Publish and be damned!

[solarfred]

This is the email I sent to my MP yesterday after getting a transcript of the emergency questions session in parliament and other related material in reply to my first email which I sent to him last week. I was not sure whether to publish but if others can really tell their MP how it is maybe it will at least ----- a few consciences and change a few minds. I am afraid this dictat has come from the Treasury so it will likely not be changed as very few MP's have any balls whatsoever.
A bit of drama here I admit but the sentiments are all true and well meant.

Quote..

Thank you for your letter and enclosures which I have read with interest; although I followed the emergency questions session live of course. A rare moment when I actually supported the sentiments of a Labour minister who asked all the right questions but as usual no answers were forthcoming just party point scoring.

Since you wrote to me we are watching the Solar installation business implode. There is absolute panic as customers try to find an installer and installers desperately try to find enough equipment to complete installations by the deadline. This was the "panic" Greg Barker said he needed to avoid between now and April if the tariff was left unchanged.

The winners are the large wholesale suppliers who had surplus stock (which was looking worthless after 12 th December) and suddenly find a market for it - how fortunate for them. The losers are the small suppliers (SME's) who had planned for the next few projects and secured stock from long and hard negotiated supply lines direct with manufacturers in slightly smaller quantities as they are self financed. We saw our next three projects, worth some £250,000 gross, disappear as these projects were in the planners in tray. We have one project left and we are desperately trying to collect all the necessary elements to confirm to the client we can complete by the deadline. I have plenty of stock except for the vital Inverters which cost £3,000 each and therefore are not items we are able to stock in any quantity. The suppliers of these have sold out several times over. Stock destined for some customers has been diverted to other bigger customers as suppliers play games. This is the carnage that this decision has caused.

I will be left with stock destined for non domestic installs as these are the ones we had planned for. I will not be able to carry on as I need to pay the bills, service the insurance and rental contracts we have just signed and will not have sufficient cash flow going forward. I will not have sufficient funds to start something new. This was three years of hard slog with my life savings and pension all for nothing. As I had a final salary pension it has been hit once already by Labour - now it has been killed off by the Conservatives. We were about to become cashflow positive and had carefully planned for the April changes in the FIT scheme. Smaller business are nimble - but not that nimble.
Now I will be looking for a way out but ultimately the benefits office looms as I need to keep my family together financially.

I have never taken anything from the system but now as the awful truth dawns, I am terrified of what the future holds.

I am not the only one as remember the hundreds of electricians and roofers who paid £3000+ to become certified under the MCS who now have no prospects and never even got one installation to complete.

There may be some work in the next three months as the 21p tariff can work if the capital cost is low enough but that means cutting margins to the bone. Public confidence has been shattered by this so a marginal return is not a gamble they will want to take.

The proposed requirement to only pay 21p FIT to homes with a 'C' ERC rating has basically killed off the PV industry from April 2012 as most homes cannot meet the target and 9p is a complete joke. I am assuming this ERC will also be applied to the new RHI for domestic homes so I see the whole renewables business being a non starter.

I recognise your conflict of interest but you should know what is really going on in the industry right now and how this decision has caused mayhem. Just wait until the thousands of installation requests go missing in the FIT offices of the suppliers after 12th December. How many customers will have paid out thousands and not got their FIT agreement.

Thank you for your time.

Unquote.

Hopefully you can put your own spin on it but they can't say they didn't know.

 

[Scooby]

No drama - I think it's powerful and hits the spot.

Good luck.

 

[SRE]

You've inspired me to write again to my MP. He's asking Greg Barker to review the decision and getting back to me with an answer but I think he should understand the full implications and have more amunition to work with.

 

[alarm man]

well were not all in this together as dave says,on 1 hand we have sparks looking to go on strike,funds being set up and a general left field view,and the pv lads writing to their mp's the mail and the times how customers have cashed their shares in to go solar..only to be sold down the river by the tories..i used to think this solar thing was saving money,but as its funded by the taxpayer ie me and you and serves the minority,ie those with 10-20k in the bank,i cant see a future in it because it doesnt pay for itself..

 

[SolarCity]

but as its funded by the taxpayer ie me and you and serves the minority,ie those with 10-20k in the bank,i cant see a future in it because it doesnt pay for itself..

The goal is to reach the situation where no subsidy is required. That is not something that will serve just the minority, it will benefit every single person on this spinning rock.

Are you really trying to say that getting to this point is not worth the extra £1 a year per household?

"Yeah, it's great that we've saved all this CO2 and housholders are no longer so dependent on fossil fuels, but this is going to cost me £25 over the next 25 years and thats enough for four packs of smokes."

The anti-solar lobby really needs to get some perspective.

 

[solarfred]

Customers are not complaining and have not been sold down the river! They are all delighted. They pay their own cash and receive the benefits of their investment. Part of their benefit is a cash incentive and part is the saving of having their own generating plant which is going to be more beneficial as the cost of power increases year on year. Someone has to be first. As the capital cost came down the benefit would be lost. If the scheme had been run by properly it would have served it's purpose to offer people some independence from the scandalous cartel of the energy suppliers and flag up the benefit of solar power which actually works. How much was the first video recorder or mobile phone? Not subsidised but the UK has to hit some energy saving targets or get fined considerable sums of cash by the EU which will be paid by whom?
A small business sets out to make a living for it's owner and family normally. If it is successful it has to employ people by default. This creates jobs. This creates a tax revenue to the government to run (ruin) the country. The employees spend money and buy alarm systems to protect their hard earned chattels from thieves. That produces jobs and income for the electricians who can go and spend their money and create more jobs. If you have not got the savings to invest in solar you can get them for free and line the pockets of investors who have made some money and want to invest it to create income for themselves and jobs because someone has to install the kit. All the tax revenue ensures those that do not feel like working and creating jobs can sit at home.
Now of course we could all demand that we all get the same and that makes everything fair but no democracy has made that work yet for the simple reason there are those that do and those that talk about it.
For such a tiny sum on everyones electricity bill a huge industry has grown up creating thousands of jobs and huge tax revenues from which new jobs will be created and new technology will emerge. Not only genuine growth in the private sector but all the jobs in the public sector via MCS /GEMSERVE etc for which we all pay as well which do not produce anything. How many millions have governments spent on back to work schemes and other pointless political exercises which have come out of your tax bill? How many jobs created? Few. So forget about the short term expense and think about the possible future wealth creation because most small business are there to be successful as they are run by people who have made a sacrifice and are driven and will create wealth given the right support. But to have the rug pulled out of the blue at the wrong time will ensure they fail.
Does that make any sense?

 

[moggy1968]

bailing out the banks has, I beleieve cost every household in Britain £30000.
makes a pound a month on your electric seem pretty small to me!!!!!

 

[SolarCity]

Especially as the banks were failing and the solar industry in booming.

 

[Energetic]

Banks were failing and are still failing despite the BILLIONS we have paid them. The FiT is small change compared to this. Perspective is very important. I believe our MP's claimed £88MILLION in expenses last year alone...

 

[solarfred]

Yes but to be fair Greg Barking paid back £10,000 he owed as Capital gains on the £380,000 he made selling property using his allowances. Nice.

 

[moggy1968]

I know when I worked in haulage, some 20 years ago, we worked on rates of 50p a mile for artics. At that time MPs were claiming a pound a mile!!!!!!

caught a snippet today the the Governement is to spend millions propping up the construction industry, to create thousands of jobs.
The right hand giveth, the left hand taketh away!!!

 

[Energetic]

One could be forgiven for thinking they have absolutely no idea what they're doing. Except when it comes to claiming expenses...

 

[Graeme Harrold]

......................Hopefully you can put your own spin on it but they can't say they didn't know.

Your letter has been cut, pasted and amended slightly to reflect my position.

 

[Graeme Harrold]

Further to my last, I had a reply and invite to my MP's surgery today. He is in a consultation meeting on Wednesday and I have asked him to propose the cut-off is a little more "balck and white" i.e. when you have obtained the MCS cert for the customer. I told him that this would provide more confidence for the customer with regards to FIT payments and greatly ease their trepidation regarding delays in registering with the providers.

In addition I highlighted all of the cancelled orders, reduced system sizes (>4kW), wholesalers closing their doors, reduced credit limits, shortage of kit, rushed installs and the knock on effect with customer confidence on the entire green market.

If a few more people with contacts in high places can at least lobby for the deadline being tied to MCS registration and NOT FIT registration we might get a little relief. Last thing I want is disgruntled customers because I pulled out all of the stops for a FIT to be refused on a paperwork technicality!!

 

[solarfred]

I can see where you are coming from but playing devils advocate I regret that this puts the onus on the installer to sign off the installation which will be open to abuse. We know there are installers just entering the paperwork without any actual kit being fitted and the authorities are aware of this. To ask them to accept a commissioning form as evidence of entitlement to FIT payments is asking for trouble. It is the FIT that is being cut and that is the reason for the cutoff date they are not bothered when the system is installed. I can see large brown envelopes being handed over in this situation. If the installation is found to be OK and a recorded delivery used but there is a mistake in the FIT application form which does not affect the validity of the installation then this should be corrected and accepted.

 

[Graeme Harrold]

The MCS cert can be applied for in the customers house and will provide that bit of confidence that they are on the rate. This also gives us installers and end customers a couple more days in getting the FIT applications sorted. I for one am happy if this puts more pressure on me for completing the paperwork. If it gives me happy customers Im all for the extra bit of pressure.