Net metering bills

[PW in Polemi]

I have been having discussions on Facebook with a fellow net meterer. He has just received his latest bill and has been charged for units consumed, despite being in credit with units generated. He queried this with EAC and was told the government made the changes, they are merely implementing them.

If this is a correct interpretation of the changes, this has several ramifications for those of us with net metering.

Firstly, if there is no benefit to us of generating credit units, why bother to install and use what is a rather expensive bit of kit? And if fewer people install and use net metering, the government will be falling further behind on its obligations to increase reusable energy usage.

I signed a contract with EAC - it's in Greek so I cannot check whether there is a catchall clause whereby any condition can be changed by them at any time....

If I cannot accumulate my summer credit units to use for heating in the winter, I will have to buy more gas and run the C/H system more often - not very environmentally friendly - and certainly not very bank balance friendly.

I cannot recall seeing anything about this change in billing in the media, does anybody know anything more? How to contact an investigative journalist? The Green Party?

[Dominic]

These are the bills mentioned on Facebook, for reference:

 Old Bill:
 

01-oldbill.jpg (152.08 KiB) Viewed 6206 times

 
 
New Bill:
 

02-newbill.jpg (119.74 KiB) Viewed 6206 times

[trevnhil]

This is indeed of great concern to all who have a Net Metering system... I hope that there is some misunderstanding somewhere, and I will certainly be watching for any replies to this question / problem.
Probably like you Kay our next bill is not due to be delivered for 3 or 4 weeks. It will be interesting to see what it contains..

[PW in Polemi]

I have emailed the guy who did the installation but of course, this is
Easter weekend so am not expecting a reply any time soon.

[jeba]

My guess is that it´s due to the fact that your credit will be reset to zero by the end of February. You can´t carry them over forever. This is why I used my aircon rather than the central heating for heating so as not to have too much of my credit units go to waste while having to pay for heating diesel.

[Dominic]

Yes that's right. It resets itself every February. I think Max posted a couple of years ago about it. It never affects us, because we use all ours up anyway, but it does get reset once a year.

[Dominic]

It resets every February.

See this news article:

https://in-cyprus.philenews.com/how-ben ... omeowners/
IN particular, this bit in the "Net Metering" section:

The final annual set-off is done in the bill for February and March. No surpluses are transferred to the next billing year and, after that cut-off point, netting calculations start afresh.

[cyprusmax47]

What I recognized is that they did some changes in order to compensate for another EU penalty of too high CO2 emissions:



The price for electricity supply went 2 cent up

They scrapped the "Producers Charge" ( the size of your system, p.e. 4,8 kWp) and Public Service Obligations as well as Producers RES/ES fund and introduced instead "Network usage" and "Ancillary Service" depending how much kW/h were used. In the above case a slightly higher bill....

Max

[PW in Polemi]

My guess is that it´s due to the fact that your credit will be reset to zero by the end of February. You can´t carry them over forever. This is why I used my aircon rather than the central heating for heating so as not to have too much of my credit units go to waste while having to pay for heating diesel.

Well actually, this particular guy's billing period means his credit is wiped after the March reading. But what he is complaining about is that by being charged for units consumed, rather than producers fees, his bill is higher despite being in credit with units, and there appears to have been no offsetting of generated units against consumed units, which is what NET metering means ...

What I recognized is that they did some changes in order to compensate for another EU penalty of too high CO2 emissions:



The price for electricity supply went 2 cent up

They scrapped the "Producers Charge" ( the size of your system, p.e. 4,8 kWp) and Public Service Obligations as well as Producers RES/ES fund and introduced instead "Network usage" and "Ancillary Service" depending how much kW/h were used. In the above case a slightly higher bill....

Max

When did they change this, Max? Was there anything in the media about this? Can they make these changes, which may well lead to a significant increase in bills for many of us, without amending the contract we signed with them?

[Dominic]

So from what PW in Polemi is saying, there is no point in being plugged into the grid with your solar panels?

[jeba]

Well actually, this particular guy's billing period means his credit is wiped after the March reading. But what he is complaining about is that by being charged for units consumed, rather than producers fees, his bill is higher despite being in credit with units, and there appears to have been no offsetting of generated units against consumed units, which is what NET metering means ...

Where do you see that he´s being charged for units consumed? I dont see that. The item "electricity supply" is a fee for being connected to the public grid - irrespective of usage.

[PW in Polemi]

So from what PW in Polemi is saying, there is no point in being plugged into the grid with your solar panels?

That is what I am worried about. Depending on how much EAC charge per unit consumed, this may well wipe out any financial benefits. I use most of my credit units for heating in the winter, evenings in particular when there is no generation.

[jeba]

So from what PW in Polemi is saying, there is no point in being plugged into the grid with your solar panels?

That is what I am worried about. Depending on how much EAC charge per unit consumed, this may well wipe out any financial benefits. I use most of my credit units for heating in the winter, evenings in particular when there is no generation.

As I said above: There was no charge for units used. However, if you´re (almost) only using your credit units in winter and have some left over by the end of February this might be true. Just use it in summer for airconditioning.

[PW in Polemi]

BUt I live in Polemi and rarely need to use the air con in summer.....

The new charging system is based on units consumed so by using my credit units in winter (which count as units consumed), as I have been doing, I may well be paying a lot more for heating than previously.

[Dominic]

Well actually, this particular guy's billing period means his credit is wiped after the March reading. But what he is complaining about is that by being charged for units consumed, rather than producers fees, his bill is higher despite being in credit with units, and there appears to have been no offsetting of generated units against consumed units, which is what NET metering means ...

Where do you see that he´s being charged for units consumed? I dont see that. The item "electricity supply" is a fee for being connected to the public grid - irrespective of usage.

It isn't the "Electricity Supply" that is the issue. It is this line:

Network Usage (1.146kWh x €0.0288) = €33

In the past, that would have been offset by his credit. If you can no longer do this, there is no point in connecting your panel to the grid. All you are then doing is giving them free electricity while getting nothing in return, other than an extra fee for having panels.

If this does become the new way of doing things (and I think that that is a big if) I think people will be more interested in looking at off-grid solutions. This in turn would damage Cyprus already poor showing on the green energy front, leading to more fines etc etc etc.

[darrow]

It does get reset every February. In effect you "lose" any credit you have up to that point! I think it is totally the wrong time of the year to reset the bill, although I think they should buy back the unused KW anyway! For us, who both feel the cold, we are still using aircon heating in March and inevitably have to pay extra when the next bill arrives because we don't generate more than we use in March. It would be better if they did a reset a bit later on in the year! So annoying when you have lost units you could use! Also charging producers charge! That is us isn't it? The whole thing is rigged in favour of them. Not helpful when they are being asked to help people change to green energy.

[Jim B]

I received my bill yesterday; usually it is about €52.00 for two months but this one for February through March was €32.65.
Not sure what's going on but we don't usually run the a/c units in the winter.

Jim

[jeba]

It isn't the "Electricity Supply" that is the issue. It is this line:

Network Usage (1.146kWh x €0.0288) = €33

In the past, that would have been offset by his credit. If you can no longer do this, there is no point in connecting your panel to the grid. All you are then doing is giving them free electricity while getting nothing in return, other than an extra fee for having panels.

I had missed that. But how would a charge of 2,88 cents equate to getting nothing in return for the energy you feed into the grid when one kWh costs around 20 cents? I think it´s still a good deal (not as good as it was though) given that it saves you the cost of a battery storage which would cost thousands.

[cyprusmax47]

I received my bill yesterday; usually it is about €52.00 for two months but this one for February through March was €32.65.
Not sure what's going on but we don't usually run the a/c units in the winter.

Jim

My bill these days was also lower Jim, due to the fact that I am not charged anymore for Producer's charge (kWp's) and also not for RES/ES fund and the fact that I had not many kWh's consumed. (everything explained in my recent post above)
I wonder how long it takes for EAC to realize that they will get less income from their new tariffs....


Max

[jeba]

I received my bill yesterday; usually it is about €52.00 for two months but this one for February through March was €32.65.
Not sure what's going on but we don't usually run the a/c units in the winter.

Jim

My bill these days was also lower Jim, due to the fact that I am not charged anymore for Producer's charge (kWp's) and also not for RES/ES fund and the fact that I had not many kWh's consumed. (everything explained in my recent post above)
I wonder how long it takes for EAC to realize that they will get less income from their new tariffs....


Max

That´s strange. My bill was slightly higher than usual even though I still was a net exporter.