Do I need to contact OVO if my FiT/Solar panels are being replaced like for like or a battery installation?

Hey ​@eileanmor 

Welcome to the Forum! 

I checked in with one of our specialists on this and we would need to know of any changes as the situation can vary, these can have different knock on effects so it’ll be best to let them know about this. You can let the team know of any changes to the tech involved with your FiT tariff - so in this case, the solar panels as well as the batteries as they may have an impact here so the team will need to know about this too. They provided some more detail on why we’d need to know about this which I’ve also included below the following contact details:

If you need to speak to our team about your Feed-in Tariff you can call 0330 102 7421 Monday - Friday from 9am to 5pm or email via fits@ovoenergy.com.

We’d need to know of any changes the FIT generator would like to make so we can advise if or how this would affect their FIT scheme. The generator can send us proposed changes you are looking to have done and the team can review before hand if you’re still in the pre-planning stages. 

If the change is like for like and there are no changes to the TIC (Total Installed Capacity) then the installers will have no need to alter or change your original accreditation that you originally signed up with for FIT.

If there is going to be an increase in the TIC, this is also fine BUT the original accreditation must remain for the original TIC, then there would be a second MCS just for the added capacity (so both together will be the overall combined Total Installed Capacity).

We’ll need the battery details to determine if the batteries are going to be able to charge from the grid and also located between the panels and the generation meter, the generation meter needs to be proven as Bi-directional (if the batteries are located after the gen meter, this will not affect FIT). You don’t need to have a smart meter unless they wish to change from deemed export payments to metered or opt out of export completely on FIT and become negotiated on SEG instead. You can find more about SEG here if you’re interested.

I hope this helps.