U.K. guaranteed prices for electricity from renewable sources attracted 109 megawatts of generating capacity in the program's first year, figures from the energy regulator Ofgem show.
Most installations that registered to receive the feed-in tariffs from the plan's start on April 1, 2010, to today came from solar photovoltaic panels with almost 78 megawatts, statistics on Ofgem’s website show. That compares with 4 megawatts of solar for 2009, when the incentives didn't exist.
Introduction of the tariffs, guaranteeing as much as 12 times the market for power from the sun, led to a surge in installations as households put solar panels on their roofs. At the same time, developers rushed to plan ground-based solar farms, prompting the government in February to say it'll review the incentives for larger solar installations.
The government last month proposed cuts of as much as 72 percent in the incentives while companies including Osaka-based panelmaker Sharp Corp. and the U.K.'s clean electricity retailer Good Energy Group Plc (GEGP) and Low Carbon Solar Ltd. say the price review is killing off a nascent industry.
Almost 20 megawatts of small-scale wind power and 11 megawatts of hydropower have registered for the tariffs, according to Ofgem.
