Long-standing green energy pioneer Good Energy, Britain’s biggest voluntary Feed-in Tariff (FiT) administrator with over 80,000 generation customers, has launched a new smart export product for its FiT customers, boosting incomes from their roof-made electricity.
Customers moving to the supplier’s smart export offering will receive payment for the full amount of electricity they export, rather than a “deemed” 50% of what they generate, the FiT scheme’s rule-of-thumb estimate of unwanted power flows exported by homeowners.
The Chippenham-based power provider reckons its new service makes payments fairer & simpler, providing for the first time accurate rewards for unused home-produced power, which remains usable by third parties.
The deal applies to solar PV owners and microgenerators using wind turbines.
Good Energy has long term power purchase agreements (PPAs) with over 1,700 independent UK generators, many benefitting from the FiT. It successfully piloted its SET offering in December 2022, and plans to ramp it towards 80,000 qualifying customers this year.
To benefit, homes will need either a second generation smart meter, or a first generation device if enrolled with the Data Communications Company, the Capita offshoot which supervises the nation’s digital billing switchover.
Good Energy recently launched a new online product for FiT generators to switch to. The Feed-in Tariff scheme was introduced in 2010 based – according to Good Energy – on a blueprint of the firm’s own HomeGen tariff. The state-backed FiT closed to new applicants in March 2019.
Since then, export tariffs offered by retailers have chiefly dawdled around an unexciting 5 pence per kWh, the supposed guide price offered in legislation that terminated FiT entry after nine years.
Rival supplier Octopus last month shook up the slumbering SET market, backing its dramatic launch into home PV installation with its own fast-changing Agile Outgoing tariff. By tracking wholesale and day-ahead markets, the Octopus offering has reached over £1.00 per kWh exported.
Good Energy says it will soon introduce its own rival “market-leading” homes-oriented export tariff. Like Octopus, the West Country-based rival is now venturing into direct on-roof installations of home solar kit, following its purchase in December of PV installer Igloo Works.
The supplier’s CEO Nigel Pocklington said: “Good Energy has long been a pioneer in supporting small scale clean energy generation. This launch continues that tradition of innovation”.
