 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
||||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|||||
- Home
- Education Executive
- ICT Matters
- About Us
- Editor's Blog
- Events
- For Advertisers
- News
- Product News
- Resources
- Useful Links
- Subscribe
Government loses appeal for feed in tariff cuts
Released 26/01/2012
The Government has lost its appeal against a decision by the high court to prevent cuts to feed in tariff payments from solar panels
The government has lost its appeal against a decision by the high court to prevent cuts to feed in tariff payments from solar panels
The proposal by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) to implement cuts to feed in tariffs to installations from December 2011 was said to be unlawful by Friends of the Earth and other supporting organisations, and subsequently ruled as unlawful by the High Court.
The DECC then took this ruling to the Court of Appeal, who upheld the ruling that the cuts, if back-dated to December, would be unlawful.
The result fuels further uncertainty in the industry, as it is unclear whether the Government’s contingency proposal, of applying the cuts from March 3 2012 will be passed or not.
According to the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), the intention of the cuts to solar panel tariff payments is to allow better utilisation of the feed in tariffs budget over a higher number of installations. Chris Huhne, Secretary of State for energy and climate change said in his written statement regarding the appeal: “The reason for appealing is that we want to maximise the number of installations that are possible within the available budget for FITs, rather than use available money to pay a higher tariff to half the number of installations. Solar PV can have strong and vibrant future in UK and we want a lasting FITs scheme to support that future and jobs in the industry.”
Details on the proposed modifications to the tariffs will be published by the DECC by February 9th.