I think MCS had probably had it's day. Administratively it was useful as a check for the feed in tariff with its payments to support particular technologies that the system was indeed as claimed (e.g. PV) rather than something else (say a diesel generator) and bought a bit of time for the normal electrician to get his/her head around the new fangled PV stuff.

It was all a bit of a paper exercise though A couple of years ago my supplier (acceptor?) noticed that the meter serial number on my MCS cert didn't match the actual meter (turns out the original MCS registered installer, who by then had long since ceased trading, had missed out one digit from the middle when originally filling in the forms) - and it cost me about £30 in admin fees to get the certificate re-issued with the correction.

The FIT and MCS did act as a brake for some improvements though - I couldn't for instance just add a couple of extra panels to my system if I wanted - the extra energy generated wouldn't have been eligible for the FIT scheme and I suppose MCS is useful to enforce that (but supplier check generation meter readings anyway, so the sudden increase would have rung bells).

I can see it getting a whole lot more complicated if it stayed though. Simple enough with just a PV system - but what if I add battery storage, and perhaps vehicle-to-grid from the electric car? Do I then need three different MCS certificates? What would be the point anyway, as all the export will be mixed up before the smart meter registers it - no-one could tell which system it came from. The SEG scheme doesn't much care anyway.

   - Andy.

I think MCS had probably had it's day. Administratively it was useful as a check for the feed in tariff with its payments to support particular technologies that the system was indeed as claimed (e.g. PV) rather than something else (say a diesel generator) and bought a bit of time for the normal electrician to get his/her head around the new fangled PV stuff.

It was all a bit of a paper exercise though A couple of years ago my supplier (acceptor?) noticed that the meter serial number on my MCS cert didn't match the actual meter (turns out the original MCS registered installer, who by then had long since ceased trading, had missed out one digit from the middle when originally filling in the forms) - and it cost me about £30 in admin fees to get the certificate re-issued with the correction.

The FIT and MCS did act as a brake for some improvements though - I couldn't for instance just add a couple of extra panels to my system if I wanted - the extra energy generated wouldn't have been eligible for the FIT scheme and I suppose MCS is useful to enforce that (but supplier check generation meter readings anyway, so the sudden increase would have rung bells).

I can see it getting a whole lot more complicated if it stayed though. Simple enough with just a PV system - but what if I add battery storage, and perhaps vehicle-to-grid from the electric car? Do I then need three different MCS certificates? What would be the point anyway, as all the export will be mixed up before the smart meter registers it - no-one could tell which system it came from. The SEG scheme doesn't much care anyway.

   - Andy.