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The department of energy and climate change has confirmed that it will lodge its appeal later today against a ruling that its proposed cuts to the subsidy regime for solar power were unlawful.
A spokesperson told Utility Week “We’re doing it today but it is not quite lodged yet with the Supreme Court.” She said the department would issue a statement later today.
The move is the latest installment in a messy saga that began when the department tabled proposals that aimed to cut the tariff for domestic installations in half. Friends of the Earth and solar companies took the department to court last year because Decc said it would implement the proposed tariff cuts before the end of its six week consultation. The High Court ruled in their favour that the move was unlawful. Decc than appealed and lost. Today’s move is the last chance the department has to overturn that ruling.
Solar Century was one of the firms that took the government to court. The company said it was disappointed by the department’s decision to go to the Supreme Court. However, chairman Jeremy Leggett said he was confident that it was just a delaying tactic by the department in a bid to protect what is left in the pot to pay the guaranteed subsidies. “Fortunately their arguments are weak,” said Leggett. “They are the same ones unanimously rejected by the Court of Appeal so I wouldn’t give them much chance of success.
“Sadly, this appeal has the whiff of farce about it. First they try to woo private capital into infrastructure; then they mismanage it; now they go to the Supreme Court to argue for sovereign default to cover their tracks. I just hope the new Secretary of State actually understands what his lawyers are doing.”
The Decc spokesperson later said the department “repectfully disagreed” with the Court of Appeal’s decision had now lodged the appeal in order “to see the available funding spread as far and wide as possible”.
She added that the next step is for the Supreme Court to notify its decision on whether permission is granted but that there is “no timescale set for this”.
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