Installations climb ahead of August 1 cut
New figures released by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) show that install rates are continuing to climb ahead of the next round of feed-in tariff cuts, due on August 1.
The UK solar industry installed 18MW of capacity in the week ending July 22, equating to 3,995 installations less than 50kWp. The increase in installations is in anticipation of the FiT rate being slashed from 21p to 16p under the newly-introduced degression model.
The department also revised the figures published for the previous week, which initially showed just over 3,000 arrays were installed. The new figures show that 4,186 installations were completed last week – an increase of 4MW from the initial 13MW published.
Although the Minister for Energy and Climate Change, Greg Barker, introduced the new feed-in tariff structure to “end the boom and bust cycle” in the industry, 48 percent of Solar Power Portal readers believe that the upcoming August 1 cut will strangle installations further, causing some installers to stop operating.
Solar Power Portal
Date: 27/07/2012
Author: Petter Bennett
