MSE news: Government solar panel plans legally flawed

HalloweenJack

i read it wrong then - this court ruling is badly flawed (but so is domestic solar as well - 100mw fields in cornwall is better than 500000 houses with a dozen panels on the roof)

Cardew

The irony is the even the(stupid) Friends of the Earth agree that the subsidy - that we pay - is too high. The Government have taken exactly the right action, but the way they have implimented that action is illegal - an appeal has still to be heard.

grahamc2003

Tbc, the ruling isn't about cutting the fit rate - almost everyone agrees it's got to be cut - but the timing of it.

I personally don't see a direct link between the date the consultation ends and the date of a fit cut. It's not as if the government will do what the consultation signifies anyhow. I thought the timing was fair - those who had signed up had sufficient time to get the higher fit rate, those who hadn't, or who signed up after the annoucement, would find it hard to meet the deadlines. Fair enough to me, although not to the court.

Anyhow, the government have appealed the decision, so I expect the 12/12 will stand (and I think it fair if it does).

I think this whole affair is an indication that most people really don't have deep environmental values (assuming they believe a link between co2 emissions and the death of the planet), and only really want to 'save the planet' if they get a couple of grand a year to do so.

jimjames

Cardew wrote: »

My reading of post #9 was that the £15k in Scotland and £16k in Cornwall would be the theoretical cost to ensure a 5% return.

If you get the systems cheaper then the return is higher!

Ours in Nov (SE England) cost £9k for just over 3kWp, 4kWp would have been about £1500 more but we couldnt fit on roof. Even at the new FIT rates it is still a reasonable return especially if the install costs drop even further.

undaunted

Only an idiot would believe that you can make a decision mid a supposed consulation period (and to then expect to get it past a Court on top?) Perhaps the lunatics really are running the asylum!

grahamc2003

undaunted wrote: »

Only an idiot would believe that you can make a decision mid a supposed consulation period (and to then expect to get it past a Court on top?) Perhaps the lunatics really are running the asylum!

Really? Well I expect only an idiot would post the post above with the benefit of hindsight - or perhaps you posted in advance of the court decision that they would be bound to find the process illegal? Care to post in advance of the appeal how it will be judged? (My view is that, as in any court case, it could go either way, but I expect it will overrule the original judgement).

Anyhow, I, one of your idiots, obviously, still don't see a connection between a consultation period and the timely withdrawal of an obviously unfair distribution of a subsidy when time is of the essence - perhaps you'll be good enough to explain the link.

WestonDave

This might end up being one of those cases where the legal outcome is somewhat pyhrric. If as a result of this hearing and a possible failed appeal the Government relents and changes the date to one in say mid January, it will still end up having largely acheived the aims it set out to do. There will be a few people who had instalations that just missed the deadline who will then qualify but beyond that the scheme will have effectively been shut down from the 12th December. Its going to be almost impossible for the installers to claim lost business because based on their pre announcement monthly instal rate they look like having managed to get far more jobs anyway because of the panic caused by the announcement than if the scheme had quietly fizzled out at a later date. Quantifying a loss to make a claim would be almost impossible.

grahamc2003

Samson_brings_props_down wrote: »

Will there be other incentives in the future? The way the energy crisis is going surely there will be?

Incentives don't often solve crises, they frequently cause them.

As in this case.

Butti

The problem with changing the rules in the middle of a consultation is it's not legal. We can all debate the level the tariffs should be at and the companies agreed that they should be negotiated down. By unilaterally cutting them though the government has bankrupted a number of companies and destroyed the trust of any investors thinking of supporting green companies.

magyar

grahamc2003 wrote: »

Anyhow, I, one of your idiots, obviously, still don't see a connection between a consultation period and the timely withdrawal of an obviously unfair distribution of a subsidy when time is of the essence - perhaps you'll be good enough to explain the link.

I think you're right in that it's not technically the consultation period itself which is the issue (although one does have to wonder why they wasted a lot of money on a consultation they are clearly ignoring).

The issue will be around whether or not solar companies and private individuals had suffered a loss as a result of the decision, i.e. if they'd make investments on the strength of existing government policy - i.e. that the time taken to remove the subsidy was too short.

I agree with you that the subsidy was too high - it clearly was - and from a purely commercial perspective the government was right to act quickly. But if that was too quick for companies to respond adequately then they probably do have a claim against the government.