UK Solar Subsidy Cuts "Legally Flawed"

The very day I was getting my solar panels installed, the High Court ruled that the UK government's sudden halving of feed-in tariffs (FITs) for solar panels was "legally flawed".


Friends of the Earth and a couple of solar companies had taken the government to court to test whether it was lawful for them to cut FITs by more than 50% with very little notice - The whole industry had expected them to be cut, but not nearly so savagely and not until April 2012. By bringing the cuts forward some 4 months, they threw the entire industry into chaos, and dashed a lot of people's plans.

The government will challenge the ruling, of course, but it seems there's a good chance they won't be successful. I hope they fail, it's about time they got a whack across the nose for their attitude. They think they've the right to axe anything in any way they they see fit, all in the name of "austerity cuts". It's about time they learnt not to screw people about.

It's not just me who thinks that. The day after the above ruling, two parliamentary committees criticised the subsidy changes as clumsy and likely to deal a "fatal blow" to the solar industry. Yep, not only is the government cutting too much with little warning but, to even qualify for the lower subsidy from April 2012, you will have to have an energy performance certificate for your house first.

This means you may have to spend thousands of pounds on insulation work before you can even think about solar panels. Sounds like a deterrent to me. One that could finish the solar industry off.

More here and here.

Oh, and now the Church of England has waded in.Wake up and smell the coffee Prime Minister Cameron: Your lot have got it horribly wrong. Again.

Buying A Solar Panel: Part 7

Finally the panels have been installed (yesterday)! Around 6 or 7 weeks after paying the deposit. I imagine it would have happened a lot sooner had the government not caused panic buying with it's feed-in tariff cut.

Still, no point crying over spilt milk.

The installation went smoothly, the installers and scaffolders were very professional and helpful. They even replaced any broken roof tiles they found whether they'd damaged them or not.

So we're now micro-generators! Today we generated 5.2 kW - About 33% of our daily usage, despite this being the shortest day of the year! Can't wait till the Summer.

Durban Climate Deal: What's In It For Us?

As you may have heard, the Durban climate conference actually finished with a last minute deal. But what does it actually mean to you, me and, more importantly our kids?

Let's start with the headline details:

• The deal was historic because, for the first time, it was agreed by all countries. In the past, 'developing' countries have been exempt whilst others have simply not signed up (e.g. the USA).

• The deal says talks will start early next year with the aim of producing a legally binding agreement by 2015 that will come into force by 2020.

• Significant progress was also made on separate areas aimed at: providing financial support to developing countries effected by climate change; and protecting and developing forests.

What instantly struck me about all this were those dates. Basically there's little prospect of a final agreement before 2015, and no prospect of any serious cuts before 2020! This despite the fact that the science says that carbon emissions have to peak by 2020 (at the latest) and fall steeply thereafter if we are to keep the global rise in temperature to below 2 degrees C.

2 degrees isn't just some nice-to-have number that's been plucked from nowhere. It's a limit beyond which we are likely to run into all sorts of tipping points that could take the climate beyond our control. It's also what the world's governments have agreed to.

If the eventual deal for 2020 amounts to nothing more than locking in what countries have already commited to, we're looking at around a 4.5 degree rise by 2100. That would be disastrous.

We can still hope that the new alliance between the EU and many developing nations will grow in it's influence and lead negotiations towards a better result, but you can bet that a handful of countries (you know who they are) will be doing everything they can to water it down.

From Climate Summits to Carbon Footprints

Welcome to my 200th post.

When I started this blog nearly 2 years ago, it was in response to the complete and utter failure of the Copenhagen Climate Conference. I was incensed by the fact that narrow-minded politicians were putting national interests above the interests and, frankly, lives of future generations.

Since then, nothing much has changed on that front. For sure, all nations seem agreed that it would be a bad thing for the world to warm by any more than 2 degrees C, but they're doing precious little about it.

And if the likes of Canada, India, USA, China and Brazil have their way, there'll be no follow-up to the Kyoto Agreement until 2015 at the earliest and probably not until 2020.

Yet the science says that carbon emissions have to peak by 2020 if we are to have any chance of staying below that 2 degree target. Not looking good is it?

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Politics aside, one of the other themes of this blog (As the sub-title suggests) is to show how my family is reducing it's carbon footprint (plus energy bill) and hopefully inspire others to have go. Not sure whether I'm inspiring others but I'm certainly doing that to myself. I've managed to find all sorts of ways to cut our footprint since starting this blog. And at little or no cost. That's been the whole point really: To show people that it doesn't have to cost the earth to save the Earth. Just simple, cheap, and often, cost saving measures.

Of course, I've gone a bit beyond that now. 2 years ago, getting a hybrid car or solar panels were just pipe-dreams. Way beyond my means. But, thanks to a dip into my savings and, later, some redundancy money, I have a Toyota Prius (Not a very cost effective way to cut your footprint admittedly but a very nice car all the same), and we'll hopefully have solar panels soon. Who'd have thought it?

Where will the next 2 years take me?

Buying A Solar Panel Part 6

Well, that's just great. My attempts to get solar panels fitted to our house before the government's stupid deadline (Dec 12th) have failed. The fitters have been swamped with jobs from people just like me and they've not been able to keep up with the work. Typical.

To their credit, the fitters have been very fair. They've offered to let me have the deposit back, or 30% off the price of the installation if I go ahead.

After a bit of thought and going over the figures, I decided it was still worth getting the panels installed. Hopefully, I'll finally get a date from the fitters this coming week.

Ironically, the government's savage cutting of the feed-in tariff has had one positive effect: In amongst the chaos it's caused in the solar industry, the grief it's caused to all those people, local councils, and charity organisations that were in the process of getting panels and had to cancel, plus the inevitable large-scale job losses, the solar panel manufacturers seem to have responded by cutting the price of their products to keep the market alive. Before the cut, you could expect to pay about £5000 per kWh. Now it seems to be about £3500.

Whether this will be enough to keep the industry from collapsing back to it's former niche market status remains to be seen.