Tree shaggers and vested interests get upset with FIT reduction

[Tim Watts]

"Solar subsidy cut challenge allowed"

[The Natural Philosopher]

I hope their lordships crap all over it.

[David WE Roberts]

Panic installations going on all over the place here, a lot of them not on South facing roofs.

I would like to see an audit of installations to confirm that they meet the guidelines and have been installed correctly.

A lot of 6 panel installs as well, which our calculations suggested did not give a good return on capital.

[John Stumbles]

The challenge was over cutting the scheme without adequate warning to businesses who'd invested in supplying the market created by it, and cancelling it before the consultation over cancelling it had been completed. Regardless of the merits[1] of the FIT scheme itself the govt's handling of its curtailment seems quite out of order and exactly the sort of abuse of power Judicial Review exists to rectify; a point which doesn't seem to have been lost on m'learned friends who despite a few prominent counter-examples are not generally a complete bunch of idiots.

[1] or otherwise: I'm not a fan of giving the relatively wealthy folks who can afford several grand's worth of PV clobber a subsidy paid for out of my leccy bills

[Old Codger]

Or even out of the leccy bills of those who have difficulty affording to heat their homes properly.

If the government really did consider it necessary to subsidise so called green electricity, and insulating homes, etc. then it should have done so out of taxation. At least then it would be obvious that it was taxation and would be paid for by the better off. However, this was a Gordon Brown initiative so, like his raid on pensions, he was trying to hide a tax. It was therefore a Labour government that taxed the poor to subsidise the rich.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Its more more less the same trick the Krauts played on their nuclear industry: Except that instead of removing a bit of subsidy they banned them and kept the taxes on them as well for what are left running - a tax that was agreed on coditiion their lifetime would be extended to

2023 or thereabouts.

remember the actual process of subsidy reduction was always on the cards and explicit: the only thing the government has done is to bring it forward faster and make it deeper than the industry expected.

The view from DECC is I think that it does the country as a whole no good at all, and PV FITS are simply taxing electricity to no net benefit except solar panel salesmen and harry.

Georeg Osborne is hungry for anything he can do to push benefit across the board to the nation that doesn't cost him anything, so ther you go.

The consultation hadn't finished, but I am not sure the government would be legally bound to either wait for it or in fact abide by it. Governments have a habit of only hearing from consultations what they want to hear.

I am sorry that so many PV installing cowboys are out of a job, along with a very few honest but misguided ones who were stupid enough to believe PV was the 'coming thing' but I am afraid it is a prce we will have to pay to ensure the survival of the country at an overall higher standard of living and better emissions than it would have been with PV.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Yes. Green taxes by stealth and a job creation scheme: that's the way the whole green lobby spins renewables.