PV Feed In Tariff

I worked for BG many many moons ago as a pricing analyst. I generally tried to avoid them for that reason (lol) but often times they were the cheapest rates. Not anymore, and especially given their treatment of FIT payments I wont be going back.

The only two things I need from a supplier are a good night rate with 9 hours of low rate, and CEG/FIT paid as a line item on each bill.

something like this for 5kw inverter

MEC x Capacity Factor x Export Factor x Provision Interval

5.0kWp x 0.097 x 0.35 x 8760HRS = 1471 kWh

1471 x 0.1967 = ~€290 deemed export CEG (Energia rate)

modify HRS based on when you NC6 was lodged

Yes except I got two bills since August and they only added 290ish kwh instead of double that. So will need to follow up.

Left bord gais in June after exporting 1200 units to them since Feb 15th for fit. Since I left them I have been paid accurately on every monthly bill since August without issues with my new provider.

Spent the last 4 months chasing bord gais for the 200 euro they owe me and have got every answer from it will be paid in march to their stance now that they are not responsible for anything as your new provider will backdate what they owe. They are fairly adamant on this "fact" and after talking to complaints now also they are saying as they only released terms for exporting that you had to agree to in October they cannot give payment as I was not a costumer then. Even though law is that they have to pay since February.

Told them I may return some day as a customer and not pay my bill for seven months and when I leave inform them that they didn't sign my terms which I didn't inform them of and so I am not required to pay them.

Contacted cru who are fairly inept with a complaint and they responded with bord gais have advised them that all customers will be paid irregardless of when they left. Logged an official complaint again with bord gais attaching both this from the cru and copy of the microgeneration legislation and payment directives. At this point it's feck all about the money and more about ensuring bord gais don't get away with withholding customers funds in such an underhand way.

Customer support is like night and day when compared with pinergy who I couldn't praise highly enough for how they deal with issues no matter how minor they are. Never again will I even contemplate looking at a bord gais offer even if they offered free electricity at this stage.

I had two bills since August not 1, so 1800 / 300 = 6 bills?

Yes but I had one bill from them with 0 FIT and one with 300kwh.

The bill I just got should have had 600kwh to cover FIT for the first one (Aug-Sept)

December bill arrived from SSE. No FIT, very annoying.

1174kw CEG paid by Energia on latest bill. so in fairness I did something very usual, I sent them a compliment!

I done my own last year, even got paid the deemed FIT for a period before I was actually connected.

But I think the NC6 form may have changed slightly since then. I filled mine out in full, didn't need an electrician to sign. I just put his details on it.

Sort of the same story with SSE when I left them in Sept Chris. They wanted me to get a smart meter in NOW (when I'm with Energia) before they would pay me the deemed export that i was due while with them. It's sort of blackmailing me to get a smart meter in .... if I want to get paid. They know I won't of course but it's very underhand of them. I expected (naively) better from them.

Yeah, ill informed support staff can be an issue for many companies. Not just energy companies. A lot of these call centers are sub-contracted out to 3rd parties. So they only know what they got trained on, or what someone told them which might be over a coffee. For something that is changing (like FIT), it can leave knowledge gaps of course.

As you say, the more experienced staff will be in other parts, maybe like the complaints department. At the moment solar customers are a tiny % of their business. They need to train their staff on FIT. And complaints will help speed that up you’d expect - as they realise it’s best to close down the complaints with needed training.

I’d guess a lot of new builds that came with a few solar panels may never even of had the NC6 submitted. So those homes aren’t even registered as micro generation. That’s just a hunch based on some of the stories I’ve read here. And even some legit installers doing paid solar installs never submitted the NC6 forms – we’ve seen that mentioned a few times here. Meaning that actual solar numbers are higher than the amount registered by the ESB, who then pass that info to the energy companies. 

Been chasing up the most recent bill from Energia after submitting the meter readings on the 24th.

They have problems applying the FIT so it won't appear this month but should be on the bill come Jan.

With negative bills, is there a danger of getting hit with a low usage charge?

I'm €80 in credit from last time. Expecting a much bigger bill this time but aren't we due another €200 credit in January? Probably be in before my next bill.