26/1/12 - The Government has turned itself inside out to sabotage the solar industry again but launching yet another appeal following yesterday's (Wednesday, 25 January) result when the High Court threw out the Government Appeal which ruled against the fast track cuts, effetively reinstating the original tariffs until 3rd March 2012. 

To avoid confusion, all calculations on your solar panel investment must be based on the revised Government Tariffs.   See our FIT page for details of current tariff levels. If the Government loses this next review then payments will be backdated for customers installing before 3rd March 2012.

The Government will appeal to the Supreme Court. It is felt this could be a further ploy to discourage uptake of solar panels and it is unclear why the Government will seek to draw this process out further. Subsequent appeals have less chance of success but serve as a useful governmental delaying tactic.

The Green Electrician says:
We feel it is correct that the Government action in cutting the feed-in tariff without proper consultation has been shown to be illegal. This fast track action damaged consumer confidence and solar businesses throughout the UK, and the Court announcement, we hoped, would stop them from acting with such careless disregard in the future, however this has proved not to be the case.

With the new appeal targeting the Supreme Court, customers must calculate their investments based on the revised tariffs (21p for domestic) as the new appeal could take months, which is the Government's clear delaying intention. We will not be altering our pricing so if the Government is once again ruled against, customers installing before 3 March will get 2011 tariffs (43.3p for domestic), this means exceptional returns will be available for the lucky few. However, the new tariffs will stabilise the industry and bring sensible returns of 10% which should still be considered an excellent investment going forward.

We still have no assurance of what will happen after the 1 April 2012, so our advice to customers is to install before then if possible to avoid the possibility of new tariff cuts and the government's proposed energy performance criteria which will make it harder for customers to install solar panels without expensive upgrades to their energy performance of their property.