The Government yesterday laid some draft regulations before Parliament outlining what will happen if they lose their legal battle. This is an insurance policy in case the Government isn’t successful.

These draft regulations mean that if the government isn’t successful and the rate reverts to 43.3p, then a reduction in the tariff rates will be introduced for all installation from 3rd March 2012 onwards, rather than 1st April 2012. The reason for this is to try and avoid a huge surge in installations, as happened during the run up to 12th December. These reduced rates are the same as were proposed in the October consultation and can be found here: http://sungiftsolar.co.uk/feed-in-tariff.html

If the Government win their appeal, the rate will be 21p for all installations (up to 4kwp) since 12th December 2011.

The Government says it cannot be sure when the Court of Appeal’s judgement on the legal case will be issued. It also says that it intends to announce the outcome of the FITs consultation by 9 February (which should include confirmation of any minimum energy efficiency requirement) and it aims to publish at the same time a set of reform proposals for the next phase of the comprehensive review of the FITs scheme, which will be the subject of a further consultation.

DECC’s statement is at www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/news/fits_jan12upd/fits_jan12upd.aspx & Chris Huhne’s Written Ministerial statement is at www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/news/WMSCH_FITs/.