The recent Government move to scale-back the development of large-scale Solar Farms may not be such bad news after all.

The government have just announced an unexpected review of the Feed in Tariff, with an aim to limit the eligible system size to 50kWp.

The industry has struggled to know how to react to the announcement, and in many quarters there has been a real sense of disappointment, even anger that the scheme looks set to change so early into it’s lifespan.

Whilst the move will certainly cause jitters and legitimate concerns amongst foreign investors and those working towards the development of large-scale solar farms, it looks relatively unlikley that it will affect the vast majority of schemes currently being installed across the UK, and looks certain not to affect householders for the forseeable future.

Managing Director, Stephen Barrett, explains; “We feel that although this limit should be higher – more towards 200kWp – it basically looks like a shrewd move, as it should put a stop to the mad rush of foreign investors and investment bankers filling up fields and available crop land with cheap, largely Far-Eastern-made panels, whilst making obscene profits. This “gold rush” was in danger of soaking up the money originally intended to benefit UK householders, farmers and business owners and encouraging them to install solar systems on their own roofs.”

There are some large-scale (megawatt or above, for instance) applications of this technology that do make sense – for example when on-site brown energy demand can be met by the power generated by the solar parks. We will continue to focus our efforts on displacing fossil-fuel intensive brown energy, whilst we wait for the consulation on large-scale PV to be completed sometime in the summer of 2011.

-Stephen Barret, MD