Government seeks to protect smaller-scale solar electricity

The consultation follows the launch in February of a fast-track review into how the Feed-in Tariffs (FITs) work for solar photovoltaic (PV) over 50kW after evidence showing that there could already be 169MW of large-scale solar capacity in the planning system, which the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) believes is equivalent to funding solar panels on the roofs of around 50,000 homes if tariffs are left unchanged.

Such projects could potentially soak up the subsidy that would otherwise go to smaller renewable schemes or other technologies such as wind, hydro and anaerobic digestion.

Projections at the start of the scheme had shown that no large-scale solar under the FITs was expected until at least 2013.

The consultation also covers proposals to provide added support to farm-scale anaerobic digestion given the disappointing uptake of such technologies to date.

‘I want to make sure that we capture the benefits of fast-falling costs in solar technology to allow even more homes to benefit from feed-in tariffs, rather than see that money go in bumper profits to a small number of big investors,’ said Greg Barker, climate change minister. ‘These proposals aim to rebalance the scheme and put a stop to the threat of larger-scale solar soaking up the cash. The FITs scheme was never designed to be a profit generator for big business and financiers.’