Last week the Government lost its appeal against the Court ruling in December that its proposals to change the FiT tariff rates for solar PV were unlawful. The Government is now seeking leave to appeal to the Supreme Court. They have 28 days from the judgment on 25 January 2012 to apply. We don't know whether the Government will be granted leave to appeal nor how long it will take for them to find out.

The Government, therefore, cannot legislate to apply new tariffs from 1 April 2012 to installations that took place between 12 December 2011 and before 2 March 2012. Legislation to reduce the tariff for new installations will come into effect on 3 March 2012 and this means is that any installation that takes place between 3 and 31 March will receive 43.3p/kWh in respect of generation until 31 March 2012 and 21p in respect of generation after 1 April 2012.

So for any installation before 2 March 2012, consumers will get 43.3p/kWh for generation that takes place before 31 March 2012 and 21p for generation that takes place thereafter. It may well end up with a consumer who installs between these dates getting 43.3p/kWh for the whole 25 years but there really is no way of knowing at present.

Please keep an eye on the Department of Energy and Climate Change website for developments.

What is Solar Photovoltaic?

In 1838 the photoelectric effect was discovered by physicist Edmund Becquerel
although it wasn't until the 1950's that the technology was developed enough to produce efficient working cells.

During the 50's and 60's Solar PV was put on satellites and sent into orbit but it was still too expensive for general use.

The next few decades brought better technology with lower prices and Solar PV was installed in world-wide remote villages to provide electricity for where there was no supply.

Grid-connected Solar PV has had a massive growth since 1990's in the more developed countries of the world.

Now with the recently introduced, government backed feed-in tarifs, solar PV has never been so strong, so cheap and so efficient. The ever increasing usage of solar PV has also brought with it economy of scale and increasing funds for product advancement. For the homeowner, this all means that solar PV is now arguably the best renewable technology available in terms of it's ease of use, low maintenance and high financial returns.

Grid-connected Solar PV has had a massive growth since 1990's in the more developed countries of the world.

To learn more, please select an option below

Benefits

PV Calculator

Technical

Feed-in Tariff