A few days ago I got the latest invoice/statement showing how much I was paid for the solar farm, generation in January. The grand total is…
£3,716 + VAT
For those from other countries, VAT is basically sales tax. I get paid the VAT by the people buying my energy (OVO) and then I have to pay it to the government each quarter. Its all quite tedious. Interestingly, the VAT is 20%, which is different to the rate for home power purchasing. Its irrelevant anyway, because I basically just earn interest on it for 3 months before I give it to the government, so I tend to just ignore it in any calculations. Any interest earned will be in my awful cater-allen company account which has an interest rate that is comically low. UK business banking is one giant rip-off.
Anyway, lets dig into that payment a bit more because to break it down. The full details are as follows:
| Electricity output: | £2,540 |
| DUoS Benefit: | £667 |
| DUoS Costs: | £-13 |
| Transmission Loss Passthrough | £28 |
| Distribution Loss Passthrough | £511 |
| Admin Fees | £-24 |
| Before VAT | £3,716 |
| VAT | £743 |
| Total for January: | £4,459 |
Its a complex mess isn’t it? Also it has not included REGOs yet, because I am STILL going back and forth over the minutiae of my application with ofgem. I kid myself this latest batch of questions they have will be the last and that I will finally get them. Plus the ofgem REGO website is about to be completely re-implemented, and I have ZERO faith that they will not just ‘accidentally’ delete my application so far in the inevitable chaos.
Frankly the whole system should take a tenth of the people and the time, but here we are :(
Worryingly, I have no idea how precisely the four entries under ‘electricity output’ get calculated. I assume this is fixed based on where my site is on the distribution (DNO) and transmission (National Grid) system, but I am not sure. My power is almost certainly just used very locally, so I probably don’t use the transmission network at all (hence the £28 rebate?). I likely use very little of the distribution network either, hence the £511. My best guess is that if I was an offshore windfarm 100 miles from the nearest town, that Distribution loss would be actually negative?
The DUoS stuff is a complete minefield of complexity. Best explanation from grok as to how DUoS can be a benefit to me:
Triad Avoidance: By generating during peak demand periods, you help reduce transmission network charges (TNUoS), which benefits suppliers and can result in payments or incentives for you.
Avoided DUoS Costs: If your generation offsets local demand, it reduces the DUoS charges that suppliers would otherwise pay, potentially increasing the value of your electricity in Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs).
Triad avoidance? Hold on, was that not a sci fi kids TV show? How are the triads an issue? Or is it Japanese mafia? Whats going on? Its actually even more complex:
Triads are the three half-hour periods of highest electricity demand on the transmission network each year, typically occurring between November and February.
You will be thrilled to know that my ‘Triad avoidance benefit’ for January was £0, which is why it was not included. Confused yet? You should be. I am, and I literally own an energy company. Anyway, out of interest the DUoS benefit in January was 17.9% of my total(pre-VAT) payment. I just checked December’s statement and it was 16.69%, so its not even fixed. Are they really calculating the flows in and out of each part of the distribution network on a daily basis and adding up how much ‘my’ power used it? Interesting…
In other news we finally got our second home battery installed! we now have 19kwh of home storage. In winter this does not make a vast amount of difference, because our 9.5kwh one already covered mots of our peak usage, so we could load-shift to off peak (the car charges off peak anyway). However in summer this means that on those crazy days where we generate 20kwh of power we can store all of it, even if we are away or not using any power that day.
The last summer we did actually end up with *too much* power, and had to fiddle with car charging to avoid exporting it to the grid (which we do not get a marginal export fee for, as we are on the old feed in tariff). Also we did it because I like the idea of being as resilient as possible.
We also managed to get a cable running from the battery upstairs to the living room and a new double socket installed there, amusingly next to a triple socket, so it looks like we are addicted to power sockets :D. Anyway, those two sockets are the ONLY ones that will work in a power-cut. We couldn’t power the whole house because our inverter is only 3kw, and this was the next best thing.
Its not exactly off-grid living, but being able to charge laptops and phones in a power-cut, or with an extension lead, still run the router and TV and a coffee machine will be nice :D. We paid £3,900 to have the second battery installed and the sockets fitted.