Parliament TV - FiT Review

[whinmoor]

Now showing:

Player

Environmental Audit and Energy and Climate Change Committee Tuesday 29 November 2011

Boothroyd Room Meeting started at 2.40pm Solar power feed-in tariffs Witnesses HomeSun, Solar Trade Association, Bath and West Community Energy, and Solarcentury Gregory Barker MP, Minister of State for Climate Change, Moira Wallace OBE, Permanent Secretary, and Simon Virley, Director General, Department of Energy and Climate Change

 

[whinmoor]

Mr Barker facing the panel now.

 

[SolarCity]

Interesting stuff. I'm watching from the start.

Thanks for the link.

 

[deeyup]

Compelling viewing!

 

[northernsun]

Its better than last weeks!

And now Greg's getting a bit of a shoutng at. Merry christmas everyone!

 

[whinmoor]

Did anyone spot Rory Bremner?

 

[SibertSolar]

Very interesting viewing.....Tim Yeo nearly threw a spanner into the works with his comment about lead-times yet no-one picked up on it or used it to emphasise DECC's lack of consideration of incoming ocean freight shipments, manufacturing lead-times, stock availability etc, etc.....

 

[Chop]

Dr Whitehead 1 - Greg Barker 0

 

[Noddy67]

can't find it - it's not on my parliament channel or have I missed it.

 

[northernsun]

Its online at the link in the opening post.

 

[Chop]

Dr Whitehead is kicking a$$

 

[whinmoor]

The panel didn't get shirty with the solar industry representatives. Greg and friends are getting a tougher grilling.

 

[Noddy67]

ignore that - just seen the player

 

[whinmoor]

Next episode of this gripping drama:

Thursday 1 December 2011
At 11.40am

• Chloe Smith MP, Economic Secretary to the Treasury
• Jonathan Mills, Deputy Director, Energy Environment & Agriculture, HM Treasury
  

 

[Earthstore]

When questioned, not one person could explain why the FIT was 43.3p, instead of 41.3p.
They thought that it included the export at 3p.
I may not have listened as much as I should at school, but 41.3p+3p= 44.3p.
Do you think I should point out to them that it is linked to the RPI?
Earthstore Energy for government!!!
Well I could not do it much worse, and I can add up!

 

[SolarCity]

Thoroughly enjoyed watching that. I thought the lady to Greg's right was going to cry at one point.

 

[Somecamel]

When questioned, not one person could explain why the FIT was 43.3p, instead of 41.3p.
They thought that it included the export at 3p.
I may not have listened as much as I should at school, but 41.3p+3p= 44.3p.
Do you think I should point out to them that it is linked to the RPI?
Earthstore Energy for government!!!
Well I could not do it much worse, and I can add up!

It pays 43.3 for the generation tariff and 3p for the export tariff which is normally set at 50% of generation.

The 41.3p was the tariff for last year- it increased to 43.3p with an inflationary rise in April 2011.

Watching it now- pretty gripping- can't wait to see Greg in action lol

 

[Somecamel]

Really starting to **** me off the way Politicians always blame the last party in power- It's boring- Move on!!

 

[powervan]

as usual the SMALL MAN LEFT OUT AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Somecamel]

As much as we all 'dislike' the rent-a-roof brigade- The guy representing him did make some good points

 

[Somecamel]

It's all resorted to graphs made in Microsoft word

 

[SRE]

Interesting that the impact assessment didn't assess the impact of losing so many jobs.

I'm pleased to see that the fact that the deadline was so short was brought up several times but I didn't really get the feeling that they understood why there was so much growth at the minute and no-one seemed to mention that the graph will have an almighty dip in December and January because there wouldn't be anything else to install.

None of the industry guys managed to explain why there was such an increase at the minute and I thought that was a lost opportunity.

Too little discussion for my liking about the EPC, but on the whole watching Greg Barker squirm has made my day

 

[grandfortune]

i liked the bit when he said they (we) cant sell PV or run our business after the 12th until the conssolidation finishes as we will be misselling as we dont know what tarrif to work to, and you cant go to the lower one to be safe, its misselling plain and simple

 

[powervan]

truth is like the rather large scotch chap kept on about!! they think we all been getting rich!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! they realy dont understand whats involved for the smaller company!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! weve not been getting rich!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!weve been training(sort of) and getting mcs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! so its the Big boys taken the money plus the training bodies and nic and napit!!!!!!! seems to me the only ones short changed but STILL trying to help clients is the small companies??????????????????? hold on !!!!!!!!!!! just looked in mirror to see if i had SUCKER stamped on my HRAD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[moggy1968]

If you want to make money in a gold rush you don't dig for gold, you sell picks and shovels to the ones looking for gold

Just for the record I have made about 15k profit out of solar since starting out. hardly getting rich and certainly not enough to get the mortgage I would like to have but don't 'cos I live in rented.
we didn't all make massive amounts from this. Since the business starting to come in I would say I have made a comfortable living but it took quite while to cover my start up costs.
many of the people on here haven't even managed that.

 

[sambotc]

Surely there would have been a steep rise in install's before april 2012 regardless as most people knew the tarriffs were going to be reduced at this time anyway? I certainly heard it months ago, The same thing will happen when they decide to phase out the 21p tarriffs, and again and again as you will always have chancers leaving it until the last minute, or the thought of losing out being the final push for somebody to decide to have it installed?

Likewise, I think installs would have dropped off after the cuts as people realise they've missed the boat so don't feel the need to hurry into making a decision, after all it's a new technology that hasn't been around long enough for the general public to put any faith (or money) into!

The fact they've slashed them in half has just magnified the problem?

 

[Donavan Bangs]

exactly everyone was aware of the review and drop in april that was expected so planned to install before then September onwards maybe later. Now just a mad rush with installs and they were surprised, they caused the rush.

 

[Somecamel]

exactly everyone was aware of the review and drop in april that was expected so planned to install before then September onwards maybe later. Now just a mad rush with installs and they were surprised, they caused the rush.

Agreed- They created this mess now they're trying to wriggle out of that

 

[powervan]

i be interested when loads of pv systems end up on the floor !! who gets the blame !! not them MPs !!

 

[moggy1968]

I'd like to know how many MPs got PV fitted before the deadline?
I presume this could be requested under the FOA?

 

[grandfortune]

As much as we all 'dislike' the rent-a-roof brigade- The guy representing him did make some good points

He certainly did

 

[TedM]

Barker's argument trying to say that the Impact Assessment figures are now out of date was completely illogical.

Yes, they are out of date now, four weeks later, but they were the figures that were available at the point he took the decision to have an emergency review with a Dec 12th Reference Date.

 

[funboy57]

Just watched the whole two hours worth phew! Something I couldn`t get my head round why the STA and all were saying that the industry will need no subsidy ( FIT) in 4 or 5 years time, can someone run that past me slowly. Like why ?

 

[grandfortune]

i assume because a 4kw system to buy would be about 3k, and then 2k to fit, then you save on your fuel bills

 

[markfxy]

Interesting that barker didn't know the difference between REA and STA, Doesn't he have a face you'd love to punch!

 

[The Solar King]

Ref why STA were saying we will not need subsidy in 4-5 years time:

We may reach grid parity by 2017. The price of PV electricity will be then be the same as that you buy from your power company. After that it will become progressively cheaper.
Two or three more 20% price hikes (which are likely to happen) coupled with falling equipment costs and we are there.

 

[moggy1968]

Any one who thinks a 4kW system will cost 3k is living in a fantasy world!!
That doesn't even cover wages and miscelaneous materials not including the panels and inverters. I just spent £200 on lead for a roof ffs!!
There is a strong body of opinion that in the next 2-3 years kit will become more expensive, not less, as more countries come on line with their own FiTS. The UK is not a bubble on it's own

 

[solarsparkie]

I thought representatives for solar were gunning for themselves rather than the industry the 4-5 years wasn’t a serious punt for parity just enough time to realise their own ambitions , having watched the lot it became nearly a dead certainty that the big 6 plus the rent a roofers were the driving force here as the 3p export benefit reducing wholesale costs was entirely ignored when any of the calculations were done , the rent a roofer could have done better for himself when referring to reductions in costs as you cant single out single elements ie are wages and transport costs going to come down, i think not . Im of the opinion that they would be very happy if the epc and aggregators were dropped as being large enough to import from china directly from the manufacturer and avoiding wholesaler mark ups puts them in a different league from most on here combine with government guaranteed loans at 5% would make them all small fortunes and secure their positions in the market to many newly qualified mcs people hot on their heels was a worrying part for them the job losses will still occur at the new 21p levels as you are going to need around 4 -500k in readies to be in the game on an even footing ( cut out middlemen pay vat on imports get yourselves warehouse and staff ) when looking at the install graphs the huge increase in the last few weeks cannot have come from new entrants and small installers on here the surge must have come from " we have been to downing street to discuss this and had consultations with decc " its been down to them who had the inside drop on us and the resources to deploy quickly and efficiently one guy picked it up when they asked what is the vertical increase on the installation graph down too since the beginning of the month when lead times are 4-5 weeks but didn’t push it as he knew he had shot one across their bow so to speak , anyway enough rant I've work to do

 

[TedM]

It wasn't clear if the graphs were showing number of installs or MW capacity installed. I suspect the latter and that the figures include delayed input of the solar farms that scraped past the August deadline - probably accounts for a hundred MW or so and will be a complete one-off. This detail wasn't probed at all by the committee. Poor performance from them, I thought.

 

[solarsparkie]

It wasn't clear if the graphs were showing number of installs or MW capacity installed. I suspect the latter and that the figures include delayed input of the solar farms that scraped past the August deadline - probably accounts for a hundred MW or so and will be a complete one-off. This detail wasn't probed at all by the committee. Poor performance from them, I thought.

1:37.08 they clearly state it was installations, so solar farms nothing to do with it ( our industry representatives were asked what would they like to kill large scale or small they recomended large scale at that meeting they must have been tiped of back then as the 12 weeks is exactly what they said was their slow boat from china took to arrive in the uk circumstantial I agree but close enough to arouse a whole lot of suss.