Part ownership of a Ripple Wind Turbine, fancy it?

[Joeboy]

Ripple website offline this morning?
Maybe it's not liked the change of year or the full year tally has catered the server?
14.9mph at WT site today so should be

Happy New Year lads. All the best in 2023!

I am getting

Application error: a client-side exception has occurred (see the browser console for more information).

but I was guessing that meant that my Firefox is fighting Google, which seem to have taken over managing my logins since I reset the laptop.
Happy new year to all from me too.
A

I am getting the same message on chrome or Samsung. If you're fast you can click onto your account. That's all still there but not the stuff we want!

[Fintray]

Back online when I just tried it.

[nowty]

As SWMBO is down the shopping centre, I have now read the updated technical note regarding the Electricity Generator Levy (EGL).

The alleged reasoning for the halving of the 100 GWh limit is because the £10 million allowance may not be large enough to prevent a 100GWh nominal generating asset busting the allowance limit in an exceptional year with the risk that generators simply shut down operations in Nov or Dec. It’s exceptionally unlikely that a 50GWh asset will bust the £10 million allowance unless energy prices go even more nuts.

There is a bit of good news in that the £75 per MWh price will now be indexed with CPI over the 4 years of this time limited legislation.

The bad news is that if your triggered above the 50 GWh limit it appears to me that ALL your excess revenue is targeted minus the £10 million allowance.

So for example my back of fag packet calculation for WT2 if on same prospective 27p / kWh would incur approximately a 20% reduction in rebate. And remember that’s before any personal tax liability you might have. Disclaimer - I am in a beach bar and I’ve had a few. :wink:

Also you cannot frig the revenue received by use of derivatives as gains or losses on hedging will be taken into account.

Splitting up larger projects won’t work if they still form part of the same group.

There is nothing whatsoever to offer any exclusion to community / coop generators. This will not help Ripple at all unless they can get into offshore generation with CFD revenues.

I thought I would re-visit my analysis of the Electricity Generators Levy (EGL) on the basis that I'm no longer trying to read a PDF document on my phone half cut.

The updated technical note is here,
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... te__2_.pdf

WT1 (Graig Fatha) generates under 7GWh a year so is clearly exempt given the 50GWh limit.

WT2 (Kirk Hill) is set to generate ( based on the P50 figures) 60.266 GWh per year so unless it has a really bad year its going to be over the 50 GWh limit so its going to be a generator covered by the EGL.

So lets use next years WT1 rebate figure which is 27p / kWh but need to add a few pence for the operating costs, so lets use 30p / kWh or £300 / MWh.

Exceptional generation receipts = Generation receipts – (Electricity generation x Benchmark price) – Allowable costs – Allowance

Receipt Price = £300 / MWh
Benchmark price = £75 / MWh
Electricity generation = 60,266 MWh
Allowable costs look to me as non applicable for wind farms as its about things such as fuel or landfill costs.
Allowance = £10M

So I calculate,
Exceptional generation receipts = (60,266 x £300) - (60,266 x £75) - £10M

Exceptional generation receipts = £3.56M

The Levy is 45% of exceptional generation receipts = 0.45 x £3.56M = £1.6M

So I make that just under a 10% reduction in rebate so less that half the issue I thought it might be assuming prices don't go even more nuts. Indexing of the benchmark price will also erode the levy unless the energy prices increase faster than CPI inflation.

Also I calculate that if the rebate price drops to below around 21p / kWh (24p with operating expenses) then no levy will payable. The levy also ceases April 2028.

[Yuff]

Morning Nowty

I am interested in this but the ripple site is in Welsh for the latest Turbine.
In practice how does it work, do they give a rebate via my energy provider, which is Octopus?
Anything that reduces my use of the peak rate I am very interested in!

[Mr Gus]

https://rippleenergy.com/

Did you land on the welsh language site perchance?
No problem here, bottom of page does link to welsh translation though.

[Mr Gus]

Morning Nowty

I am interested in this but the ripple site is in Welsh for the latest Turbine.
In practice how does it work, do they give a rebate via my energy provider, which is Octopus?
Anything that reduces my use of the peak rate I am very interested in!

Grab a hot drink & read the thread yuff, there is a lot of salient info in there, the ripple site also covers this, but elsewhere folk who rushed in without research are going to shout a bit due to their own beliefs as to how much discount per kWh produced / ripple watts bought is concerned.
But yes, discount applied straight through Octopus, based on monthly w/t performance & some other companies, others pending sign up.


"Do I get free electricity?
No, the electricity from your wind farm isn't free. You need to pay the wind farm's operating costs, as well as grid charges, levies, taxes and supply costs associated with your tariff. We estimate the electricity from your wind farm will be around 23% cheaper than your regular tariff"

[nowty]

Morning Nowty

I am interested in this but the ripple site is in Welsh for the latest Turbine.
In practice how does it work, do they give a rebate via my energy provider, which is Octopus?
Anything that reduces my use of the peak rate I am very interested in!

Grab a hot drink & read the thread yuff, there is a lot of salient info in there, the ripple site also covers this, but elsewhere folk who rushed in without research are going to shout a bit due to their own beliefs as to how much discount per kWh produced / ripple watts bought is concerned.
But yes, discount applied straight through Octopus, based on monthly w/t performance & some other companies, others pending sign up.


"Do I get free electricity?
No, the electricity from your wind farm isn't free. You need to pay the wind farm's operating costs, as well as grid charges, levies, taxes and supply costs associated with your tariff. We estimate the electricity from your wind farm will be around 23% cheaper than your regular tariff"

@Yuff, its a bit of a tall ask for you to read this whole thread, you'll probably need more than a hot drink.
You can read the Ripple Energy website blurb (obviously a bit biased), or there is a Ripple Energy Owners Group facebook group but to be honest that's full of rambling numpties and the Ripple community is not much better either.
If you want an honest independent view of folk who "generally" know what they are talking about, your better off here.
On this forum we have at least 9 members of WT1 (Graig Fatha) and 21 members of WT2 (Kirk Hill).

A quick overview can be had on the second posting of this thread (by me ), linked below and recopied below with some annotations highlighted in yellow as we now have some hindsight advantage.
https://camelot-forum.co.uk/phpBB3/view ... 8&t=20#p60


"I thought I would add some detail to Joeboy's post because it is a little complicated. I also make nothing from this in terms of others joining the scheme.

Yes, my secret list from the old forum had 7 members who had admitted being part of it, well actually only 5 others as Joeboy and I are included in the 7. I wont mention the forum by name but it starts with how you get from A to B, and ends with the name of on old 1982 Sci Fi film starring Jeff Bridges who got stuck in a video game. Dont worry this is an old joke about the old forum, too much history to say any more.

I have paid just over £5k to buy exactly a 3kW share of the 2.5MW turbine so I will own 1/833 of it. Its forecasted to generate me 8017 kWh's a year. It might come in a little under that in the first year but not much and we have had some strange weather this year with more high pressure systems than usual. And there have been a few bedding in outages which is to be expected.

Some months ago it was unclear if the actual turbine would happen. It had planning permission but circa £4m was required to build it. Ripple was having difficulty persuading enough energy customers to buy in, but now it’s happening as the Welsh Government has intervened and is taking an equity stake and the Welsh Development Bank is providing a variable sized loan to fund the rest if required. If more people are persuaded to join, then the loan might not even be required. The turbine is a 2.5MW Vensys has been ordered for November delivery to the UK and operational circa December 2021. Estimated life 20 to 30 years.Well after all the naysayers it was fully built by Dec 21 but could not be switched on till mid March due to Covid / DNO delays, etc.

https://www.vensys.de/en/wind-turbines/ ... ensys-121/

https://developmentbank.wales/news-and- ... -following

Basically you can invest almost anything from a mere £25 to the amount that it would cost to generate up to 120% of your normal import of leccy. I think this is for tax reasons, because there is unlikely to be any tax to pay on the returns because you are paid via a monthly rebate on your energy bill directly proportional to the actual performance of the wind turbine. But from what I gather no evidence seems to be requested if you buy up to 6999kWh’s worth which is about £4,536.The 120% seems to be for two reasons, the first is that there needs to be a true trading relationship to get the Coop status so there is no corporation tax to pay. The second is that Ripple attempted to bring this in line with the Microgeneration status and therefore be tax free to domestic investors, not a hope in hell in my opinion. Personal taxation is via the standard Coop rules and the dividends (or rebates) are classed as "interest" which is helpful in most cases because of the separate tax allowances.

Ripple is just a facilitator so if Ripple Energy goes bust it wont really matter. The turbine is being built by CleanEarthEnergy and will be owned by a Co-operative company which everyone who joins will be a shareholder in. And although you will own a pro rata amount of the wind turbine its a single vote for each person so no matter how little you buy you still have the same say of what happens.Not sure if CleanEarthEnergy ended up building it as they took it off their portfolio website, but no matter as it got built.

https://cleanearthenergy.com/tenacity-p ... plication/

So the way it works is,

Octopus Energy buys the leccy for the cost price of the generation through a Power Purchase Agreement. The difference between the wholesale price and the cost price is given back to you as a rebate on your energy bill a month in arrears. Currently the rebate is estimated at 4.5p per kWh. And as I am only paying an average of 5.6p per kWh on my entire import which is basically charging my battery bank on the Octopus GO tariff in winter, my bill will be very very low.This is the rub, we ended up with 9.6p per kWh when it went live and that is increasing to 27p / kWh in March 2023.

However, its not for everyone, there are some Pros and Cons with this.

PROS
Nothing has been done anywhere in the world like this, yes there are some community windfarms, but you just get paid a dividend. In this, you own the windfarm and you are supplied via your Energy Supplier who buys the leccy direct from the Co-op company. So be part of something new and innovative.I since found that at least one solar park in Dorset already had an option for either a dividend payment or a bill reabte with Octopus so it was not a first although it might be a first for a wind farm.

You can be on any tariff with Octopus, so even Agile or Go is OK.There initially was going to be a restriction with a Octopus Tesla tariff but that got ditched so any tariffs are fair game. Also there are some other supplier partners coming onstream as well as Octopus.

You don’t have to match your usage with the wind turbine so for me its fantastic, as I import practically nothing in the Summer and tons in winter for my heatpump, home battery and EV charging.That works very well and you don't even need to use it or lose it, you simply build up credit which can be removed for real cash in your bank account.

A solar panel on your roof will generate the same as a solar panel at a solar farm and mostly in Summer. A small wind turbine on a domestic house will generate practically nothing, but a small share of a big one in a windy place will generate tons and mostly in the Winter. So its a nice balance.Still is.

Probably no tax to pay on the bill rebates. Its classed as interest but we all (depending on out tax rates) have an allowance in addition to our personal income tax allowances. Also there is an accounting quirk where for the first 20 years part of the rebate is classed as a repayment of your capital, therefore that part is not taxable. And since domestic solar FIT income is tax free, its possible the taxman will allow this as being tax free too.As I said earlier very little chance of being tax free and the missive increase in rebates will push many into paying extra income tax through self assessment. Also there now is the spectre of the Generating Energy Levy which WT2 looks like being hit with and probably project 3 as Ripple needs larger and larger projects to be become profitable themselves.

If by some quirk you end up in big credit, say you go traveling and not use any leccy, then you can request a transfer out to your bank account in the same way if you overpay your leccy or gas supplier.Still true.

The estimate of generation has been based on a pessimistic basis, so it may generate more than forecasted.From what we have seen its not far off the forecast for WT1. Our own monitoring of the WT2 site suggests that the WT2 forecast might be better than predicted.

If you move house, it moves with you and if you die, you can pre nominate someone else to own it. I think they are allowing a similar transfer if you end up in a long term care home.As its turned out to be significantly more profitable than expected, there are more folk wanting more so there is no issue if you want out for a reasonable reason.

If leccy prices rise in the future, the returns will be higher.Yep

The life of the turbine might be longer than forecasted, so again the total return may be higher.I note more commercial investments are now forecasting their basecase asset life at 30 years.

You can buy or sell some or all of your watts for the residual value to other members of the scheme.It has already been done in some cases even before the min holding period.

CONS
Its not built yet, so there could be a delay, or there could be a construction disaster.It was built with a small connection delay but cannot say WT2 or project 3 wont go south.

The construction may cost more that forecasted, so more cash may be requested or you may lose some of your share.Didn't happen for WT1 but cannot say that for WT2 or the forthcoming project 3 yet. You pays your money and takes ya chances.

Ripple may go bust which may make the future power purchase agreements more complicated.Ripple recently raised £2M easily so should have enough cash for another couple of years. Even if it did there are no shortage of takers for energy from the Coop.

The forecasted generation may be too optimistic and generates less, so less rebate.Looks not far out so far.

The future cost of leccy may fall, therefore the returns would be less.They may well fall long term but then so does your bills.

The turbine could have a major breakdown and be out of service for some time.So far only minor outages have been experienced.

The life of the turbine could be less than forecasted.Possible but more chance on the upside.

Your stuck with Octopus Energy for at least 1 year after it goes operational and maybe forever if no other Energy company wants to participate in the scheme.At least one other company has joined.

You can get a similar and less risky tax free return in you invest in an existing windfarm investment company and keep the investment in an ISA.Thats still true and I have a lot more in such investments.

The buying and selling of some or all of your share may not be as simple as it sounds, for example, if it turns out to be a good investment, there will be more buyers than sellers and vice versa.Looks like more buyers than sellers at the moment."

[Joeboy]

Potential to be a 93%+ capacity day. Outstanding performance.

Gon the Turbine!

16.00 hrs, damn jinxed it.

[nowty]

Potential to be a 93%+ capacity day. Outstanding performance.

Gon the Turbine!

16.00 hrs, damn jinxed it.

Still looking good.

Is it a PB day ?, must be close if it keeps going near full tilt till midnight.

EDIT - I'm still waiting on the official numbers for Dec so I can update my capacity factor graph.

[Joeboy]

Potential to be a 93%+ capacity day. Outstanding performance.

Gon the Turbine!

16.00 hrs, damn jinxed it.

Still looking good.

Is it a PB day ?, must be close if it keeps going near full tilt till midnight.

EDIT - I'm still waiting on the official numbers for Dec so I can update my capacity factor graph.

If memory serves, and it is purely on memory. We had one for me 60kWh day since switch on. Could be wrong there as I only keep the in play month figures in daily detail so im relying on failing grey matter.
Edit- could easy have been a 50kWh day previous pb and I'm just overexcited.