Third part of Comprehensive Review – changes to non-PV tariffs

This part deals with changes to the non-PV tariffs and all other aspects of the Feed-in Tariffs mechanism

Many of these issues also apply to solar PV; and Phase 2A also includes approaches to degression, which may be adopted for non-PV technologies.

The government’s consultation documents and the responses and outcome documents are available here.

The main aspects of the Phase 2B proposals are:

New tariffs for non-PV technologies proposed to apply from December 2012

The proposed tariff levels are shown in a table here. They will take effect from 1st December (not 1st October as originally proposed). The proposed solar PV tariffs to apply from August 2012 are covered in the Phase 2A review.

As a matter of principle the government did not consider any tariffs should be increased (though it did make an increase for non-renewable micro-CHP).

It has been somewhat inconsistent about the intention in principle to keep the tariff at the top size band of each technology in line with incentives payable under the Renewables Obligation.

Future degression

The government introduced a new approach to degression using a combination of pre-planned and contingent degression as further described here.

The minimum degression rate for non-PV technologies would be 5% per annum. As for PV, this degression could also be brought forward if a ‘capacity trigger’ is reached beforehand.

Preliminary accreditation

Partly to give early warning of when capacity triggers might be reached, certain (mainly larger) projects can seek preliminary accreditation for FITs.

Projects which are awarded such preliminary accreditation would be eligible for the tariffs applicable at the time this was granted. They could thereby beat capacity-triggered degressions. However projects that have obtained preliminary accreditation would count as deployed for the purpose of triggering early degression, so would distort the figures if they didn’t eventually get built.

Other consultation issues

The consultation dealt with a wide range of other more administrative issues:

Chapter 3: Eligibility

  • Second-hand equipment (no change)
  • Metering requirements (no change)
  • Definition of ‘a site‘ (small change)
  • Stand-alone (as opposed to grid-connected) projects
  • Eligibility (commissioning) date – to be changed to clarify the system must also be ‘operational’
  • Microgeneration Certification Scheme (no change)
  • Sustainability issues (no change)

Chapter 4: Community and multi-installation projects

As a result of the consultation, community energy projects have been defined, and given a special dispensation similar to preliminary accreditation.

Chapter 5: Consumer issues

Considered the following, but did not make any material changes

  • Compliance and enforcement
  • Advice and support
  • Terms offered by FITs Licensees
  • Complaints

Chapter 6: Licensee Issues

These are matters for the FITs Licensees, who should be able to address these matters without help from this website!