Off grid for 20K

The FIT was intended to encourage adoption of PV when at the time it wasn't economically viable - the assumption being that by increasing demand, it would eventually bring down costs (which has in fact happened on a global scale, perhaps partially as a result of FIT-like schemes by governments). Does it matter whether the solar panels were bought by home owners, or effectively borrowed, on increasing the PV capacity?

I completely agree that it has lowered the price of PV, however where they will be paying out millions of pounds to companies over that 25 year period, surely that money would’ve been better being spent on more systems that could’ve been installed  on more roofs, there by increasing the amount of PV in the country., or am I missing a trick here?

If the FIT wasn't in place, it would have not  been economically viable for those companies to install PV systems on all the rented roofs. Fundamentally, if a PV installation costs £10K and is likely to generate £7K of electricity say in its lifetime, and if the government wants to subsidise that installation to the tune of £5K over its lifetime, then someone sees a £2K profit and decides its worth investing. Whether it's a house owner investing their own £7k or a company investing their own money and renting a roof, the net effect is the same - the government fork out £5K to facilitate the building of one more PV installation that otherwise wouldn't have been built.

The main problem with the FIT scheme was that someone didn't keep an eye on what was happening, and kept the subsidy too high for too long.  This encouraged profiteering by the installers who charged too much for installs, with the customers knowing that it would still be paid for by the generous subsidies *.


As a result, the pot of money started running out rapidly, and the government was panicked into making a series of large cuts in the subsidy.  Every time they made a big cut, demand collapsed until the price of panels came down enough to make it affordable again.  This produced a boom-and-bust situation, with most of the installers going out of business.  So much for a sustainable UK solar industry.


The FIT is now zero for new installs, and unless you sign up to the right supplier, you don't even get paid anything for any electricity you export.  This means that small-scale solar only really makes sense if you expect to use most of the electricity you generate.  So it's good for factories and offices, but largely pointless for most houses.


* I am one of the people who paid too much money, but now gets an over-generous FIT in return.  I would be well in profit by now if I hadn't had to pay for a replacement inverter.