The Supreme Court has branded the government’s actions towards Feed-in Tariffs (FiTs) as ‘unlawful’ and the appeal against the ruling has been thrown out of court. This has been heralded as a victory by the solar industry as they claim the government should not have cut the FITs before the consultation period had ended.
The appeal lodged by government was a follow up of High Court action by solar company Homesun which protested the decision to slash FITs by as much as 50% from 12th December 2011. The Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) who forwarded the appeal argued the cuts to the tariffs were necessary.
This final ruling enables solar panel installations to receive full payback from the tariffs if installed before the March 4th 2012 cut-off date. This final decision has been welcomed by many in the solar industry, however the turmoil surrounding this decision has damaged renewable industry confidence in the Government and the same significant cuts in the tariffs look set to be implemented from 1st April 2012.