When will I receive my FIT payment?

Don’t worry, the same happens to us. We have found that the payment comes out about the same time as the next reading.

Wow, that’s really slow, isn’t it?  My FiT payments have been going through EON Next for the last year or two.  I get my statement pretty well instantly after submitting the reading, and the payment follows within a week or so.  

Hi ​@waltyboy I managed to speak to someone today & was told the payment has just been made but it’s not showing on my bank account yet, I’ll give it a few days but I agree it’s a slow process from submitting reading to payment. 

Cheers ​@MrsH, glad you got it sorted.  More than two months’ wait since submitting your reading, though, that is indeed a very slow process.  
 

Do you generally make a note to self to submit your FiT readings, or do you get an email nudge from OVO? Just curious as to why you submitted on the 17th of June, and whether sending the reading on the 1st of the month might gain a few weeks? Mind you, from the experience of ​@MR F H CORMIER and also from ​the very helpful post from @Chris_OVO above, it looks as though it wouldn’t make any real difference?

Not that there’s any great hurry to receive FiT credits, as long as we know they’re safely on their way then there’s no great rush. It’s an excellent scheme for those of us fortunate enough to have been included in it.   It’s odd, though, how one company seems to sit on the statement (and indeed the money) for a month or two while another company whistles the payment out in a matter of days.  I’ve had my “normal” gas and electricity energy account with OVO for years now, ever since being migrated from SSE, and with no complaints.  The FiT account for historical reasons following the withdrawal of nPower and various other shufflings in the industry was taken up by EON Next without any overt choice on my part, but they’ve been wonderful, even better than the previous lot, who also made the payment within a few weeks of submitting the reading.  In fact, with EON it’s a matter of days, really remarkable compared with OVO apparently sitting around for months?  
 

I wonder how the payments are received by OVO for eventual onward transmission to you?  Do OVO receive the money and then sit on it for a while, or are some companies slower than others at claiming the funds every quarter following submissions by users?  That time lag seems to be really marked in the case of OVO, dreadfully slow.  If one were bothered, I guess it could be interesting to compare the differing speed of companies and any apparent reasons.  
 

At any rate, a relatively small time lag of a month or two isn’t a massive big deal, as long as you know the payment eventually wings its way to you, that’s the main thing!  Myself though, loyal as I generally am to OVO,  I think I’d be tempted to look elsewhere for FiT providers, it seems a puzzlingly long time to dawdle over processing things every quarter compared with others….

All the very best…

Hey ​@MrsH & ​@waltyboy, 

I just had a chat with one of our contacts who manages the FIT/SEG area of the business about our payment schedule. He shared that they’re really happy with how things are going and the feedback they’re receiving. There’s definitely some interest from customers in moving to a quicker payment schedule, like monthly payments, but overall, they’ve had great responses about the current setup. 

He’s shared some context over how the FIT/SEG payments are processed which will hopefully be helpful to you:

• During meter reading month, we’re pleased to have over 80,000 readings from the 1st to the 31st, including until 23:59 on the final day
• We then need to have all readings entered, and levelise all reads within the next 2-3 weeks to ensure folks are being paid correctly
• We then send a statement out end of that next month to confirm to our customers what is due
• We then allow 2-3 weeks for the statements to be read, understood, and any concerns to be raised.
• We then release payments end of that third month ensuring the process is accurate and runs to schedule as expected. 

Any further questions please let us know. 

I’m in agreement with ​@waltyboy on the subject of time and FIT payment in particular.

We're with British Gas for our Solar generation (FIT) and although they are a generally poor company for customer support, they have a semi-automated system which allows you to submit generation readings online. A statement is sent within a week (generally) and payment made around a week later.

Since June 2021 EoN automated statements have arrived within three days of my submitting the quarterly FiT reading, actually all except three have reliably arrived on the same day that I submitted my reading (I’m pretty obsessive about submitting on the first day of each quarter).  In June 2021 EoN “inherited” me from NPower Microgeneration (I had originally been with nPower as my energy supplier in 2013) but looking back over 12 years of my statements I see that the FiT side of nPower had been just as good, from my very first submission to them for my then new solar panels all the way back in June 2013, always sending a statement within a few days of my submitting a reading, very often on the same day actually, and payment following within a week or so of that. I parted company with nPower as my energy supplier after a year or so, but the FiT side of things was faultless.

It’s good to see that British Gas seem just as efficient on the FiT side of things.
 

The key to the marked difference between OVO and nPower as then was, EoN Next and British Gas must be in the “automated” aspect, as ​@BPLightlog intimates, and as ​@Chris_OVO details.  Do other companies not prolong, then, most of the OVO steps that Chris outlines, those steps somehow being automated more efficiently than is the case with our own OVO? I was especially interested in Chris’s last point:

• We then release payments end of that third month ensuring the process is accurate and runs to schedule as expected. 

which all hints at a very “manual” intensive process over 2 to 3 months when at least three other companies have been able faultlessly to complete the operation in practically as many days, stretching back in my case 12 years, 50 payments give or take; it also continues to beg the question of how long allocated FiT funds are sitting around somewhere before being released? 1st September payments are usually of the order of a few hundred pounds, the most remunerative quarter for my relatively small array up here in the sunny (usually not so sunny!) NE of England.  80,000 times £200 or upwards of, say, well over £16 million is quite a lot of dosh to be sitting on for a month or three.  Obviously a lot less for each of the other three quarters, but I’m guessing getting on for around 30 or 40 million a year may be processed in this slow way by OVO on behalf of the government FiT scheme.
 

I’m very grateful for my FiT payments, they’ve made a huge difference in our small household of two retirees, and as a welcome “extra” bit of help to our income we’re not in a hurry for it, as long as it eventually comes it’s a welcome bonus, a return on the original solar panel outlay.  But over the last 12 years I think I would have begun to resent any lost interest earnings or other disadvantages due to slow payments by OVO or anybody else.  Particularly when you think that FiT payments are scheduled to last 20 years (25 for systems pre-2012) rising a little every year with inflation, that could well be potentially a £billion or more being processed by OVO alone, with a huge amount of potential interest payments being lost due to slow payments, or more precisely, being lost specifically by OVO customers it seems.

EDIT: oh, apologies, on re-reading Chris’s post, I see I’d missed the fact that the 80,000 readings include some SEG readings? I was thinking that we were talking about 80,000 quarterly FiT readings.  But I should imagine it will still be a substantial number, albeit involving less FiT money than I at first wrongly assumed…

Just an update on my September FiT payment, (from E.ON Next).

On Monday 1st September I received an email prompt at 14.06 PM requesting my September generation reading, covering the previous three months Jun, Jul and Aug.

Twenty minutes later I saw the email and sent my reading as a reply to the email in the usual way.

And within a few minutes, at 14.35 PM on Monday 1st, I received by email the up-to-date FiT statement.

3 days later, today Thursday 4th September, my wife noticed a flag “upcoming transaction” on our bank account referencing an upcoming credit for the amount specified on the FiT statement, and she assures me this flag generally indicates that a credit will take place the next working day. E.ON Next advise a possible delay of up to 10 days between statement date and payment date, but we’re pretty sure we’ve never waited that long.

So, five days from submitting a reading to actually receiving the credit in one’s bank seems to me a lot better than waiting approximately 3 months for OVO’s equivalent FiT payments?  Certainly a lot quicker, that is if I’ve got hold of the right end of the stick here in understanding the original query as posted by ​@MrsH and confirmed by ​@MR F H CORMIER, with kind further explanation by ​@Chris_OVO

It seems odd that the speed in payments between two FiT providers can be so wildly at variance?

Waiting for our payment after sending readings on 30th June.  It is now 4th September.

Hey ​@MAG1036, 

You should have received your summer payment by the end of August. If it hasn't made its way to you yet, don’t worry! Just reach out to the FIT team, and they’ll be happy to help you figure out what's going on.

You can call 0330 102 7421 Monday - Friday from 9am to 5pm or email via fits@ovoenergy.com.

We’d love to hear how it turns out!

Hey ​@waltyboy,

I’m glad that you’re happy with the frequency of your payments with E.ON.

We’ve always paid our FIT payments quarterly, and we’re really happy with this approach! It allows us to handle payments in larger batches, which makes things smoother for everyone. Some of my family members use this system too, and they love the slower pace. It helps them manage their finances better and makes it less tempting to spend the extra income too quickly.

In the end, it’s all about what works best for you. If you’d prefer to receive your payments faster, there are suppliers who offer that option. Overall, we’ve gotten great feedback from our members who enjoy receiving their payments quarterly, and we’re glad to hear it!

Hi ​@Chris_OVO,  thank you so much for your kind reply, although I’m not sure I fully understand your logic here.  I assume we are talking about quarterly FiT payments and NOT payments such as SEG?
 

I, too get my FiT paid quarterly, as I believe everyone does on the FiT scheme, and I like being paid quarterly, that’s not at all what I was curious about. The frequency of my payments is exactly the same as the frequency of OVO’s payments.  Once a quarter.  I don’t get mine at any faster rate, it’s not possible to get it at a faster rate, and I wouldn’t see the point of getting paid at a faster rate.  What I’m curious about is why, apparently, OVO FiT customers’ quarterly payments always have to be one quarter behind FiT customers who are with other providers.   I’ve now, today the 5th September, got in my bank my Jun, Jul and Aug FiT payment (i.e. the September reading payment), whereas OVO will continue to sit on their FiT customers’ payments for Jun Jul and Aug until November/December time, months away, as I understand things.

Being pleased to get my quarterly FiT payment within 5 days rather than a “slower paced” 3 months does not necessarily make me any more profligate than the next man.  Far from it, actually, because, on a low pensioners’ income, early receipt helps my wife and me plan our quarterly budget.  Our more rapid FiT payments still only happen quarterly, it’s just an “earlier” quarter than the OVO quarter!

OVO’s delay of FiT payments by 3 months might appear to help some of your family members “manage their finances better and makes it less tempting to spend the extra income too quickly”, but actually all that’s happening there is that they still receive a quarterly payment as I do, it’s just their quarterly payment is lagging by one quarter behind mine.  Logically, they can still splash that payment within a few minutes of getting it every quarter, just as my wife and I can with ours, or be more circumspect, whatever they wish.  The fact that it’s always one quarter behind mine has no bearing on how people manage those payments: your relatives you refer to always have one payment to come in the future and to plan for, as do I, it’s just their payment will always be one quarter older than mine.  As I understand things, anyway: the only difference is that it’s a different quarter.

I would have thought most OVO folk on the FiT scheme would prefer not to have to change from OVO to another company to have their FiT payments handled efficiently;  I feel very loyal to OVO as an energy supplier (as I mentioned earlier, I didn’t actually overtly choose E.on as my FiT provider, I was just lucky I guess they chose me when nPower withdrew as FiT providers), but if I were on the OVO FiT payment scheme I think I’d prefer to be trusted to manage my own money for myself rather than have OVO sitting on each of my payments for three months out of consideration for an assumed inability on my part to manage my personal finances, year after year, and to have it suggested that if I didn’t like it I should just try someone else.  Were I in that position I would be even more curious to know how much OVO’s bank accounts would be benefitting from all the lost interest and lost purchasing power over a few decades at the expense of hapless FiT customers.  
 

Fortunately for most people, as the wonderful FiT scheme pays regularly quarter after quarter, it’s no hugely big deal whether quarterly payments come promptly as with E.on or come three months late as with OVO. But ultimately it’s government money, not OVO’s, and it’s a lot of money to have sitting around somewhere, possibly garnering a considerable amount of interest, rather than being passed promptly and efficiently on to the customer so that individual householders rather than OVO can benefit, as surely is the aim of the FiT scheme anyway.
 

Update: 6.9.25   A rather strange reply to my informing Ovo I was awaiting payment.  “Thanks for getting in touch We’re on the case.  Dont chase”.  We may need more information.  Not sure what more information they may need.  We installed our panels 13 and a half years ago.  The two year confirmation of the panels runs out in November so it is not that.   Waiting with baited breath for the actual reply which apparently will come two days after my email.  We’ve just booked a holiday and require the funds.

​@MAG1036 please keep us updated. If you don’t hear anything back then I’d recommend reaching out to the team: Email fits@ovoenergy.com or call 0330 102 7421.

Update:  We phoned the FIT telephone number and apparently our records were not updated for payment.  This was logged as a complaint today as finally the acknowledgement of our FIT reading on 30th June was found.   We will be paid in the next 10 days or so.  Basically, if we hadn’t phoned, we would not have received payment.   I’ll let you know when payment is received.

Good morning ​@MAG1036 and thanks for letting us know.

I’m sorry to hear what’s happened here, either by human or computer error. I’m glad the team could diagnose the issue and are resolving it for you. Fingers crossed the money comes through soon and you won’t have any issues going forward.

Had a lovely chat with Bruce who confirmed the conversation in an email that we would receive payment in 10 days.  Only to have a statement generated by Ovo saying the amount and we would receive it in four weeks.  We are hoping this was automatically generated by the payment and not overriding the conversation with Bruce.  As I have said, we had panels fitted thirteen and a half years ago so not sure what has happened with our details.

It’s a bizarre case for sure ​@MAG1036. I would imagine that the communications you were sent were automated, however you could get in touch with Bruce again if you wanted to double check.

I’m glad to hear that you had good service from Bruce, and I hope this is all cleared up asap for you. Apologies again for how messy it’s been!

Just to let everyone know.  Ovo has paid the Fit for the reading sent in on 30th June on 11th September after being chased.  We had our panels installed thirteen and a half years ago.  My husband recollects that there has been some confusion about our meter some time ago but had to be prodded to contact Ovo when I noticed we had not had the payment when expected.    We really shouldn’t have to chase payment and the automatic reply to our original contact email sent under my husband’s email was pretty insulting - saying we are on the case, don’t chase!  Thank you to the forum for giving me the telephone number.  And, of course, for Bruce to make sure payment was made.