Good Energy coughs up £650,000 to renewable generator owners
Good Energy has agreed to refund owners of renewable generators after imposing unauthorised charges on them, revealed Ofgem.
The market watchdog announced the challenger supplier will cough up £453,000 to pay back all feed-in-tariff (FIT) generators which faced an unapproved £25 per quarter fee.
It will also compensate the FIT generators with a further goodwill payment totalling £200,000.
FIT generators are holders of accredited installations involved in low-carbon electricity generation, under the Government’s FIT Scheme introduced on 1 April 2010.
The scheme requires participating licensed electricity suppliers – such as Good Energy – to make payments to FIT generators for electricity generated and exported by accredited installations.
When FIT generators receive the FIT payments at the level they are entitled to – they are provided with a financial incentive for the generation of electricity on a small-scale from renewable resources.
However, the unauthorised administration costs meant they received lower payment sums from Good Energy than they were entitled to.
Good Energy’s business model is based around the FIT scheme and procuring electricity and energy from 182,000 FIT generators.
It sold its 47.5MW renewable generation portfolio to Bluefield Solar Income Fund earlier this year for £24.5m.
Cathryn Scott, director of enforcement and emerging issues said “A priority for Ofgem is reaching net zero at the lowest cost to consumers in both a sustainable and efficient way. We have put forward a range of potential reforms to reduce Britain’s reliance on expensive gas imports and accelerate the transition towards cleaner and more secure supplies of home-grown energy.”
When approached for comment, chief executive Nigel Pocklington said: “Our annual Ofgem audit results have consistently reflected our commitment to high levels of service for generator customers. So we were very disappointed that Ofgem consider the admin charges we applied to a less than one per cent of customers, which are not typical domestic solar generators, to be non-compliant with the scheme.
“We are no longer applying this charge and have contacted all affected customers to inform them of their refunds.”