End of FiT pre-accreditation in UK to hurt mid-scale onshore wind

Removing pre-accreditation under the feed-in tariff (FiT) programme across Great Britain would bring uncertainty and increase the development cost for medium-scale onshore wind, the industry warned today.

Trade association RenewableUK explained that the preliminary accreditation rule, the one that the UK government wants to drop, ensured that projects under development could rely on a certain FiT level which would not be cut. It is especially important to onshore wind projects of 100 kW to 500 kW, also called medium-scale wind.

“Local communities, farmers and small businesses will be hard hit by today’s announcement, and are being denied their opportunity to generate their own clean power and cut their energy bills,” said RenewableUK CEO Maria McCaffer. “We need the industry and Government to agree on a long term strategy with financial support being reduced gradually and appropriately over a clearly set out timescale – not short-term changes coming out of thin air,” McCaffery continued.

The Solar Trade Association (STA), meanwhile, said that the removal of pre-accreditation is not an issue for the residential or domestic solar segment, as such systems are quick to install.

The FiT changes consultation is one of several measures the government is taking to avoid the possible “over-allocation of renewable energy subsidies”. Among these is also a proposal to close the Renewables Obligation (RO) scheme for new solar projects on April 1, 2016. Last month, the UK government said it is closing the RO to new onshore wind from April 2016, too.

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