It is perhaps not a bad idea to occasionally remind people of how the Feed-in-Tariff scheme works in relation to the installation of solar panels especially bearing in mind how low the installation price of a solar panel system has dropped to in the last 12 months.
Quite simply, if you have solar panels installed either on your roof or ground mounted at your domestic or commercial premises you may receive payment from your energy supplier for generating your own electricity. This is known as the Feed-in-Tariff (FIT) scheme.
Solar panels can be financially beneficial
(image credit: ell brown)
How the scheme works
You will benefit by receiving a specific amount of money for every unit (kWh or kilowatt hour) of electricity that is generated by yourself. The generation tariff that you will receive varies based upon a number of different factors including such things as: –
• When the solar panels were installed
• How big the system is
• What the Energy Performance Certificate rating is of your property
Payments can be received from your current electricity supplier or you are quite at liberty to select an alternative one as long as they are on a list of registered suppliers.
The export tariff – the sale of spare energy
In addition to the generation tariff, it is also possible for you to sell surplus units that are not utilised by you back to the supplier of your electricity. This is what is known as the “export tariff”.
The amount that you will receive for each unit of electricity will vary dependent upon when you applied for the Feed-in-Tariff scheme. So, if you applied on or after the 1st August 2012 you will receive 4.5p for every unit of electricity. However, if you applied for the Feed-in-Tariff scheme before the 1st August 2012 you will receive 3.2p for every unit of electricity.
How much you could get
There are numerous calculators available to help provide an estimate of how much you may earn by utilising the Feed-in-Tariff scheme and selling any electricity that you do not use back to your energy supplier.
Hopefully the above has been of assistance as part of your research into establishing if the installation of solar panels is a worthwhile option.
