The UK government may delay a second round of cuts to its solar PV feed-in tariff subsidy scheme, UK energy secretary Ed Davey said in a House of Commons meeting Thursday morning.
The decision to delay the July 1 start date of the next tariff regime followed an industry backlash over its first round of cuts which halved the rate from 43 pence/kWh to 21 p/kWh for units up to 4 kW in size. However questions were raised over whether the delay was because the department missed a deadline to inform the UK parliament of the next cut.
UK energy secretary Ed Davey told the House of Commons meeting that the government was considering "tweaking the start date" of the next tariff cut but that it would "not be a massive change."
Davey denied claims that the government's delay in implementing the tariff cut was a result of incompetence over missing the due notice deadline.
It echoed a statement given by UK climate change minister Greg Barker Wednesday evening via Twitter.
"Having listened carefully to industry we are looking at scope for pushing back a little the proposed reduction in the solar tariff," Barker said.
The FITs scheme aims to subsidize investment in small scale renewables, but was strongly criticized as tariff rates were prematurely cut late last year following an "overwhelming" uptake amid falling technology costs.
This resulted in a prolonged legal dispute against DECC and increasing industry uncertainty which critics argued would stifle the UK's solar industry.
But Davey denied assertions made within the meeting that the previous "chaotic" cut to solar tariffs threatens to leave the UK's solar industry "strangled at birth".
Around 6,000 people within the solar industry were made redundant since last summer, while the number of solar PV installations in the UK during the month of April plummeted to 2,380 solar PV panels, compared with around 39,900 in March prior to the cut.
Davey conceded that "there was a downturn in installation" following the cut but added that installations are "already increasing" and over the 10 weeks since the tariff came into effect has returned to the rate of installation seen in August last year.
"The solar industry is back in business," Davey said.
