On the 7th February Chris Huhne announced there would be a review of the feed in tariffs for large (over 50kw) solar pv installations amid fears that these would use up the pot of money ear marked for FiT’s rather than domestic retro fit installations the scheme was designed for. To put it in perspective a domestic size installation would be between 2 and 4 kw and comprise of 10 to 20 solar pv modules, a 50 kw installation would comprise of over 200 pv modules.
From the 1st April small < 4kw installations attract a FiT of 43.3p / kw of electricity produced and installations between 10kw and 100kw would attract a FiT of 32.9p which makes it a very attractive investment. The review proposes to reduce the rate for 50kw – 150kw + to just 19p / kw. The cynic in me says that DECC announces a worst case scenario in the consultation document so that when they decide on a smaller cut say to 25p / kw everyone will be happy!
However what the review of the larger installations means is that the government are keen to ring fence the Feed in Tariffs to support the growth in the number of domestic installations.
