Thanks Ted - having read the document a bit more, as I should have done before asking here, it does make clear their intent. They make it quite clear that they aren't prepared to pay a bigger incentive than that for offshore wind (ie. 8.5p/kWh) for businesses making money just from PV subsidies, especially from stand-alone (any size) or large (>250kW) roof mounted systems:
26. There is a need to make a distinction between the potential impact on the scheme of large community roof-mounted installations just over 50kW, and that of large solar developments of anything from 250kW up to 5MW, (a 1MW installation would cover a similar area to a football pitch), whether ground-mounted or on factory or warehouse roofs. Indeed, it was the unanticipated developer interest in large solar farms that prompted Ministers to express concerns last autumn about the risks that such unforeseen developments could pose to the FITs scheme:-
“We are absolutely committed to solar PV and to the widest range of domestic and community-scale renewables, but the fact is that we inherited a system that simply failed to anticipate industrial-scale, stand-alone, greenfield solar, and, although we will not act retrospectively, large field-based developments should not be allowed to distort the available funding for roof-based PV, other PV and other types of renewables.”
Greg Barker MP, Oral Parliamentary Questions, 11 November 2010.I find it impossible to understand how they failed to anticipate large scale installations having explicitly offered FIT rates for systems up to 5MW with the express purpose of encouraging people to install such systems. I can believe they didn't expect the speed and scale of the response by developers, but given they no way of forseeing how quickly PV panel prices would drop (crystalline panels can now be bought for around 80p/W in quantity) why on earth didn't the FIT scheme specifically include any statements about the limits to the total FIT payments that we are now being told apply?
Para 8 states:
Because of these concerns and industry developments, last month’s announcement confirmed that the review would include fast-track consideration of FITs for solar PV above the microgeneration threshold of 50kW. Solar PV microgeneration of up to and including 50kW is not within the scope of the fast track review and is therefore not being considered by this consultation.Except that stand-alone systems below 50kW clearly have been affected but I have no problem believing they weren't considered
Splyn
