Because of the time delay in registering some installations, the FITs register understates the total capacity installed under the Feed-In Tariffs
It is clear from the reports that some systems are registered some months after they are installed and commissioned. See our original press release.
Commissioning, applications and registrations
In addition to the monthly registration data, Ofgem periodically publishes a list of all installations. This shows the date each installation was commissioned and the date it applied for registration. Confusingly it doesn’t show the date it was actually registered so it is hard to match to Ofgem’s registration report, on which the rest of the data in this section is based.
This graph shows the profile of FITs installations, applications for accreditation and registrations.
The estimated installed volume is shown alongside the monthly registration data. The timing differences are shown by the lines on the graph against the scale on the right.
Analysis of the installations list suggests that, analysed by capacity, the average time between commissioning and applying for registration is about 0.3 months. Comparing this list with registrations suggests that it then takes an average of 2.8 months for a system to be registered. This has been as high as nearly 5 months.