DECC's consultation on changes to Feed-in Tariff accreditation

This submission was prepared by Citizens Advice in response to DECC's consultation on feed in tariff accreditation [ 350 kb]

Changes to the scheme are essential, both to avoid overpaying through the FiT and to increase government’s ability to direct and manage it, necessitated by the LCF being not only over its budget, but looking perilously close to breaching its 20% permitted headroom as well.

This proposal fits with the second of those goals, ensuring that future changes made to the scheme by government are not weakened or undone by a flurry of pre-accreditations.

Deployments of solar PV have far exceeded expectations set out at the beginning of the Feed in Tariff. While in part, that is a result of the welcome trend of lowering technology and labour costs, it is also a reflection of the failure of policy to keep up with those trends.

As a result, we support the proposed changes as a necessary first step in reforming the FiT.