Victoria's Green Matters - 13th April 2011

Deal With IT's Secretary Victoria Nicholls writes a regular column in the East Kent Mercury:

Have you any thoughts about fitting photovoltaic technology to generate your own electricity? It is, of course, an ideal way to invest money if you are lucky enough to have any savings to invest! If you want to install it just to be green then the ‘Feed in Tariffs’ (FITs) will not be of interest to you.

How marvellous to have one’s own power supply during daylight hours; to be independent of the power generating companies and to cap all that earn yourself 43.3p per kilowatt hour (pkWhr) for all the electricity generated. If you do not use your electricity, you can export it to the national grid and receive 3.1pkWhr. So the gains are threefold because, of course you do not buy so much electricity from the generating companies.

It all sounds too good to be true? Well, not if you can get your system installed and up and running before 1 August 2011 when the government have decided that the rate for the FiTs will be reduced to 19pkWhr. If you have a system that is already working, you are eligible for the higher rate for 25 years.

We are hurtling towards an energy crisis and need to encourage people to generate as much of their energy as possible instead of which it would appear that the government has bowed to pressure from the generating companies and reduced the rate of FITs.

Do not be tempted to install a system for speed alone. The installer you choose must be accredited and the system registered before any money can be paid. There are lots of unscrupulous people out there just waiting to take your money and give you a system that may not work correctly or pay you your FITs.

For more information go to www.fitariffs.co.uk