HIGH COURT BLUES

The successful legal challenge, launched by Friends of the Earth and two solar power companies, against the UK Government’s arbitrary decision to bring in early cuts to solar power subsidies, should be welcomed. This High Court verdict says that the Government's plans were "legally flawed" and should now see thousands of businesses and homes eligible for higher payments. This result while being a bit predictable is welcome news and is an important victory for the future of the UK solar industry.

Originally the Feed-in Tariffs (FIT) scheme was created to encourage investment in developing renewable energy and to reduce costs for households. The High Court victory means that (at least until the UK Government has another go) this is exactly what will be achieved thanks to this rejection of the Government's damaging proposals that threatened to damage both the developing green energy economy and the environment.

Herein Wales the High Court victory is important, because the growing renewables industry is a large employer in Wales and has real potential for significant growth in future. The High Court's decision will hopefully encourage more people to invest in solar energy and take advantage of its benefits and viability. It is important to know that the UK Government can be being held to account for its often arbitrary decisions and it is important that it be reminded (regularly) of its commitments (Coalition Agreement pledges) to produce 15 per cent of the country's total energy y from renewable sources by 2020.

Perhaps part of the problem is the lack of any real sincerity on the part of UK Westminster Governments when it comes to seriously developing the vital renewable energy sector. The Department for Energy and Climate Change (and its predecessors) have persistently and (very) effectively slowed down the development of the renewable energy sector and actively prevented the development of tidal lagoons and wave energy having a bias towards the grossly expensive subsidised nuclear industry.

If you take the long view then a rapidly expanding small scale renewable energy sector would (given time) directly threaten the larger energy company profits and their cosy comfortable virtual monopoly on energy supply and the lucrative (non windfall) tax on the energy companies profits. So naturally the last thing that the UK Government and the cartel of Big Six energy companies want is for people to be saving money and to be less dependent on the large energy providers. It should be pretty clear to most people by now that the UK Government simply does not favour smaller scale community beneficial energy projects.