[wrcjenkin]

I am on the original FIT tariff (from 2011) and am looking to install some batteries. Will this affect the tariff I am paid or the volume I can claim for?

[Indyk_EONNext]

Hey @wrcjenkin

Welcome to our Eon Next Community and thank you for joining 😊

I would suggest contacting our FIT team directly on 0808 501 5218, Monday to Friday 9-5 (4:30pm Friday) or dropping them an email via hi@eonnext.com so they are able to provide you with what is required. 💜

[wizzo227]

I can't speak of the official rules but can say from the point of view of "what was feed in tariff supposed to be for?". Anything which goes through your original generation meter and collects feed in tariff got that extra money agreement as incentive in order to get industrial supply of solar panels and installer capacity off the ground with extra money, from household buyers who'd signed a feed in tariff deal to get FIT money from what they had originally installed. That deal lasts for 20 or 25 years from when it was agreed in the 20-teens.

If you want to install something else, there should be a way to do that without messing up your FIT set up, which has quite of lot of years left to collect more money from the existing equipment only. You are allowed to do maintenance and major repairs including an inverter swap if those don't change the output of the system by more than the small-% from inverter improvements.
You should insist that anything like batteries, more or bigger solar panels, EV recharge, stays out of your original FIT system such that it cannot change what goes through the generation meter. I'd expect it to be worth making sure with your installer that your battery has its own metering, which might be off your house main switchboard. My interpretation of feed in tariff is that you should not try to collect more money through the generation meter, You've got what you'e got, and those are what the FIT agreement applies to, but you may add anything else on the house side of the generation meter.

I'd consider asking your installer about adding more new solar panels on the house side of the meters, if you have not already filled your roof. There has been several% of claimed-efficiency inflation, so adverts for panels of 22% claimed efficiency are only slightly better than panels of ten years ago. A few extra of those could gain more kWh to sell or use to your best advantage. Have a careful look at the round trip efficiency of the proposed battery ( kWh out / kWh in ) and whether you'd be better off sorting out smart export guarantee than by running power in and out of batteries. ("Smart Export Guarantee" (SEG) by metered export was not available in the era of feed in tariff agreements, but many smets2 smart meters can already do that with no hardware changes. They only require that your electricty biller has sorted out a second MPAN number with the DCC. For some reason some billers find that so difficult that they take a very long time to find the right meter number to look at for metered export)

I don't have batteries myself, having opted for flexibility of time of use instead. For example, if it is forecast to be the sunniest day this week, then that is a prefered day to use the washing machine. I even got a £15 half-sized kettle to more frequently be able to use it for free inside the cloudy-day solar generating from the roof. Having made many such adaptations of habits, I'll export more than 14kWh on a good day in summer, and buy less than 1kWh per day (1 person).

[wrcjenkin]

@Indyk_EONNext - I followed your advice and they confirmed that there was no impact on the FIT payments of installing a battery. Many thanks for a sensible suggestion.

[Indyk_EONNext]

awh you're very welcome and I am glad to hear they were able to confirm this for you 😊 @wrcjenkin

If there is anything else you need please let us know and hope you'l stick around on the community 💜

[Nigel_EONNext]

@Indyk_EONNext - bang on, contacting the FIT team as they are trained to deal with this 💪

But I would say, for anybody thinking of getting a battery with FIT - do some research, share your experiences here.
I'd love to hear and I'm sure others that are in the same situation would.

I know from working in FIT - metering around batteries is so important. If the meter is higher in the system, you may need a bidirectional meter (if the battery charges from the grid).

I'd say to anybody thinking about batteries - do the research and make informed choices around FIT.

[Indyk_EONNext]

Hey 👋 @wrcjenkin

How are you?

I know it was some time ago and I just wanted to follow up on the battery installation. How did it go? 😊