The Department of Energy and Climate Change has published a series of questions and answers to help installers and customers understand the implications of new proposals to the feed-in tariff published last month.
Government’s response shows that, following Ofgem’s revision of tariffs inline with inflation, post-March tariffs will not increase with inflation until April 2012. DECC state that: “New tariffs for PV installations from March 3 have already incorporated this increase and will not therefore increase further.”
DECC has also confirmed that for a solar installer to carry out an EPC assessment they must first meet all the qualification and accreditation requirements under the terms of the Energy Performance of Buildings Regulations 2007.
The department has also clarified that one cannot resubmit an EPC after conducting retrospective improvements to a property in order to receive a higher feed-in tariff rate.
The new multi-installation tariff will only apply to PV installations with an eligibility date on or after April 1, 2012. As a consequence, tariffs will not change for systems currently registered before April 1.
However, current sites will count towards the multi-installation quota of 25. The lower tariffs will only apply from the 26th installation onwards.
The department has also tried to explain to potential customers what FiT rate they will receive if they install now. DECC state: “The tariff for PV installations with eligibility dates between 12 December 2011 and 3 March 2012 depends on the outcome of the Government’s appeal to the Supreme Court.
“If the Government wins the final appeal, it reserves the right to pass legislation at some point in the future reducing the tariff for all electricity generated after that date. These installations will continue to receive current tariffs (43.3p/kWh for up to 4kW installations) until any such legislation comes into effect.”
The full list of questions and answers can be found here.