What is the Feed In Tariffs Scheme?

The Feed in Tariff is a government backed scheme allowing households and business to benefit financially from generating their own electricity from renewable or low-carbon sources such as solar photovoltaic (PV) or wind turbine.

The scheme gives you the opportunity to be paid for the electricity you generate, which you use yourself, and any surplus electricity which is feed back into the grid.

Technologies

Most domestic technologies qualify for the scheme, they include; • Solar photovoltaic • Wind turbines • Hydroelectricity • Anaerobic digesters • Micro combined heat and power (CHP)

The energy suppliers pay you the FiT payments, the big ‘6’ energy suppliers are required by law to provide the payments, many of the smaller energy suppliers have opted to offer the payments although it is not compulsory for them to do so.

List of FiT – licensed suppliers

Different tariffs are paid for different types of technology installed. For example a solar pv installation under 4kW will give a FiT payment of 16.9p per kilowatt hour of electricity generated, whereas a wind turbine with a total installed capacity of 1.5kW or less will give a FiT payment of 35.8p per kilowatt hour.

You can benefit in 3 ways by generating your own electricity;

Savings – you will save on your electricity bills, by generating your own electricity you will require less electricity to be drawn from the national grid. Your savings will depend on how much electricity you use from day to day

Generation Tariff – your energy supplier will pay you for the electricity you generate. Your system must be registered in order to receive the FiT payment. This payment is guaranteed for up to 20 years and is index linked

Export Tariff – for any energy that is exported back to the grid you will receive an extra 4.5p per kilowatt hour from your energy supplier, this rate is the same regardless of the technology you use to generate the electricity. This is generally estimated at 50% of your total generation

How do I Register for FiT?

Once we have installed your system, we will register you on the MCS database and send you your MCS certificate.

You must then inform your chosen energy supplier that you want to register for the FiT and send them a completed application form (usually available from their website), the MCS certificate and for solar PV installations an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC)stating that your home is level D or higher.

Your FiT supplier will cross reference your installation with the MCS database, confirm your eligibility and the date you can expect payments from. You will also be added to the Ofgem Central FiT Register which records all installations in the FiT scheme. Finally they will agree the frequency of meter readings and when the FiT payments will be made to you.