Recently Chris Huhne announced a review into the Feed in Tariffs. The FiT’s were set up to encourage homeowners to generate their own electricity but there are fears the scheme has been hijacked by large scale commercial installations.
A typical size for a domestic installation is between 2 kw and 4 kw, the review is mainly focusing on installation over 50 kw in size (this would be approximately over 200 pv panels per install). The review is to give certainty of the FiT’s to the domestic market and to make the larger commercial installs less attractive to investors. By investing in solar pv returns of over 10% are achievable which is why investors have been setting up large solar farms which the scheme was not intended leaving less funds available for the domestic and smaller commercial installations.
The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) review of the feed-in tariff (FIT) scheme will ensure it is able to channel funding to homes, communities and small businesses.
Energy secretary Chris Huhne commissioned the research after concerns were raised that large solar farms could use the initiative to access money which is intended to encourage smaller operators to generate their own electricity.
The review will examine how the development of industrial-scale solar farms that generate more than 50kW of electricity and farm-scale anaerobic digestion plants affect the FIT scheme.
Mr Huhne commented: “The renewables industry is a vital piece in the green growth jigsaw and this review will provide long-term certainty while making sure homes, communities and small firms are encouraged to produce their own green electricity.”
