According to m03 Power’s Chief Executive Officer, Ken Moss, Government’s recently proposed feed-in tariff cuts could put 90,000 jobs, which would have been generated by Britain’s burgeoning solar industry, in jeopardy.
The Department of Energy & Climate Change (DECC) announced its proposal to cut the feed-in-tariff for solar developments larger than 50kW by a shocking 72%. This, says Moss, puts thousands of jobs at risk.
“A buoyant solar power sector would have stimulated at least 90,000 jobs by the time Government spending cuts really start to bite later this year if the feed-in-tariffs had remained where they were,” he explained.
“mO3 Power had plans to generate one gigawatt of renewable power from solar parks on brown field sites in the UK. We were prepared to invest £2.3 billion and would have created 20,000 new jobs ourselves.”
Ray Noble of the Renewable Energy Association (REA) said, “This is an absolute disaster … no new projects will start if this proposal becomes law. This industry has been strangled at birth. The huge number of envisaged new jobs will disappear.”
Andrew Lee, at Sharp Solar, which employs 1,100 at its manufacturing plant in Wrexham said, “(The review is) terrible news for the renewable energy sector – the steep rise in job creation will stop and morale within the industry will drop as a result of this remarkable U-turn.”
Solar Power Portal's own research, conducted at the beginning of the year on behalf of the REA, highlighted that 17,000 jobs would be in danger if the feed-in tariff rates were altered. The severity of the cuts has evidently made the impact on the jobs sector far more significant.