh is greater than imported electricity ??

Well, yes, but it doesn't necessarily have to be done in a 'grid tied' way that would show up in the SEAI Microgeneration report. Perhaps I mangled the point I was making.:)

dowtcha

I had a look at the SEAI report, which of course does have the info I was looking for???

In the case of wind which accounts for 85% of microgenerated power / 357 of the national installations and generated 160,000kWhr which is an average of 448 kWhr a year or 44euro annually for an average 5.1kW sized turbine, costing somewhere in the region of 20k to install - doesn't look pretty

Coles

dowtcha wrote: »

I had a look at the SEAI report, which of course does have the info I was looking for???

In the case of wind which accounts for 85% of microgenerated power / 357 of the national installations and generated 160,000kWhr which is an average of 448 kWhr a year or 44euro annually for an average 5.1kW sized turbine, costing somewhere in the region of 20k to install - doesn't look pretty

The report is here for anyone else who is interested.

Those figures on page 4 are quarterly figures, so the 160MWhrs should be annualised (multiplied by 4) to give an indication of the total annual export of the 357 turbines. Of course that ignores seasonal factors.

BUT, and this gets back to the point I was mangling, it only makes sense to export 3000 kWHrs! It makes better sense to tailor your demand to match your production than 'wasting' it by exporting it to the Grid for 9c/unit.

The figures in the SEAI report just show the energy exported to the Grid, they don't show the energy that was used to off set demand on the premises. If the average size of a turbine was 5.1kW, I think it's fair to assume that they have a Load Factor of 10-15% (they might claim better), so it's probably fairly realistic to expect that the total energy produced was about 2000 MWhrs of which 640MWHrs was exported, and the remainder offset demand.

dowtcha

Accepting that the 160MWhr was for a quarter year, it still doesn't look like the average installation comes close to exporting 3000kWhr a year, so chances are the number of actual installations being paid only 9c for exporting over 3000kWhr annually are very few of them.

In the case of wind turbines most export takes place during the nighttime, when the ability to manage demand may not be greatest, but it seems at present to be a bit hypothetical

Coles

dowtcha wrote: »

Accepting that the 160MWhr was for a quarter year, it still doesn't look like the average installation comes close to exporting 3000kWhr a year, so chances are the number of actual installations being paid only 9c for exporting over 3000kWhr annually are very few of them.

It's not too far off, actually! The number of wind turbines contributing to the 160 MWHrs might be slightly over stated because some weren't installed for the entire quarter. Also the amount of energy produced in Q4 2010 was remarkably low because of the exceptional freezing and unwindy weather we had. Excuses I know, but annualizing from a single quarter of seasonal data is always going to cause problems.

If the turbines were scaled to make best use of the REFiT bonus we could expect the 350 installations to export 1000 MWhrs of electricity. Even using the annualised data from Q4 2010 they were close to that (640 MWhrs)

Here's a chart from Eirgrid showing how the poor wind conditions of 2010 caused an exceptionally low amount of energy to be produced relative to previous years.



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dowtcha

A good graph, fairly dramatic fall off for 2010, any reasons, cue Jean Byrne??

Coles

dowtcha wrote: »

A good graph, fairly dramatic fall off for 2010, any reasons, cue Jean Byrne??

Yeah, just the random nature of weather. In designing any renewable energy scheme you have to base your assumptions on long term statistical data. Swings and roundabouts. In a few years time there will probably be some good windy years and everyone will stick a wind turbine in their garden thinking it's a sure thing!