John M
A close friend has a 4kw system on his roof. South-facing and with nothing to shadow the panels, it has produced an average, in the summer months, of 12 units per day, or a potential £1.50/day saving in electricity cost. As a result of the ad-hoc nature of production, he has only been able to use a little over 50% of the power produced with the balance 'exported'. So his actual saving is 75 pence/day and he gets a credit of 18 pence per day for the exported part. Then, at this rate, he gets over £5 per day F I T, or subsidy. This subsidy, contrary to popular belief, is not paid by 'the government' or even 'the tax payer'. It is paid by the power company from a surcharge on energy bills, meaning that even the poorest people, especially pensioners on fixed low incomes have to pay.
Sadly, some people saw this as an opportunity to make large amounts of money from 'the government' via these installations, rather than considering them a way of improving self-sufficiency. Sadder still, due to the proliferation of these systems, they have become unsustainable. If not stopped now, the feed-in tariff would soon be so overloaded, bills would have to be increased by a substantial amount more. Making the poorest even worse off.
'Green' power appears to be viewed by some as a 'get rich quick' scheme, or even 'an investment', ... My friend included... And how is that achieved, in real terms? By making poor people pay. The few systems installed on social housing are a drop in the ocean compared to what most will pay. I declined one of the 'free' systems, not because I'm not interested in better technology or saving money, but because they are not efficient. Oh, and I didn't believe the tariff was viable over the long term...
Sad that I am that jobs are at risk, they were never really viable in the first place. Much like the 'HIPS' scheme which was also introduced by Labour, it was never going to last. And if it did, we would likely all be broke as we would all have been paying surcharges of 40p/kw for each others electricity - and none of us would be able to afford it...
Actually, for me, I think the government were wrong to let it get this far without warning. Sadly we have a bunch of wet-minded idiots for politicians who prefer to employ the biased industry consultants for advice. And I'm not talking about any particular party - its most of them!!
