Standard content for Members only
To continue reading this article, please login to your Utility Week account, Start 14 day trial or Become a member.
If your organisation already has a corporate membership and you haven’t activated it simply follow the register link below. Check here.
The government has proposed a series of changes to supply licence conditions introducing a new smart export guarantee (SEG) for small-scale renewable generators.
The measure will force suppliers to pay eligible generators for surplus electricity they provide to the grid and is intended to replace the export element of the feed-in tariff scheme, which closed to new applicants at the end of March.
In a consultation published in January, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) explained that SEG will require all suppliers to offer at least one export tariff.
It said suppliers would be left to decide tariff rates, although they must be “greater than zero” whenever wholesale prices are positive. They would not be required to pay generators during periods of negative prices.
BEIS has now published a second consultation setting out the modifications to supply licence conditions needed to implement the SEG.
They include requirements for suppliers to provide written confirmation of the export tariff they are willing to offer “as soon as reasonably practicable” after a request is submitted by a generator and base any payments on “actual export meter readings”. They say suppliers should not “materially discriminate” between different generators without “objective justification”.
The document also discusses the proposal to create a central register of installations receiving payments under the SEG.
Although BEIS has not yet published its full response to the earlier consultation, the department said the feedback from stakeholders indicates there are “practical challenges in maintaining such a register” and that it “may be of limited value in assessing whether small generators are able to access a competitive range of tariffs”. It says this may be better captured in the annual report on market conditions that it also proposed in January.
A spokesperson for BEIS said: “The future of energy is local, with consumers at its heart. We’re hoping a new market-led mechanism will encourage more households to become renewable electricity generators, by guaranteeing them a price for the electricity they export to the grid.
“We want the market to innovate and it’s encouraging to see some suppliers already offering competitive tariffs to reduce bills, encourage local trading and ultimately cut emissions by making the whole electricity system more efficient.”
The deadline for responses to the second consultation is 27 May 2019.
Please login or Register to leave a comment.