Make An Informed Choice ! – NIE Export Tariff – NI ROC – Action Renewables – Airtricity – And More…
It’s been a very interesting time in the last few weeks….we had communications with NIE Energy, Aitricity, eROC, and Action Renewables, all regarding our current situation in Northern Ireland….
NIE Energy started a enlightening sequence of calls, about Silverford trading ROC’s, instead of surrendering your ROC certs to NIE Energy for generators under 50kw . The good folk at NIE Energy tell us that it’s all hassle & problems registering for ROC’s etc etc, and they would take care of this hassle for an admin fee. Ok…but we know that Scottish Power paid nearly £50 for each ROC cert in the last auction, a fact that is backed up by the MD of the UK’s leading ROC trader – eROC. So in essence NIE Energy take an admin fee of nearly £8 per ROC Cert, now that we get 4 ROC Certs per 1MW generated, thats an admin fee of approx £32 per MW….with Gaia wind turbines making on average 30-40 Mw that’s an adim fee of 30/40 x £32, phew!…now i don’t mind anyone one taking an admin fee for paperwork, but not an admin fee that gets bigger the more you generate…even thought the paper work stays the same!
I now see NIE Energy have withdrawn their ROC application form, from their web site. The old version of their website gave you a choice, you could download the NIE Energy/ROC admin paperwork or you could choose to do your own ROC admin. Instead you now ring for an application form, and listen to the merits of why you should use NIE Energy to administer your ROC’s …..wonder will they offer the customer an “informed choice”, in that you have another option to trade your ROC at a higher price with a company like eROC, for a lesser admin fee…. I bet you in the same conversation, NIE Energy won’t tell you that you may also get a better deal for your electric if you use their sister company Energia or their rival Airtricity if you are a commercial user/customer like a farmer etc….
Airtricity will be a serious threat to NIE Energy on this front..after our recent communications with them,my feeling is that Airtricity (or any other energy provider) who gives auction prices for your ROC’s (minus a reasonable fixed admin fee, of course!), a decent rate for export/unused electric, and a great deal on electricity you need to buy…is the clear winner!
I can now reveal my recent conversations, with the folks at Action Renewables …..Action Renewables are going to be a ROC Trader (hooray!) and are seeking more attractive deals, on several fronts for the consumer….now thats a complete win/win in anyones book, we wish them well in doing so!
By now, you may be thinking what if Northern Ireland adopts Feed In Tariff ?…..the whole ROC debate will be forgotten about… But we’ll have a great fight between energy companies as to who gives the best deal on export electric from your wind turbine brewing in the background. Don’t forget this is a very attractive market, they buy exported electric at a price – maybe 5/6p, and resell it at many times over the original cost (10p – 15p) minus transmission fees of course.
That’s all for now…
Silverford Renewables – Informed Rewarding Generation!
