Government Plans To Appeal Latest Loss
The on going saga of the UK FiT scheme continues with the
incumbent government losing its appeal against a court ruling that they had
acted unlawfully by deciding a cut off date for the subsidy change that was two
weeks ahead of the consultation process supposedly to allow industry input on a
decision that was already made.
Those expecting today's
events to be the end of the uncertainty for the market will not be pleased to
know that the government has already announced its intention of taking the
fight to the supreme court further delaying any firm announcements for the future
of the FiT scheme and what date can now be expected to be the point that
tariffs will change. There is no announcement on the governments plan to honour
last weeks announcement that they would move the cut off date from December 12th
to March 3rd if they lost the appeal. The desire to possibly
continue to the Supreme Court will only further delay announcements and
continue the confusion for companies and investors who had made plans based on the
governments initial promises for the subsidy trade.
The problems have stemmed from the simple fact that there was not
enough money ear marked for the project with take up far exceeding any of the
government's or industry predictions of how far the market would grow. With
austerity measures being the new mantra for the government the pressure is on
for every department to find cuts. In this case the courts have decided the
process was unlawful and the government needs to begin to develop a plan that
ensures the entire process does not collapse. With such large uptake in the last
year there is little chance the industry will collapse but the shape and future
growth is dependant on the outcome of these court cases.
