By Chris Welby
Policy and Regulatory Affairs Director, Good Energy

It is understandable that most of the debate about the Government’s Feed-in Tariff review for solar has been on the timing and rates, but lurking in the fine print is a much more radical change that could deny access to the FIT for most properties on a much more permanent basis.

At first sight, it seems a pretty sensible proposal.  It is a requirement that people applying for FIT carry out energy efficiency measures on their property first.  Except it is not that simple.  The Government is proposing that in order to be eligible for FIT, then the property to which the generation equipment is connected must meet an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) rating of “C” or above.

So what proportion of the UK housing stock would qualify?  Well according to DECC’s own impact assessment, just 9% and this will increase by just 1.5% a year.  The Government points to the Green Deal as a solution, saying that property holders could utilise the Green Deal to bring their properties up to scratch first. That would be fine, except it won’t.  If you read the Green Deal Impact Assessment (298 pages, so not for the faint hearted), then it is clear that the primary purpose of the Green Deal is to get “G” and “F” rated properties up to “E”.  To get beyond “E” using golden rule measures (i.e.  that the measure is cost effective) is difficult.

For example, a colleague of mine at Good Energy had an EPC assessment done on her house.  It came out as having an “E” rating.  However, if she carried out the cost-effective measures recommended by the assessment, it would still be rated “E”.  There is no way she could get to a “C” rating to be eligible for Feed in Tariff, and thus this avenue of reducing her dependency on imported energy could be denied to her.

The biggest problem is the Government’s assumption that generating your own power should be at the end of the journey to energy efficiency.  In fact, for many people it is the start.  A Good Energy survey of over 500 of our microgenerator customers showed that two-thirds of them had increased their energy efficiency measures since installing their generation.  It appears that if you generate your own energy, you value it more and use it less.  Some, quite obsessively.

There is also a disconnection here.  A large part of the EPC is about the thermal efficiency of a building; whereas solar PV is about electricity for running appliances.  True, it may be used to heat the water, but in most cases Solar PV is about generating your own power, not heat.  My colleague is a case in point.  Installing Solar PV would not reduce her heating oil bill, but it would reduce her electricity bill, and as her EPC assessment shows, there is little more she can do about the thermal efficiency of her old stone-walled farmhouse.

If we as a nation are serious about reducing our carbon output, then generating your own power can be a catalyst for energy efficiency, not an alternative to as the Government wants us to believe.  In fact, I believe front of the queue for Green Deal, will be micro-generators keen to treasure the energy they are generating on their very own roof tops.