@transparent

Do you think that they would allow me to bypass my meter, so that I can 'responsibly import' energy to counteract and balance the effect of those 'irresponsible exporters'? I am quite happy to do so totally free of charge, and of course in an ethical manner. 😋 

Posted by: @transparent

↑

clamp down on, unapproved export:

• sites which have not obtained consent for grid-tied generation
• sites that are exporting above the level which was stipulated

Indeed take no issue with getting approval to install generating equipment. Actually the online G99 approval process from UK Power Networks was automated and got approved within seconds, probably because the area I am in has very low solar uptake.

I intend to get the AC side installed and commissioned by a Competent Person, and the commissioning document sent back to the DNO.

I presume these steps are sufficient to make the DNO happy, and export from such equipment would become approved export.

My angle was relating to the additional requirement from Octopus that the setup has an MCS certificate; what value does the MCS certificate give to the electricity supplier ? Ease of paperwork, a central database of specifications, some kind of indemnity against the homeowner changing the system?

Posted by: @chickenbig

↑

Posted by: @transparent

↑

clamp down on, unapproved export:

• sites which have not obtained consent for grid-tied generation
• sites that are exporting above the level which was stipulated

Indeed take no issue with getting approval to install generating equipment. Actually the online G99 approval process from UK Power Networks was automated and got approved within seconds, probably because the area I am in has very low solar uptake.

I intend to get the AC side installed and commissioned by a Competent Person, and the commissioning document sent back to the DNO.

I presume these steps are sufficient to make the DNO happy, and export from such equipment would become approved export.

My angle was relating to the additional requirement from Octopus that the setup has an MCS certificate; what value does the MCS certificate give to the electricity supplier ? Ease of paperwork, a central database of specifications, some kind of indemnity against the homeowner changing the system?

It is not an additional Octopus  requirement it is the Ofgem Smart Export Guarantee requirement that is requiring the MCS certificate (or equivalent) 

The export part of the tariff is covered by the ofgem smart export guarantee rules. 

It sounds like you can comply with the DNO requirements but not the SEG rules. 

The technology and installer used by householders must be certified under the Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS) or equivalent. Energy suppliers may ask you to provide a MCS certificate to prove your installation meets this standard.

Perhaps ask Ofgem if you don't have any luck asking Octopus. Fingers crossed there is a way around it. 

Are there people out there with non MCS or equivalent certified battery setups that are exporting with one of the Octopus tariff? 

It could be the issue doesn't crop up often as most users will have an MCS certificate (or equivalent) for their solar PV and they have then added some batteries? So they simply give their old MCS certificate (or equivalent) and updated DNO approval for the battery? That is me guessing... 

Posted by: @jeff

↑

It sounds like you can comply with the DNO requirements but not the SEG rules. 

OK, I've now skimmed through the SEG rules per

Who can apply for a SEG tariff?

1.5. Applicants using the following technologies can request a SEG export tariff from a SEG Licensee:

• Solar photovoltaics (PV)

• Wind

• Hydro

• Anaerobic Digestion (AD)

• Micro-Combined Heat and Power (micro-CHP)

Posted by: @chickenbig

↑

Posted by: @jeff

↑

It sounds like you can comply with the DNO requirements but not the SEG rules. 

OK, I've now skimmed through the SEG rules per

OFGEM.GOV.UK "https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/sites/default/files/docs/2020/02/seg_generator_guidance_-_final_for_publication.pdf"

Who can apply for a SEG tariff?

1.5. Applicants using the following technologies can request a SEG export tariff from a SEG Licensee:

• Solar photovoltaics (PV)

• Wind

• Hydro

• Anaerobic Digestion (AD)

• Micro-Combined Heat and Power (micro-CHP)

Now I see that (and why) Octopus Flux requires solar panels to be installed! 😱 

Certification
PV, wind and micro-CHP 50kW or less

...

1.13.  If you do not have an MCS certificate, your installation and installer should be accredited in accordance with EN 45011 or EN ISO/IEC 17065:2012. You should speak to your chosen SEG licensee to understand exactly what information they need from you.

EN 45011 is "General requirements for bodies operating product certification systems" and EN ISO/IEC 17065:2012 is "Conformity assessment — Requirements for bodies certifying products, processes and services", so this bullet point looks to be around the certification of the certification scheme for the installer and installation. 🙄 Which makes me think of  https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-uk-bottom-league-tables-installing-heat-pumps-graham-hendra

 

 

I don't think you will find an export tariff at the moment that doesn't fall under the SEG rules. 

Is your install still viable if you can't get paid for export? 

Posted by: @jeff

↑

Is your install still viable if you can't get paid for export? 

I see the battery as "doing the right thing" much like going for a heat pump. Being able to take off-peak electricity (Economy 7 tariff is looking the most suitable, and will fill up the 28kWh battery with a 5kW inverter) and using it at all other times seems like it will be greener. Having around 20kWh for 17 hours of heating the house should be sufficient on most days. It would have been nice to make more use of the battery outside of mid-winter, especially by supporting the grid at evening peak.

I am disincentivised to deal with solar panel installers, given they are in demand and my house was built on a skew which causes installers to such their teeth and say "it's going to cost you". I consider my Ripple Energy coop membership as sufficient greenness, and per kWh generated is half the price of a solar install.

The MCS rules are analogous to allowing the public to buy cars only if they

• are properly certified as being road-worthy
• are purchased from an approved dealership
• come with a 3-year manufacturers' warranty

... but there's no requirement for an MOT thereafter.

I could theoretically commission an MCS installer to put 3kW of PV panels on the roof, connected them to a grid-tied inverter and an (export limited) storage battery with G99 consent from the DNO, and thereby obtain a valid MCS certificate.

That enables me to obtain the SEG (or any other export credit incentive) by presenting the MCS and DNO documents to an Energy Supplier.

It gives no indication of the installation as it might appear a couple of years hence.

By that time I could've filled the entire roof with solar-panels, added a wind-turbine and an assortment of additional storage batteries, again with DNO knowledge/consent.

Nor does the MCS system account for equipment that may no longer be present or operational.

For example, my 8kWh dual-solar DC-input PowerVault storage battery is currently not working.
This is due to four significant factors:

• it costs £200/yr to buy in the electricity to run the unit on days when it stores nothing
• It has iffy firmware which allow its seven(!) internal fans to blast air 24/7
• it averages about 60% efficiency across the year
• it's in a pile of pieces currently sitting on my floor  🤔 

The MCS system is a fair attempt to frustrate incompetent rogue-traders who would like to install technology which might be dangerous

... but it wasn't intended to provide Octopus with the level of information which they'd really now like to have.

Posted by: @transparent

↑

The MCS rules are analogous to allowing the public to buy cars only if they

• are properly certified as being road-worthy
• are purchased from an approved dealership
• come with a 3-year manufacturers' warranty

... but there's no requirement for an MOT thereafter.

 

I could theoretically commission an MCS installer to put 3kW of PV panels on the roof, connected them to a grid-tied inverter and an (export limited) storage battery with G99 consent from the DNO, and thereby obtain a valid MCS certificate.

That enables me to obtain the SEG (or any other export credit incentive) by presenting the MCS and DNO documents to an Energy Supplier.

It gives no indication of the installation as it might appear a couple of years hence.

By that time I could've filled the entire roof with solar-panels, added a wind-turbine and an assortment of additional storage batteries, again with DNO knowledge/consent.

-- Attachment is not available -- -- Attachment is not available --

 

Nor does the MCS system account for equipment that may no longer be present or operational.

For example, my 8kWh dual-solar DC-input PowerVault storage battery is currently not working.
This is due to four significant factors:

• it costs £200/yr to buy in the electricity to run the unit on days when it stores nothing
• It has iffy firmware which allow its seven(!) internal fans to blast air 24/7
• it averages about 60% efficiency across the year
• it's in a pile of pieces currently sitting on my floor  🤔 

-- Attachment is not available --

 

The MCS system is a fair attempt to frustrate incompetent rogue-traders who would like to install technology which might be dangerous

... but it wasn't intended to provide Octopus with the level of information which they'd really now like to have.

Perhaps we need a mandatory  annual MOT for heat pumps/batteries/renewable generation in the home then 😊

The thought of millions of rogue installs in the  future isn't great

Mandatory annual MOT from a MCS or equivalent company. 

Not that I'm demanding the loss of privacy but surely some unauthorized use cases of an installation would be evident with current smart meters.  Like an impossibly high export in half-hour period relative to the approved export power of a MCS installation or export from a household MPAN without known MCS approval.  That should at least go some way toward addressing the substation imbalance issue.

Posted by: @ronin92

↑

surely some unauthorized use cases of an installation would be evident with current smart meters.

Technically, yes. But

• DNOs don't have access to data from individual Smart Meters. They can only see amalgamated data across an area which is approximately equivalent to that served by a typical local substation.
• I don't know of any Energy Suppliers whose billing software is yet collecting/handling the export registers from our Smart Meters. That's why customers are usually required to send in quarterly readings from looking at the meter display.

My own DNO (National Grid Energy Distribution) trialed the use of sniffer software to detect network anomalies a few years ago. It delivered some useful data, and I believe it is now part of the standard armoury.

But the manpower required to track down a rogue site is still extensive, and you can really only substantiate its use for locations where there's possibly a meter being bypassed. This practice typically occurs for cannabis cultivation, which isn't an export activity.... well not in terms of electricity anyway!

In instances of large scale electricity theft, the DNO can often be sure of getting back the lost revenue plus expenses because a court will make a Proceeds of Crime Order against the perpetrators.

It's also pretty difficult to find unapproved export by comparing against the 'Export Consents' which have been issued by the DNO for a local sub-station.

I have access to NGED's (private) grid-data library. This allows me to see the various categories of permission which have been granted, but not the Max-current which was stipulated for each site.

So I can look at an 11kV transformer and see that there are 5 heat-pumps, 9 EV chargers and 17 solar-PV export houses, for example. But that's a long way short of telling me how any of these might be contributing to losses due to phase-imbalance.

a: there is no register of which properties are connected to which phase. So a 'Consent for Connection' takes no account of that.

b: only a few hundred local substations have monitoring equipment. It's expensive both to install and also provide a useful data-storage system to handle the numbers of readings which are created every minute.

I'm pretty used to grabbing data from such monitors and creating a graph of what I'm looking for.
But we're a long way from being able to apply AI to the monitor output and pick up how the phase-imbalance losses are being created.

Eg. The following is a graph showing the current supplied across the three 440v phases on one Feed cable from a local substation.

But without having additional local knowledge I don't know if there's greater daytime demand on Phase L1, or whether the houses being supplied by phases L2 and L3 have more solar panels on their roofs.

I don't think there's a good business case for installing monitoring (and the associated comms) onto all 230,000 ground-mounted 11kV local substations in the UK.
The money would need to be raised from increasing daily standing charges.
No one currently has an appetite for such a proposal.

I'm aware that we seem to have wandered away from the subject of Octopus' new ToU tariff.
However, by discussing the strategies which won't work is a useful way of seeing how/why Octopus might be trialing yet another new tariff option.

Us end-users see too little of how the technical status of the grid influences the strategies which Octopus are experimenting with.
So I've attempted to address that deficiency.

I'll happily now suggest what might work if others would like me to!

Given you can't tax a car without a valid MOT. 

It would be possible to set something up where you can't get paid for any export if you haven't had a mandatory annual check of your solar pv and batteries etc. with someone suitably qualified. Just like we have people qualified to do MOTs. 

I don't think that is unreasonable from a safety point of view. 

It would need to be of a reasonable cost like an MOT. Someone could cause a lot of damage with a poor, illegal, faulty install that was expanded or degraded over time. 

I think it is only fair the cost of any check falls on the household that has the equipment installed, just like i pay for an MOT on my van.