Feed-in Tariff Consultation Outcome & Changes to the Renewables Obligation

[ALEO Admin]

DECC have now published their response to their consultation on a review of the Feed-in Tariff scheme.

The new Feed-in Tariff rate will be 4.39p per kWh for new solar PV installations less than 10kW. For medium-sized installations (10-50kW) the rate will be 4.59p per kWh. This is still a large reduction from the 12.47 pence per kWh that new sub-4kW installations received prior to the review; however, DECC's original proposal had been to cut the feed-in Tariff rate for sub-10kW installation to 1.63 pence per KWh.

On Feed-in Tariffs, Government has also announced:

• Deployment caps will be set, to limit new spending on the scheme to £100 million up to the end of 2018/19
• The reintroduction of pre-accreditation for solar PV and wind generators over 50 kW and all hydro and anaerobic digestion generators
• Measures to pause new applications to the FIT scheme from 15 January to 8 February, to allow time for the implementation of cost control measures

The Government has also decided to keep inflation calculations linked to the Retail Price Index rather than moving to the Consumer Price Index, as had been proposed.

The table below shows the new tariff rates, compared to the proposed rates and the original rates before the review (as given in the original consultation document).

tariffs.png (126.37 KiB) Viewed 3267 times

As stated in the original consultation document, Government does not plan to introduce sustainability criteria for anaerobic digestion (AD) immediately. However, Government remains committed to investigating the option of doing so. Therefore, DECC plans to set out further details as part of the AD tariff consultation, intended for launch in early 2016.

Renewable Obligation
For the Renewable Obligation (RO) scheme for solar PV with a capacity at 5MW and below, Government has announced it will:

• Close the RO across Great Britain to new solar PV capacity at 5MW and below from 1 April 2016
• Introduce grace period arrangements to protect developers who made a significant financial commitment on or before 22 July 2015 and developers who experience grid delay beyond their control
• Provide clarification of the planning evidence for the significant financial commitment grace period to exclude incomplete or invalid applications
• Remove ‘grandfathering’ (a fixed rate of support from the date of accreditation) from 22 July 2015 for solar projects in England and Wales with an exception for those which meet the significant financial commitment criteria as of 22 July 2015
• Hold a solar-specific banding review in England and Wales and consult on new bands for 2016/17
• Consult on an exception designed to provide projects with protection against the proposed reduction in support where they qualify for the grandfathering exception.

For more information, visit:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/chan ... -subsidies
and https://www.gov.uk/government/consultat ... iff-scheme