Solar FiT: 43p It Is

The litigation

In March 2012, the UK government was denied leave to appeal to the Supreme Court (the UK's highest domestic court) over its planned cuts to subsidies paid to owners of solar panels. This was the third defeat for the government who had already been unsuccessful in both the High Court and the Court of Appeal.

Under the feed-in-tariffs ("FiT") programme, people in the UK with solar panels are paid for the electricity they generate and feed back into the electricity grid. The government's plan was to substantially cut the tariffs payable under the programme for any solar panels installed after 12 December 2011. For example, for solar photovoltaic systems with capacity of 4kW or less and attached to existing buildings, the rate would have reduced from 43.3p/kwh to 21p/kwh. However, environmental campaigners and solar panel installers argued that insufficient notice had been given and objected to the change on the basis that it was due to come into effect