green policy disposal

The sun may never be enough to charge an electric car (eg optimistically 10 hours sun  at 3 kWh, compared with a car's capacity of over 60kWh), but I'm more suspicious of a government that creates green policies and incentives and then quietly disposes of them.

1 - Removal of the Feed in Tariff (FiT) incentive for solar panels. I did just scrape in to this one, which pays me for solar generation as well as export. The paperwork to get started as a micro systems generator was spectacular. The replacement scheme (Smart Export Guarantee) has low incentives for export, which were hardly generous in the prior scheme. Oh and the SEG scheme requires a smart meter as well.

2 - Smart Meter. I have a smart meter. I checked its spec and it is SMETS1 upgradeabkle to SMETS2. Most electric companies won't admit it though, and some used it as an excuse to not switch me to their cheaper tariffs. They say I need to have it replaced. It is a scandal that the UK spent 13.8 billion on smart meters, yet they mainly don't work. I am now with Octopus, who proved in a couple of days that my meter was fully smart.

3- Excuses used by other electricity providers: 'we can't switch you to a low tariff because of government policy' and other such bunkum which has stopped me for more than a year from getting a dual tariff system (eg Economy7 style). Thank you Octopus for fixing this.

4 - Taxing me at 20% VAT for use of electric vehicle charging when away from home, yet I can get 5% when on my own supply.

5- Removing the incentive to get a wall charger for an Electric Vehicle.

6 - Removing the 'discounts' to get an Electric Vehicle.

7 - Creating complicated 'type verification' to qualify for a Congestion Charge 100% discount in London. Three documents required including one from the car manufacturer. It is bonkers.

8 - Creating two separate applications for ULEZ charge reduction and Congestion Charge reduction in London. If I didn't apply for each, the default is that I pay both daily charges.

I think fracking will deserve a separate post.