The UK’s Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) Secretary, Chris Huhne, says he will review the country’s feed-in tariff (FIT) system, designed to pay a premium cash rate for renewable energy fed back into the national electricity grid, despite the scheme having “proved highly successful at stimulating growth, driving innovation, creating jobs and cutting carbon.”
Although feed-in tariffs have only been in place in the UK since last year, resulting in 21,000 new solar energy installations, Mr Huhne says that the “threat” posed by large-scale solar farms to the scheme combined with a recent spending review made it necessary to cut £40 million – or 10 percent – from the FIT system.
“Since the Spending Review, I have become increasingly concerned about the prospect of large scale solar PV projects under FITs, which . . . could, if left unchecked, take a disproportionate amount of available funding or even break the cap on total funding,” the Secretary said in a statement.
The DECC announcement has drawn criticism from the UK’s solar energy industry body, The Solar Trade Association (STA). It says the review casts a shadow on the government’s commitment to renewable energy and adds further uncertainty to a growing industry. The STA says that in the ten months feed-in tariffs have been in place over 14,000 homes have installed solar energy systems.
Chairman of the Solar Trade Association, Howard Johns said, “This is really bad news for the solar industry in the UK. Last week Ministers welcomed the study showing that 17,000 jobs would be created by the industry in 2011. This week has seen them once again changing the goal posts and threatening investment and jobs in the sector.”
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