The High Court has found that the governments plans to cut the subsidies for solar panels on homes are legally flawed.
The feed in tariff programme paid people in Britain for the electricity they generate from solar panels. It is currently set at 43p per kilowatt hour and is due to be reduced to 21p per kilowatt hour from April. However, the government decided in October to pay the lower rate to anyone who had solar panels installed after 12th December.
Two solar power companies, Solar Century and Homesun, went to court along with the environmental charity, Friends of the Earth, to challenge the 12th December cut-off point.
The organisations argued that it had been introduced two weeks before a consultation with the Department of Energy and Climate Change over changes to the scheme was due to end. They believed that the timing of the change was unlawful.
Friends of the Earth and the solar power companies indicated that the changes to the feed in tariff scheme could potentially cost thousands of jobs and bankrupt some businesses. The plans had already forced some solar installation projects to be abandoned, either in the planning stages, or some being left unfinished.
The plans for the changes had previously been criticised by both the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) and the Local Government Association. The latter warned that the changes would cost millions of pounds to local councils who had already introduced the technology into some of their poorer council homes.
The government have argued that cutting the solar tariffs now would allow the scheme to continue into the future and said that they would defend against a judicial challenge.
However Friends of the Earth argue that it is not the proposed cut in the tariffs that are the problem but the timing. A spokesperson said: “Solar payments should fall in line with falling installation costs but the speed of the government’s proposals threatened to devastate the entire industry.”