A letter signed by over 150 companies will be handed to the PM’s office at midday today, and comes as the Department for Energy and Climate Change closes its consultation on proposed changes to support for solar power.
The Solar Trade Association (STA), who organised the letter, said in a statement that the current policy framework threatens the industry’s potential to become ‘subsidy-free’ and contribute £78 billion per annum to the UK economy by 2020.
“The government is now proposing to tilt the playing field against large-scale solar, while not taking sufficient action to unlock commercial rooftop solar – that is unacceptable,” said the STA’s chief executive Paul Barwell.
In May the government proposed plans to close the Renewable Obligation regime to solar projects over 5MW from 1 April 2015, forcing developers to instead compete for the new contracts for difference.
Barwell said the level of policy uncertainty faced by developers is already threatening the potential of the sector.
“So serious are the implications of these consultations for the British solar industry that we are asking the Prime Minister to intervene. We only need one more push, one more period of policy stability to be able to compete with fossil fuels without support,” Barwell said.
The letter requests a meeting with the PM to discuss the issues faced by the solar sector “as soon as possible”, and is signed by companies including Good Energy, Ecotricity and IKEA.