The department says that the recent growth in the large-scale solar sector, fuelled by RO support and the small scale Feed-in Tariff (FIT) scheme, has taken up higher budget than the UK government has expected.
DECC aims to promote the deployment of mid-scale building-mounted solar photovoltaic (PV) in the small-scale FIT scheme in order to limit the growth in large-scale solar PV developments.
The developers of solar projects above 5MW are now required to apply for support under the Contracts for Difference (CfD) auctions, which is scheduled to start in October 2014.
The consultation document states that the government considers it necessary to take action to control the costs of large-scale solar PV to ensure it is affordable in the context of the RO and the Electricity Market Reform (EMR).
The proposals highlight concerns that the switch to solar is happening much rapidly than the government expected and it is estimated that by 2017 there could be more solar energy deployed than the UK can afford.
There is currently 2.7GW of PV capacity in the UK, enough to power about 620,000 homes.
Responding to DECC’s move, the Renewable Energy Association (REA) said proposals to close the RO for 5MW+ solar farms will simply create very damaging instability to existing policy.
REA chief executive Nina Skorupska said, "Government must ensure that policy drives and rewards technology cost reductions with a stable trajectory of gradually declining financial support, not the cliff edge the Government is proposing for solar."
Image: The UK currently has 2.7GW of PV capacity, enough to power about 620,000 homes. Photo: Courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net.
