We have just had solar panels fitted!!!

[2stressed]

Amazing!!! Can't believe the reduction in fuel bills. I'm seriously dumbfounded why everyone isn't doing it. We paid fir ours are selves so get the benefit of the feed in tariff but even if we'd got some of the rent a roof schemes the saving in fuel bills would be incentive enough!!!

Happy happy happy!!!

As I have repeatedly asked you (and you have repeatedly failed to answer), how else do you suggest the government meets its renewables target?
If it is so unfair, what do you suggest would be a fair way to generate renewable energy?
The current subsidy is far lower than it was, and already the take up of micro generation has dropped dramatically. The time to have the argument you would like to have with me is long past, the higher subsidy has been around for years and those who chose to invest in it have 25 year contracts.
Feed in tariffs are not egalitarian, but they are as fair as they can be given the behaviours they seek to promote.

As I have repeatedly attempted to explain, but you do not seem to have grasped, I have not taken on responsibility for setting government policy.

If you look back to what I said, there is an ethical isssue that a small number of people should be paid a subsidy, so that they can make a profit out of doing something which is not economically viable, and that this subsidy should be paid by the many people who are not in a position to benefit.

You have said that you don't see any ethical issue.

I don't know why you hope to make me define government policy for subsidising activities which are not economically viable. If the activities you favour were economically viable, they wouldn't need a subsidy so that people could make a profit out of them.

But what's the point of bemoaning something as an ethical issue if you have no idea what would be an ethical solution?

This thread now has more posts than any other on Ethical Living since December 2009. I'm actually a little impressed

This is the "Ethical Living" forum so I am free to comment on an unethical policy referenced within it. I am not obliged to respond to your attempts to move me away from the ethical issue.

You have said you don't see anything unethical in a small number of people being paid a subsidy, so that they can make a profit out of doing something which is not economically viable, this subsidy being paid by the many people who are not in a position to benefit.

I do.

Perhaps your ethical awareness is different to mine. That could also explain your repeatedly misrepresenting my position.

Just to help you understand my position on this issue:
My family has an average income, we live in an average sized home, which we saved a large deposit for, then we continued to save "for a rainy day". When one rainy day caused our roof to leak, I looked into Solar PV as an option while we had disruption due to a new roof anyway. Because of the FIT I was able to convince my DH that it would be worth installing panels for economic reasons. If the FIT did not exist, I would not be generating renewable energy, as the ecological argument was not sufficient to convince my DH that we should spend all our savings.
We have made a lot of sacrifices as a family to be able to generate our own power, and I am proud to be helping the country meet renewable energy targets. The subsidy made this a realistic proposition for my family, and many others. I would like as many people as possible to have the same choice.

OK, I understand your background now.

Your family is a recipient of the subsidy, and naturally you don't want to hear that you are unethical in benefitting from payments made by other people, including many in a worse position than your own.

It would be as awkward as prosperous patrons of the Royal Opera House hearing that the expensive refurb was paid for by Lottery money, much of it coming from the poor, unemployed and hopeless, and very little from the Opera-going classes.

I would like the FIT to be at actual market rates, rather than subsidised

I think the price of the panels would come down and it would become more realistic

And I would suppose that as a non-recipient of the subsidy, you do not want to hear that it enables a wider section of the population to participate in micro-generation.
I am glad we understand each other, even if we cannot agree.

take away the subsidies and let it justify itself as economically viable, and you take away my objection, especially if you use the electricity in your own home without expecting anyone else to pay for additional infrastructure unless it is economically viable for them.

And remembering of course that the electricity industry buys-in its power at very low prices.

Going off-grid will only be a viable proposition when energy storage becomes more efficient.
I generate more energy than I use over a year, but as I cannot store it, I must sell some to the grid at certain times, and buy back from the grid at others.
Removing the subsidy will make micro generation the preserve of the very rich, perpetuating inequalities.

if the rich pay for it themselves, and don't expect the rest of us to chip in, I don't care.

The panels are getting cheaper and cheaper, but the fitting cost isn't.

If there was no FITS, the process should be simpler and installations cheaper.

I read about a sort of reverse ground source heat pump - where the spare electric heated up the ground which could be harvested over night when the temp was lower......but I guess it didn't work as I heard no more about it

I never even heard of that ground storage system, I can see how it would lose heat to the environment, perhaps that's a fatal flaw?

Even before FITs we all "chipped in" to renewable energy generation, as energy companies' profits were ploughed into wind farms and research into alternative technologies.

if an energy company thinks it is economically viable, and doesn't expect the rest of us to subsidise them, I don't care.

But you do subsidise them, through your bills, just the same as with the FITs

but you said "energy companies' profits" which means it comes out of the companies' profits and the shareholders' dividends. I don't care how they spend their profits.

Utility companies are very restricted on what costs they are allowed to charge against what assets to prevent them putting the cost of the executive jet onto our electricty bills.

They are allowed to "invest in new technologies" with the money they get from bills. Just as they are required to pay FITs and pass on the cost to the consumer. It's smaller scale, but the same process.
Are you just upset because you can now see how individuals can benefit from these methods rather than faceless entities?

so when you said "energy companies' profits" it wasn't right?

How do you think energy companies make profits?

I know very well how energy companies make profits, and I know what profits are, and I know where they go.

What an energy company spends its profits on is no concern of mine, or yours.

You said they had been spending on research out of their profits, which of course they are entitled to do.

Are you now saying that you were wrong?

they invest in renewable technologies (and FITs) using their profits, which they make from money they charge customers.
FITs work the same as other investments in renewables, yet you feel differently about the different investment choices.

Where did you get the idea that you know how I feel about "other investment choices?" Or did you just make it up?

are you saying now that it comes out of their profits?

Talk me through why you think I should disapprove of profits being invested into research into renewable energy, more/less/the same as you think I should disapprove of profits being spent on a staff christmas party, or being distributed to shareholders as dividends.

Investing profits into a wind farm is logically as ethically sound as investing profits into paying FITs.
I believe you're the one who brought up staff parties.