The director of a Dundee micro-renewables firm has hit out at a UK Government decisions to slash feed-in tariffs for solar power installations.
George Hood, of Craigie Industrial Estate firm EHS Solar, said the decision is damaging for the fledgling industry and the swiftness of its implementation is especially concerning.
Climate change minister Gregory Baker said the change which will see subsidies drop from 43p to 21p on December 12 was being made because falling photovoltaic panel costs mean returns on the scheme have reached double those originally envisaged.
Customers who register for the feed-in tariff subsidy after the change is made will see the return on their investment cut by half under the new rules.
Aside from the longer-term issues, Mr Hood said the short timescales for change had left him with 10,000 newly-delivered marketing leaflets that were almost out of date already.
”We were expecting change in April, and you can gear your business up for that. But nobody was expecting this,” Mr Hood said.
”We are being told by the government that people in the business community have to invest to create jobs to get clear of the present recession.
”What is the incentive to business people like myself to make investment if we are going to have the rug pulled from under our feet in quite such a dismissive fashion?”
Dundee East MP Stewart Hosie said the tariff revision was ”potentially disastrous” for the sector.
”Last week, the UK Government pulled the rug out from Longannet and stopped development of clean-coal technology and now they are to half the subsidy to small-scale solar electricity suppliers.
”It implies a serious lack of commitment to renewable and demonstrated yet again why Scotland needs the full economic and fiscal levers.
”The halving of the subsidy could be potentially disastrous to the development of domestic solar power and lead to job losses in my constituency.
”The sound environmental benefits of solar power are clear and the case for continuing to build up this new green, clean renewable sector is very strong.
”Compared to this sabotage of the renewable sector, the nuclear industry is still getting massive subsidies from the public purse and will drain the taxpayer for the costs of disposal of nuclear waste and decommission of plants for a long time to come.”