Author: Jeanette Dennis

Date: 24 March 2011

Ashton Graham today called for landowners and farmers considering solar energy generation to act as fast as possible as proposed changes to the scheme were announced Friday 18th March 2011.

Following a review of Feed in Tariffs or FiTs (the payments received for generating solar energy), the government has announced it may be cutting the level of these subsidies by up to 70% for large scale (over 250KW) Solar PV installations.

Jeanette Dennis, an Agricultural Lawyer specialising in Farming and Estate Management for Ashton Graham Solicitors advised, “We are all looking closely at the results of the review to understand any implications for our clients. However, we would advise that anyone who has been thinking of applying to the scheme should still do so before the new 1 August 2011 consultation deadline.”

Jeanette explained, “The government have said that as the subsidy funds originate from consumer energy bills, they are keen to promote higher take up of energy generation in the domestic market.

While we can all see that this is positive for individuals and families undertaking energy generation from their homes, the larger installations (and therefore those generating the most energy) will be the larger buildings, ideally farm buildings.”

She continued, “Our experience has been that these installations proved very popular with farmers and other landowners and indeed the applications for installations have been growing rapidly since the scheme came into effect a year ago.  One of our major concerns is that by cutting the scheme just as it is expanding it will deter future investment in energy generating investment.”

However, where landowners can structure deals within the new bands, it will still remain economically sensible to lock in to those FiTs, provided the installations and the costs are manageable. The attraction remains the guaranteed return on capital via the FiTs, which is still much better than current deposit interest rates, although unfortunately recent developments have undermined confidence. 

For further information, please contact Jeanette Dennis