We have received a few emails and messages recently about the Feed-in-Tariff (FiT) and what people should do when changing electricity providers. Here’s our advice based on our own experience.
We consume in excess of 15,000 kWh of electricity per year (mainly due to our air source heat pump) so it’s imperative that we are always on the best possible tariff. This means that once a year we go on the hunt for a new energy provider, but this doesn’t affect our FiT payments and who we’re registered with in any way.
In our case, when we installed our solar PV array, OVO were our electricity provider, so we submitted our FiT application and documentation to them because they had a dedicated department for this. It was neat and tidy at the time.
The application process was lengthy, and we had to fill in loads of forms and submit documentation and certificates from our installers. Once approved, OVO’s FiT system is fully automated and once a quarter we get an email asking us to submit our solar production readings.
Once the readings have been submitted the payment arrives within a few weeks. It’s quick, easy and seamless.
Since then, however, we switched from OVO to GOTO Energy as our electricity provider because OVO significantly raised their electricity rates, and we need to maintain a low tariff in order to ensure that our air source heat pump is financially sustainable.
We did, however, leave our FiT registered with OVO and we continue to use them for our payments because they’re professional and the system works seamlessly.
Based on this, if your FiT payments are coming in OK from whoever you are registered with, stay with them because the documentation we had to submit as part of original application was extensive, and we don’t think it’s worth the admin and hassle moving to a different provider.
There are some people who have purchased a property with solar panels and inherited the remaining FiT payments. My advice to them is to stick with the existing energy provider if everything’s registered and working OK, because you may be missing documentation that may affect your registration with a new provider and that could lead to delays and headaches.
If, however, you are considering moving to a new provider you can appoint any energy provider of your choice. I’d recommend OVO based on our experience because they were super helpful and very professional. If you want to go with another provider I’d suggest that you find out whether they have a dedicated FiT department and system because you really want this process to be as simple as possible.
The main takeaway message from this post is that your FiT provider can be different to your energy provider.
Hi we apparently can not go with any energy company as we had to have an economy 10 meter fitted and there are only a few company’s that have this.
If you know any different please let me know.
At present we are with together energy , we are all electric and we have solar panels and an air source heat pump that we keep on 24/7 as we need the warmth due to illness.
We pay £111.00 a month
That’s a valid point Ralph. The caveat to this post should have been that this may not be applicable to ‘special’ metres such economy or smart metres. Our advice really was about standard metres on set monthly/annual tariffs.
I will, however, look into economy 10 and see if I can get any additional info.
Hi , I am not sure if I can get the meter changed as I don’t realy use it like it is designed for. When we got the heat pump fitted they also fitted an electric immersion heater . This I have just switched off as the heat pump gives enough hot water than we ever need, unless my daughter has a shower and empties the tank. Don’t know how she does it as my wife and myself and dog can have showers and still plenty of hot water left.
I don’t think there’s any need to change your metre.
May I ask why you’re considering changing your FiT provider? Are you unhappy with them?
Hi, I am not changing my fit provider. They are Eon and we have been completely happy with them.
It is just to see off we can get electricity any cheaper than we do now. But I think that we are getting a fairly good deal just now.
Thanks for the clarification Ralph. This makes more sense. We’re in the process of switching to Symbio Energy – their kWh tariff is just over 10p, which is much cheaper than our existing rate.
I’ll let you know how our switch goes, but so far it’s been really efficient.
Thanks , I look forward to it .
We live in the North of Scotland ie CAITHNESS, so not sure what tariffs are availible here.
It is the same with broadband we are off a ” main road” and only have the VERY old copper wire on an old exchange but no fibre availible. They have fibre either side of us . Roughly about 4 miles, if we pay them about £5000 We may get fibre put in . ( so much for all of Scotland having fibre broadband by a certain date)
OVO Fit payments are delayed by up to 12 weeks!!
SSE Fit payments were within a week