Industry News

Govt appealing to Supreme Court on FITs ruling

The Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) is appealing to the Supreme Court over changes to the feed-in tariff (FIT).

It comes after the Court of Appeal chose to uphold the High Court ruling that announcing plans to halve the tariff level before the end of a government consultation was unlawful.

Backing the decision to reduce the FIT rate, energy secretary Chris Huhne said: "We want to maximise the number of installations that are possible within the available budget rather than use available money to pay a higher tariff to half the number of installations.

"Solar PV [photovoltaics] can have strong and vibrant future in UK and we want a lasting FITs scheme to support that future and jobs in the industry."

DECC has put a 21p rate change before Parliament to come into effect from April for solar installations from March 3rd.

Commenting on the decision, executive director of Friends of the Earth, Andy Atkins, said the government must now safeguard the UK's solar industry by funding FITs through money from tax the industry generates and "abandon plans to tighten the screw on which homes qualify for solar payments".

Posted by Emily Thomas

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For more information please see: Ministerial statement