RenEnergy managing director Damian Baker has spoken of his “absolute despair” at proposed cuts to the feed-in tariff and slammed the government’s stance on renewables in a letter to prime minister David Cameron.
Baker said that while he understood the need for the feed-in tariff to fall in line with costs, it was “vital” that solar is “weaned off gradually if it is to survive”.
He added that while he expected cuts of between 25-40%, the 87% cut to the FiT proposed by the Department of Energy and Climate Change back in August had “taken the industry by surprise”.
The proposals have been much maligned and while the industry waits for a consultation response – which DECC has continued to claim will be released before the end of the year – almost 2,000 jobs have been lost. Baker revealed that RenEnergy too expect to make cutbacks, warning that up to 75% of the company’s installers could be made redundant as it expects to all but leave the UK renewables sector.
Baker also bemoaned the timing of the announcement. The industry has forecast a rush of installations in the run-up to the end of the year as consumers look to benefit from more lucrative FiT rates creating, Baker said, a busy period in dangerous conditions.
“I am going to have men on roofs in less than favourable conditions over Christmas in order to meet this arbitrary [FiT] deadline,” Baker said.
The FiT announcement has also coincided with the ongoing COP21 summit in Paris and leaked emails suggesting that the UK is to miss its 2030 renewable energy targets. Baker said that the proposals were now “counter-intuitive” given the global context of other nations setting large installation targets, but suggested that international targets should not be the sole reason for keeping the UK solar industry active.
“We should not be guided by arbitrary targets but should encourage microgeneration near point-of-use perhaps with tax breaks as it will in the long-term make the companies embrace it more completely,” he said.
Baker concluded by arguing that the proposals and the government’s wider stance on renewables would “mark the end of the UK’s renewable energy sector” unless the prime minister intervened.
It is not the first time that David Cameron has been addressed over renewables cuts. Last week a number of large multinational companies urged the PM to rethink cuts to green subsidies, including the likes of Nestle and Unilever, contributors to this week’s DECC ‘Climate Tweetathon’ to mark the start of the COP21 summit.
Cameron was also quizzed by leader of the opposition Jeremy Corbyn during Prime Minister’s Questions last week on the subject, however his answer demonstrated a lack of understanding of the topic.
