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The Solar Trade Association (STA) has put forward an emergency plan to support the solar industry in response to the government’s plan to cut subsidies for rooftop installations.
According to the Guardian, the STA’s plan includes higher initial tariffs for subsidies to make investing in the technology viable, with later reductions in place to allow the government to control costs.
The STA said the plan would add just £1 to consumer bills by 2019, on top of the £9 a year renewable subsidies already cost UK bill payers.
The STA’s chief executive Paul Barwell said: “Solar is the future and this is recognised the world over. We think the British public will find it very hard to understand why government would decimate the nation’s favourite energy source for the sake of just a quid on bills. But we do need government to act quickly now.”
The government plans to cut subsidies for rooftop solar panel installations by 87 per cent from 1 January 2016 in an attempt to reign in an £1.5 billion overspend on the Levy Control Framework.
The STA argues the removal of subsidies could cost up to 27,000 jobs and waste public money already spent on supporting the technology.
Zep Solar UK became the fourth solar company in a fortnight to cease operations, blaming the removal of subsidies for the move.
A spokesperson for the department for energy and climate change said: “Our priority is to keep bills as low as possible for hard-working families and businesses, while reducing our emissions in the most cost-effective way.
“Government subsidies have driven down the cost of renewable technologies significantly and we delivered much higher deployment and more than the promised subsidies to the industry.”
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