London plans radical FIT cuts

       The British Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has presented a new plan for PV feed-in tariffs which cuts them by 51% to 55% from their current levels.
      The DECC has published the co-responding documents, in which the proposed rates are specified in detail. At the same time, it has invited the industry to submit comments. The reductions will apply only to future projects.
      The Renewable Energy Association (REA) does not deny the necessity of a tariff cut, but the association's CEO Gaynor Hartnell considers the announced cut too steep. "The installation rate is likely to fall drastically, and many of the 25,000 newly employed in this industry may end up joining the dole queue."
     She finds it deeply regrettable that this technology, for which prices are falling so fast and which will inevitably have a bright future in the longer term, has had such a traumatic start in the UK. The REA had called for a more modest reduction some time ago. Had this been done, the current boom would be less extreme, Hartnell says.