Quietly, the government has decided that energy companies should no longer pay the Feed in Tariff to those investing their own money in Solar PV. So from April 2019 new solar installations will not be eligible for the payment: existing installations commissioned prior to this date will not be affected and payments will continue as normal.
Instead, funding will be directed towards larger scale industry such as bio mass plants and plans to build central heat processing plans. Strangely, not much has been made of this in the media such as the effects on jobs as the industry crumbles and firms go out of business; the benefit small scale renewables have in balancing out the grid in times of high demand and not least the benefit localised renewables bring to the environment.
However, installing solar PV will still be a worth while investment come Spring 2019. Based on current figures it will still give a better return than leaving your money in the bank where it probably earns interest at less than 1%pa. With inflation currently around 2%pa, doing so means funding the banks’ lending while making a loss on your money.
Taking current costs and a typical domestic installation, returns of over 4% can still be achieved without the Feed in Tariff, which while not great, at least gives a return of 2% over inflation, but why wait until then?! If you already have a reasonable size unobstructed roof, not necessarily South facing you could still benefit from the Feed in Tariff. This payment is not only index linked for the next 20 years but comes tax free for domestic installations and offers some control and reduction in your tie to the utility companies who are already poised to make large increases despite the government’s pledge to cap utility bills.
Contact us now for an informal discussion to see how we can help. We design PV systems for individual needs and budgets, from small scale domestic up to large scale commercial. We can also look after any servicing or maintenance needs you may have with your solar PV or general electrical installation.