There was delight across the solar industry this week as the high court in the UK agreed to hear a case that challenged the coalition government’s planned cuts to the solar feed-in-tariff (FiT). The legal challenge, brought by solar panel companies HomeSun and Solar Century, as well as Friends of the Earth, argues that the government’s recent announcement that they would be cutting the FiT by more than 50% on any solar installations after December 12th was unlawful. They believe it to have been illegal because the coalition government made the announcement two weeks prior to the end of the consultation period.
Friends of the Earth Director Andy Atkins noted of the challenge that:
“We strongly believe Government plans to abruptly slash solar subsidies are illegal … In a time of economic gloom, the solar industry has been one of the UK’s brightest success stories… It’s short sighted for Ministers to move the goalposts and prematurely pull the subsidy.”
The green group has recently calculated that the proposed cuts will cost the country in excess of 29,000 jobs as wells bankrupting a number of new businesses and cutting income to the treasury by more than £230 million per year. Consequently Friends of the Earth and the two solar companies are requesting that the High Court declare the illegality of the cuts. They are also requesting that the High Court caps the costs of the court case, something that is allowed under international law for environmental cases which are in the public interest.
