The verdict is finally in, today the government announced the fate of the Feed in Tariff (FiT) for domestic solar after a long consultation and severe backlash from the solar industry.
Homeowners installing solar panels up to 10kW in size, can now expect to make 4.39p /kwh under the revised tariff, compared with 12.47p previously.
The argument for slashing the tariff is that the scheme has been so successful it is due to exceed predicted profits and therefore has become an unnecessary cost to the bill payer who supports the tariff through subsidies added to energy bills, however the solar industry warn that this could severely damage the UK’s renewables industry, causing thousands of job losses and putting more reliance on non-renewables at a time when most nations are doing the opposite.
It was also announced that any new applications to the FiT scheme would be paused between 15 January and the 8th February, in order to allow time to implement cost control measures.
During the consultation process, which ran from 27 August until 23 October, there were many signs that the FiT would be cut even more substantially, at one stage by up to 87%, so this is a better result than first anticipated.
However, this will come as little consolation for the firms which have already folded and those whose jobs are placed in jeopardy by the unexpected removal of support for the industry.
Learn more about the Feed-in Tariff cut
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