The long wait

Confirmed last week that although the Government have lost their appeal, however The Court of Appeal has not granted DECC permission for a further appeal, but DECC is seeking permission directly from the Supreme Court and has 28 days in which to do so. 

If they are granted leave to appeal and the appeal was successful (and it could take up to one year before the final outcome is known) they could still legislate to apply new tariffs from the 12 December 2011 reference date.   

Hence DECC is warning firms not to promote the higher tariffs in the period from 3rd March.

There does seem  to be a lot of publicity indicating the FiT WILL be back to 43p until 3rd March! This is clearly untrue right at the moment!

If you are considering having a PV system installed, assume you will be paid 21p until officially announced otherwise. A lot of rogue installers are telling people the higher rate to obtain a fast buck, they will have ceased trading by the time you make a claim!

As can be seen from the statement above from the Solar Trade Association, this 43p rate will only return long term if the Government either fail to get leave to appeal to the Supreme Court, or if they do, they lose yet again.

All of that can take time, which is obviously all the Government want to do in reality to avoid a last minute rush.

Our advice is to take advantage of the low price PV systems at 21p without the requirement of having extra insulation installed, as this is probably coming in after March 2012. If you also end up getting 43p a unit instead, think of this is a bonus!