The Prince's Mayday Network

Businesses could see feed-in-tariff payments they recieve cut by 50% assuming the government adopts proposals set out in the on-going consultation on its popular feed-in tariff scheme. With the consultation on impending changes to the Feed in Tariffs due to end on 23rd December. Join us on Thursday 22nd Dec at 11.00am to voice your views on the proposal to slash solar incentives and how this could affect your business.

Hello and welcome to today's Mayday online debate. Planned changes to solar power subsidies have been hot news in the last few months, and yesterday the high court made a ruling to order a judicial review into the changes. Today we've invited Network members who will be affected to debate the benefits to the economy, society and the environment of a consistent, clear framework. I'll now invite them to start us off....

hello - gareth here

Participants - dson't foget to press F5 regularly to see latest threads..

Great news from the Court! However, going forward, main issues in my view are:

1. Move the C EPC rating requirement from April 2012 to April 2013 ie after the Green Deal is launched. If this date is not moved, owners of homes that require solid wall insulation will do neither.

2. Establish a Community FIT. Eligible organisations such as social enterprises will need to meet community benefit test.

Going forward it is important that we are clear on what tariff we will receive so that we can make plans on capital to be invested. We cannot get caught again where we have invested money in professional advice and infrastructure to suddenly have an arbitrary deadline imposed on us which in some cases is impossibe to achieve,

What impact have the planned changes already had to bsuinesses investing in solar? Gareth at Caplor - you've diversified your business to include this, how has it affected your workforce?

While we're waiting for Gareth. Nigel from Energise Barnet - what are the benefits to communities of FITs?

Caplor Energy - installers of PV and solar water.

The past couple of years has seen a steady and great response to the renewable opportunity of solar and partic PV as a result of the introduction of a UK FIT scheme. The schemes are very popular around the world - some 50 plus countries now and renewable investment has been going on at a massive scale on most continents. By comparison the Uk has come to the table rather late and with a somewhat floored model and tiny budget (pro rata Google spent more this year alone than UK plan to support in several years). Current reforms if adopted would be a nail in the coffin for an industry that can score hugely on all triple bottom line values.

We have the opportunity to lobby on this issue and we have done at all levels over the past few weeks whilst at the same time dealing with 3 months work in 6 weeks.

Thanks Ggareth. Could you give us some more detail on the triple bottom line benefits?

At the Crown Estate we looked to co-invest with our tenants to provide Solar PV on farm buildings with a high energy use such as grain stores and dairies. Problems with asbestos or fragile roofs and connection to the grid have always meant that the sums did not add up. However, with the introduction of the Fed in Tariff we were able to offer deals to our tenants that furture proofed their energy cost, reduced their carbon footprint and generally helped, in a small way, the Government meet their renewables targets. The reduction has once again called into question the viability of PV in the rural environment and we will now look at other technologies to achieve our aims.

Community organisations use FIT to install eg PV on village halls; schools and other community buildings.

RE work force question

Up to last week we had taken a small house build firm of three to a work force of over 30. We have trained and recruited graduates into herefordshre that are normally traveling out of the county as fast as the graduation ceremony is completed. We were in the process of opening a new service centre to expand our business and on average taking on a new member of staff every 2-3 weeks. This is pretty unusal stuff in a rural area. As of last week 15 fitters find themselves with out work and we will review further in the new year. That said we have a lot of interest but we, the staff the customers - all of us need certianty and clarity

This all makes sense and we will feed this into government next year. Does anyone have any quantitative stats on the environmental benefits of installations achieved to date, and have any other potential sources of investment (eg from big business) been explored to supplement FITs?

What about the messages that Government is sending to the general public by making these changes? What affect do you think the uncertainty has on longer term behaviours and adoption of renewable energy's by homeowners in the future?

Triple line benefit

1) social as just highlighted - jobs and young people into a rural area.

2) environment - renewable speaks for it self

3) economic - As a business we will make profit, this goes not just to the tresury (£280m this yr i understand) but also we reinvest into the local community by way of standard investmets - e.g office systems, vehicles, building work, all suppliers into our business - several million this year. again a lot in a rural area / any area. The same is true of our staff and suppliers who then spend their earinngs into the economy. When EDF make a profit (as they do!) where does that go. Local / national business = local national spend.

also of course the energy security and bill mitigation and comfort the customers get from producing some of thier own power and the financial return from FIT to help pay for the significant investment.

Unlike most energy technologies millions of people can do this not the selecty few.

Big businesses appear reluctant to supplement FIT. Some will provide upfront funding for so called rent a roof schemes so they can benefit from the FIT ROI themselves. However, the review has stalled this.

A few businesses have also funded community schemes eg M & S installed PV on the roofs of some stores and donated the FIT to a community group so they could fund other schemes. Hopefully, some other BITC members will do the same in 2012!

The benefits are all very clear. Does anyone else have any key messages that they would like us to take into our conversation with Chris Huhne's team?

Thanks Nigel, we weren't aware of that. Let's do a story on it (as well as the local benefits highlighted by Gareth of course) for the next Mayday newsletter and encourage others to do the same.

Thank you for highlighting the M&S example Nigel, very interesting. Are there any other businesses logged in at the moment that are able to give any similar examples?

What about the messages that Government is sending to the general public by making these changes?

They are sending a terrible message and leaving people very very confused. How can there have been such huge international debate.... ''we'' have been told to do our bit..... people have started to take up the baton and confidence is growing and then once a foot hold has been gained and lets face it comparitavly a tiny foot hold gained (have we done 10-20% of Germanys effort this year ? and they have been at it 20 years already) the rug is pulled and negative comment and uncertianty circulated.

What affect do you think the uncertainty has on longer term behaviours and adoption of renewable energy's by homeowners in the future?

If this pickle is not resolved then it could really damage our long term energy and climate objectives - if ''we'' actually genuinly want to stick to it. A standard customer comment yesterday - '' well thats all over now isnt it ?''

We have found once people install PV they get a much wider and deeper interest into power and conservation issues- because i think they start to get it.

The uncertainty created by Govt over FIT will make consumers wary of trusting them in the future and in turn, this will undermine uptake of the Green Deal. Govt have shot themselves in the foot!

Does anyone else have any key messages that they would like us to take into our conversation with Chris Huhne's team?

Oh yes and as a business we have been very proactive in contacting all the relevent ministers, permanent secraties and MP's as well as visiting and writing to local council and organisiations to encourage them to contact and lobby to - But what is the simple 3 point message.........

Thanks Gareth. We certainly need to tell the stories as widely as we can to encourage businesses and consumers of the merits of sticking with this and we can help with that.

Your customer quote is useful Gareth, I am sure the Government will be interested to understand how the population are reacting to this and what impact this could have in the longer term. Interesting to see some European comparatives. Any similar examples will be very useful to include.

key messages for Chris Huhne's team? Improving energy efficiency and renewable generation are interlinked so they should bring together FIT, RHI, Green Deal and ECO etc into one single, package to reduce complexity and consumer confusion.

If as a Govt and a society we are serious about Solar Pv and renewable as it appears the rest of the world is for all the triple reasons given then.

1) The size of the budget (the £860 ish m) MUST be increased by either simply govt injecting money into it or by moving money around within it from technologies that simply can not take of like solar can.

2) The crazy EPC3 requirment must be dropped, at least until well after the green deal is proven to function and only yesterday Turner questioned this.

3) Whilst pension funds making millions is not the best political or personal sell - electric for users on multiple sites / social and community projects should surely not fall fould of aggregation rules.

4) a clear system of degression that tracks electric prices and kit cost must be adopted and follwed but the rate of return must make the financial rate of return worth ''the risk'' and the fact that unlike ISA and savings the cash is spent and gone and this must be appreciated. 4-5% returns are simply unfair.

Crown Estate - it is really interesting that you have been co-investing and the benefits of this for both parties are clear. It would be great if you had some specific, measurable examples to evidence these so that we can have some key figures to back-up benefits as widely as possible...

Interesting to see some European comparatives. Any similar examples will be very useful to include.

Our Caplor Blog is littered with examples from around the world of what is going on. Please help yourself

We've almost come to the end of the hour: thanks to you all for your time and insights. We'll make this the focus of our January newsletter and will feed everything in to government when we meet. Keep up the great work and best wishes for the festive season.

Re co-investment we have installed several PV schemes on farm buildings where we have shared the capital cost with the tenant and then split the FIT 50:50 as well as any electricity exported. The electricity used by the tenant is then 50 % free and 50% at export price. The tenant will use the majority of the electricity and can be confident that future energy price increases will not affect them as much and thus helps business sustainability.

Another key message - need joined up thinking between DECC, CLG and BIS. For example, latter has launched a collective purchasing initiative which is perfect for solar PV and SWI. However, to my best knowledge, DECC is not involved. And EPCs are the responsibility of CLG but GD assessments of which EPCs are a key part are the responsibility of DECC!.

Happy Xmas everyone!

Thanks for organising

I think you have our consultaion response. Happy to add more if required.

Also happy to come and meet whoever whenever with you to help push this agenda forward in a positive manner.