Its Official!.. We're now a Green Deal Installer

We are now an official Green Deal Installer. This means our survey, quotation, installation and certification systems have been upgraded to comply with requirements for the Governments new Green Deal incentive.

The Green Deal has been designed to enable people to have the cost of insulation, renewable energy and other energy saving products installed on their homes with long term finance attached to the electricity bill in affordable payments.

With the power prices soon to start ramping up, this scheme has been launched to enable people to bring their energy bills down as much as possible. Energy costs that are just about affordable now could soon be too high to be easily affordable.

For more information on the Green Deal and how to get a free assessment and Green Deal Providers, go to 
www.gov.uk

Another Big Step Closer to the RHI for domestic premises

Today, the Gov.uk website released a statement from Greg Barker and Ed Davey, which amongst some very interesting items, the following quotes appeared:

"RHPP extension: The Renewable Heat Premium Payment (RHPP) scheme is being extended until the end of March 2014, ahead of the launch of the RHI for householders. This scheme, first launched in July 2011, offers money off the cost of renewable heating kit such as biomass boilers, solar thermal panels and heat pumps and is largely targeted at those living off the gas grid. The scheme was due to close at the end of March this year" 

This is good news, as the next quote definately says the Domestic RHI is starting in March 2014, with the rates being announced this Summer....

"RHI for householders: Following on from the consultation on scheme design in September last year, the Government will confirm how a RHI for householders will work and publish the tariff levels in Summer 2013. It is expected that the scheme will be up and running for householders in Spring 2014. Research on householder views on renewable heat has also been published today, which will help inform the design of the RHI scheme."

More updates on this as the next few days go by. But the good news is that although the rate announcement has been moved on a bit in time, it has been confirmed to actually be happening.

For the full document, see: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-sets-out-plans-to-cut-emissions-from-heat

Duty to be imposed on Chinese Solar PV modules in June 2013

Announced this week by the EU are measures for combatting alleged 'dumping' by Chinese Solar PV manufacturers of products at cost or below price to force European manufacturers into decline.

Certainly, as an installer, this false module pricing has enabled us to offer a 4kWp system for around £5k, using these good quality modules, which we urge people to take advantage of soon.

It is proposed a Duty of 10% or more will be levied on all Chinese Solar PV modules being imported into Europe, and this Duty may well be backdated to 6th March when enforced, which will cause financial hardship to importers later this year. Examples of probable Chinese manufacturers hit by this Duty will be Suntech, Canadian Solar, Yingli, Trina and many more.

In the USA, a similar Duty has been imposed for some time, which has reduced use of Chinese PV modules by as much as 80%.

We find that good quality European based modules, which we currently use for our high end premium systems for maximum annual power generation, cost not much more per watt, but adds up to being substantially higher installed cost. Though the long term power generation will is a far better benefit, which can be seen on the latest Photon independant test, which shows Euro manufacturers having a better annual generation, we are finding people are currently going for the lowest cost.

Resource: Reuters

Suntech presentation filmed at Ecobuild

Another few days at this years National Ecobuild trade show at the Excel, Docklands, London has proved again to give us some inspiration for new directions in Renewables.
Although the trade stand attendance was down by some 30%, the quality of the attendees was quite impressive, with many new products and innovations on display.

As well as all this I was presented with an iPad from Suntech in recognition of the amount of modules we have been ordering and installing during the normally quiet month of January. This was quite an achievement for us and I must compliment our guys for being out in all weathers to achieve the rapid installation turnaround for our customers, who are already reaping the benefits of saved power and FiT generation.

The presentation was filmed by Suntech Europe and anticipate it will pop up on the internet some time in the future.

We are working on some exciting new projects for the new Solar PV year, and exploring new avenues for Renewable heating in preperation for the Domestic RHI. More news on that as it occurs.

Solar Feed in Tariff rate confirmed into the Summer

This weeks OFGEM update of Feed in Tariff rates seems to be splitting the two basic industry PV installer disciplines wider apart.

While on one hand Domestic, Industrial and Agricultural aspect have remained unchanged and look like we will have a Summer ofcontinued fixed rate of FiT which allows us to talk to the customer with some confidence of rates they will be paid while they organise planning or finance. Huge stand alone field systems that have been proliferating across the country however will be hit.

At the end of March 2013, any system being installed under the ROC's scheme will see the rate cut from 2 ROC's per 1MW of generation to 1.5 ROC's.. To keep this trend going, dissuading investment companies making too much money from these large scale PV programs, after May 2013 any stand alone system under FiT over 100kWp will drop from 7.1p a unit to 6.85p.

The industry see this as a clear indication by the Government to put off investment in large scale stand alone PV systems, as in many quarters they are simply seen as being installed for cash generation rather than any thought of power offsetting, which will be the case on most building mounted systems. Also as many large scale stand alone systems are funded by offshore companies, the continued flow of UK funded cash out the country, there is probably a stand against this continuing.

Large schemes either building mounted or free standing that will connect into either a large domestic or commercial supply and will assist with lowering their carbon footprint are still being encouraged, as the Governments stance is still to keep PV to assist with exisitng supplies.