The Government will not after all be cutting the Feed-in Tariff at the end of June. Greg Barker posted on Twitter “having listened carefully to industry, we are looking at scope for . . . → Read More: July Feed-in-Tariff Cuts Delayed]]> Energy and Climate Change Secretary, Greg Barker responds to the solar industry request to delay the proposed cuts to the FITs in July.

The Government will not after all be cutting the Feed-in Tariff at the end of June. Greg Barker posted on Twitter “having listened carefully to industry, we are looking at scope for pushing back a little the next proposed reduction in the solar feed-in-tariffs”
This is great news for once for the solar industry and for the environment! Over the last six months the industry has battled over cuts, having already seen cuts in December 2011 and new rates in April 2012, the industry was expecting further cuts to come into effect on 1st July 2012.

It is unclear when the next cut will take place, or how deep it will be – but it appears that the solar industry is being given some relief for a while longer. When questioned further about the uncertainty for the industry and customers, Greg Barker added “we are listening carefully to industry and full details of new much improved FITs regime will be published shortly”.

A typical 50kW installation might currently cost around . . . → Read More: Indicative costs for a typical 50kW barn installation]]> As FITs fall, the proportion of ‘value’ to a potential customer from the FIT alone decreases and the ‘value’ of the savings on electricity bills increases proportionately. Hence, overall returns are significantly better for a client that is able to use the majority of his home-made electricity.

A typical 50kW installation might currently cost around £76,000. Assuming a south facing roof and if a client is able to use 85% of what he produces then his annual return would be £9,746.63 (12.7%); if he uses 50% then returns are £8,655.88 (11.3%); and if use is only 10% then returns drop to £7,407.44 (9.7%).

Recent analysis of the electricity demands of a farm that is currently using a barn for grain drying showed that usage is unsurprisingly highly ‘peaky’ with April being the lowest month at 130 units to September being the highest at 19,000 units! Overall, I concluded that use of the PV generated power would amount to around 50%, thus giving a return in the order of 11.3%.

If there are any domestic dwellings that might be installed with PV at the same time (and with separate meter points) then 4kW installations might be now done as cheaply as £7500 giving initial returns as high as 16%. Of course, the government are therefore highly likely to reduce the FITs again in the 1st July review, to redress this growing potential rate of return.