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Government Loses FiT Appeal

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The UK government has lost its appeal to retrospectively change solar subsidies


The Supreme Court in the United
Kingdom has today rejected an appeal by the Government meaning the courts have
decided the government acted illegally in trying to impose tariff cuts before
the review. The panel of Supreme Justices have denied the government the chance
to appeal against the decision.


 

In a boost for the industry the
ruling means PV installations registered after the December 12th deadline and
before March 3rd will be entitled to the full subsidy of 43.3p kw/h rate.


 

The decision also means that
governments cannot retrospectively change cuts to such schemes. The result is
not just important to the solar industry but to any industry facing such
uncertainty created by such governmental attempts to increase income or decrease
spending.


 

The original legal challenge was made
by Solarcentury, Friends of the Earth and HomeSun, and the High Court ruled on
21 December that a Government proposal to cut payments for any solar scheme
completed after 12 December 2011 "“ 11 days before an official consultation into
the proposal had even closed "“ was unlawful.


 

Jeremy Leggett, Chairman,
Solarcentury said, "The Supreme Court has today confirmed that the
Government simply has no grounds to appeal the decision that its handling of
solar Feed-in tariffs was illegal. This final step in the legal process has
wasted much needed time and money and now we, the renewables industry, simply
want to get on with creating our clean energy future. Renewables can only play
the pivotal role necessary to deliver a new green economy if we have a stable
market and investor confidence backed by lawful, predictable and carefully
considered policy."


"I hope the Government
is now clear that it will be held to account if it tries to act illegally and
push through unlawful policy changes. We would much prefer not to have taken
this path but Ministers gave us no choice. Our hope now is that we can work
together again to restore the thriving jobs-rich solar sector that has been so
badly undermined by Government actions."


 

Earlier this year, the Court of
Appeal refused the Government's appeal against the High Court ruling that
premature cuts to FITs for solar PV were illegal. In a unanimous decision the
three judges confirmed that the Government's attempt to cut solar Feed-in
tariffs from 12 December was unlawful.


 

The UK's solar capacity hit 1GW
earlier this year, with the Government's target set at 20GW by 2020. Before the
Feed-in tariff scheme there was just 26MW of solar in the UK. By comparison,
Germany has 25GW of solar and installed 7.5GW alone in 2011 driven by the
country's long-running feed-in tariff.


 

Responding to today's Supreme Court
decision Friends of the Earth's Executive Director Andy Atkins said, "This
is the third court that's ruled that botched Government solar plans are illegal
- a landmark decision which will prevent Ministers causing industry chaos with
similar subsidy cuts in future."


 

"The Coalition must now get on
with the urgent task of restoring confidence in UK solar power. The Government
recently pledged a huge increase in solar by the end of the decade; it must now
spell out how it is going to achieve this. Investing in clean British energy
will create thousands of new jobs and help reduce our reliance on expensive
fossil fuel imports."


 



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