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Furniture giant IKEA has suspended its solar panel offer, following the end of the Feed-in-Tariffs (FIT).
In a statement, the company said it does “not feel that the majority of new home solar customers will get a good deal” and that the commercial offer is “unviable until the UK solar market landscape improves”.
The FIT scheme was a government programme designed to promote the uptake of low-carbon electricity generation, which closed on 31 March.
Applications for the scheme are no longer accepted, except for any remaining MCS certified systems installed before the 31 March deadline, who must apply within the next year.
Having received an overwhelming volume of solar enquiries in anticipation of the closure, solar panel supplier Solarcentury announced via a statement on their website that all their booking slots were filled, and that the IKEA offer was under review.
Hege Sæbjørnsen, country sustainability manager, IKEA Retail UK & Ireland said: “IKEA Retail UK will continue to strive towards creating and developing the best solutions for our customers with the ambition to create a renewable energy revolution. Although we are reviewing our home solar offer in the short term we are pleased to be able to continue offering a cost effective and simple renewable energy tariff. We are firm believers that we need to take bold steps towards being climate positive, now more than ever.”
IKEA’s renewable energy tariff sees the firm join forces with the Big Clean Switch campaign, using the bargaining power of collective switching to secure cheaper energy rates from “clean” energy companies. It claims they can save customers as much as £300.
The government plans to replace the FIT scheme with the new “smart export guarantee” (SEG), which replaces the export tariff aspect of the FIT scheme. Essentially, this means that households will receive payments for the excess energy they feed back into the gird, but no longer for simply generating and using renewable energy.
The smart export guarantee has yet to launch, with the consultation period having run from 8 January to 5 March.
In lieu of a government scheme, Octopus launched its “outgoing octopus” tariff earlier this week, which, like the smart export guarantee, replaced the export tariff of the old FIT scheme. It claims households will be able to sell energy at higher prices than previously under the government’s subsidy scheme.
Similarly, Eon recently unveiled its “solar reward” scheme, under which the first 500 people to install solar panels under their solar programme will receive 5.24p per kWh of energy they export back into the grid. The scheme runs for a year, and offers the same price for energy as the FIT scheme did, intended to “bridge the gap” between FIT and the new SEG.
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