The 50kW+ cap was breached last week as installations in both this and the 0-10kW bands experienced record weeks under the new regime.
A total of 5.78MW of new capacity under the 50kW+ band was added in the week running 22 – 29 March, taking the total amount of solar deployed under that band in Q1 to 15.259MW.
This deployment breached the quarterly cap of 14.1MW, triggering a contingent degression of 10% for that feed-in tariff rate and meaning that any installation connected after 9:01am on 24 March – the exact time the cap was breached – was locked out of registering for the FiT until the new quarterly cap opened today.
The contingent degression of 10% will mean that as of today, the new feed-in tariff rates for 50kW+ installations will be:
- 50-250kW: 2.38p/kWh
- 250-1000kW: 1.99p/kWh
- >1000kW: 0.74p/kWh
Meanwhile it was slightly better news for the residential feed-in tariff market after <10kW installations witnessed their strongest week of deployment since the new regime came into force on 8 February.
There had been some concern for the market after residential installations slowed considerably under the new regime, dropping to around 1.5MW each week. In February just 8MW of solar under this bracket was installed, down 75% on the capacity figure in February 2014.
However deployment picked up in the last reporting week to more than 3.8MW, taking total deployment in Q1 as of 29 March to 18.84MW.
Figures for Q1 in total have not yet been published, but unless a considerable amount of new solar was fitted between 29th and 31st, around 29.6MW of capacity would be rolled over to the next cap, meaning the Q2 deployment cap for the >10kW band would be 79.3MW.
Deployment under the 10-50kW band also reported a weekly record under the new mechanism with 1.39MW of solar installed. Total deployment under that band as of 29 March stood at 6.6MW against a cap limit of 16.5MW.
This article has been changed from its original version to correct the Q2 tariff rates, which were previously incorrect.