Get paid for your electricity
The generation meter
When you have a Photovoltaic electricity system installed, an extra electricity meter will also be installed, which measures the amount of electricity your system is making. This figure is then used in conjuntion with your main meter reading to work out how much electricity you have exported to the grid. There are two main ways you can be paid for your electricity.
Excess Production
The electricity supplier will give you a higher rate at which they will buy your excess electricity. You will then get paid for the actual amount that is exported to the grid, in much the same way as you would pay them for theirs. This is tricky to give examples of as the amount being exported will vary.
The rate you are paid is called the feed-in tariff, and a new law has been passed that means from April 2010 electricity suppliers will have to pay a premium price for each Kilowatt Hour of electricity produced by a Solar electricity system. In germany it is four times the supply rate, but will probably start off at a lower rate in the UK.
Total Production
You will be paid for all the electricity you produce even if you use it all. At a rate of 41.3 pence a kWh, that will mean that you would earn £991 in the first year (based on a 3kWp PV system). That is what would be paid to you in the first year even if you did not send back any electricity.
These tariffs will rise each year in proportion to the rate of inflation.
Sending back electricity?
This is completely automatic. When the photovoltaic system is generating electricity, the electricity will first be used in the house if needed. If the house does not need to use any electricity at the time then the electricity automatically finds its way out to the national grid. At times when there is no power being generated by the system (at night) or more electricity is needed than the system can supply, then more electricity is brought in from the grid.