Solar installation has been a surprising success for the UK. The government has helped this growing industry through the payment of feed-in-tariffs (FITs), a subsidy allowing investors in small-scale renewables to sell units of the electricity produced to a supplier of their choice. Introduced in April 2010 by the previous Labour administration, the tariff was set at 43 pence per kWh.
The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) announced a cut in FITs for schemes to 13.6 pence per kWh from its current 21p per KWh as part of an urgent effort to keep the scheme’s budget under control (cut to e made on 1 July). The government argued that a cut was necessary to reflect the plummeting costs of technology with an average domestic. It was also prompted by a surge in households installing solar PV.
However, on the 16th of May, the energy minister Greg Barker said the proposed cut on 1 July would be delayed because weekly installations had remained low in April. Subsequently it was revealed that the government missed a 14 May deadline to implement changes to the regulation before parliament so they could come into force on 1 July.
A DECC spokesperson stated that it was a deliberate decision to miss the deadline resulting from industry lobbying. However, shadow energy secretary Caroline Flint stated that the government has already lost three court cases for their ‘illegal cuts’ and according to Flint it appears that the government has missed the legal deadline for the next round of cuts to solar power. The delays have caused much confusion.
