Government defeat good news for solar industry

UK: The Supreme Court has rightly delivered the final blow to the Government’s attempt to appeal over its plans to cut subsidies for solar panels on homes, according to a leading renewable energy company.

David Hunt, a director with Eco Environments which has offices across the UK, said: “The Supreme Court has reached the right decision today, but the greatest shame is that the Government refused to back down weeks ago. By blindly pursuing their appeal bid all the way to the highest court they have caused untold damage to the solar industry and left their much trumpeted green credentials in tatters.

“The Government now needs to heed the lessons of today and understand that they need to abide by due process of law like the rest of the population.

“Memories are short but legal precedent long-lived. We must never find ourselves in the situation we have been in with the feed-in-tariff chaos. The solar industry is one of the most exciting and dynamic sectors in the UK economy, creating many thousands of jobs when many sectors are looking to make cutbacks. The Government now has a moral obligation to restore certainty to our industry and start to rebuild its own reputation with businesses and consumers.”

Earlier today, the Supreme Court refused the Government permission to appeal, announcing that the application “does not raise an arguable point of law of general public importance which ought to be considered”.

The ruling means that solar PV installations registered after December 12 last year and before March 3 this year now qualify for the 43.3p kw/h subsidy rather than the 21p rate the Government tried to enforce.