End of solar power, feed in tariffs !!!!!

[Kris369]

Ok so a few days ago the government announced the end of supportive feed in tariffs for small scale solar systems from 14p/kW to 1p/kW. Starting 1st Jan 2016.

Having just installed two large solar panels and a grid fed inverter. I'm over joyed by this news that they would rather support environmentally damaging, greedy fossil fuel based energy companies making more money.

So rather then just wasting my money and giving way the energy we produce, I'm now looking into large scale storage, as this is now the only way to benefit from a expensive outlay.

Be interested to hear from others who have grid feed solar systems, and their reactions/solutions.

[Cougar]

Be worth you keeping an eye on what the Tesla company are doing as they are actively working on home power storage solutions.

[Bad Wombat]

The consultation document is here. The Executive Summary para 6 states "existing installations will not be affected by the proposed changes to tariffs and caps.".

[Kris369]

Thanks for the info wombat, put me at better ease. Hopefully will last but have my doubts.

Will say i would not have got a system without the tariffs, really think this proposal will kill off a lot of domestic uptake. 1p/kWh is ridiculous.

[Bad Wombat]

really think this proposal will kill off a lot of domestic uptake.

I think you're right!

[jansman]

Ok so a few days ago the government announced the end of supportive feed in tariffs for small scale solar systems from 14p/kW to 1p/kW. Starting 1st Jan 2016.

Having just installed two large solar panels and a grid fed inverter. I'm over joyed by this news that they would rather support environmentally damaging, greedy fossil fuel based energy companies making more money.

So rather then just wasting my money and giving way the energy we produce, I'm now looking into large scale storage, as this is now the only way to benefit from a expensive outlay.

Be interested to hear from others who have grid feed solar systems, and their reactions/solutions.

I am glad you have come to this conclusion. I do not have solar panels on my roof. However, it baffles me why there is no well advertised solar generated storage system. If I had panels installed I would not care about back feeding energy, J would want an autonomous system. Am I correct in thinking that if there is a power cut, a standard solar system will not work as it is connected to the grid?

[Kris369]

Due to cost saving and lifetime of deep cycle batteries, I personally chose a grid tied inverter which continuously returns all unused power to the grid. Which as you say turns off in the event of a grid failure.

However I have a small secondary system and a ups circuit to keep certain items like fridge/freezer, radios ect. Powered, the solar power then charges these until full and grid turns back on. In the event of something happening I can light all rooms using 12v lighting, power my comms and have enough to keep fridge,freezer powered indefinitely. Obviously as I only have limited storage ATM, in the event of long term blackout I could not store all I produce but can easily add car batteries to achieve this.

[jansman]

That sounds as though you have the best of both worlds! Thankyou for the info.

[nickdutch]

This was news that really upset me. Removing the incentives will make it less likely that people will get solar and that will be detrimental to the rest of the environment. It also means that Nuclear will get a boost and that can't be good.
Still we can always wait until the Gravity light becomes retail and hope we can learn to wire up many of them to keep ourselves in basic power if things go south.

[Kris369]

The gov and energy companies will continue to charge the green fee's though!

No subsides for green solutions but they will continue for fossil fuels and nuclear Heaven forbid them let anyone become self sufficient and not reliant on the state and have nothing to tax us on!