Climate Change Minister Greg Barker has warned that the Government's Feed-in Tariff scheme is in the red and is likely to remain so should he fail in his bid to reverse a High Court ruling on FiTs.
Speaking to environmental website BusinessGreen, Mr Barker defended the Government's decision to appeal the High Court ruling that declared the Coalition's plan to cut incentives for solar installations unlawful. He warned the FiT scheme has already exceeded its budget for the current financial year.

He said the continuation of the current 43 pence per kWh feed-in tariff rate for small scale solar installations would have 'catastrophic consequences' for the scheme.

'Every one home that gets the 43p rate means there are two homes that cannot get the 21p rate,' he said, adding that the surge in new solar panel installations during the second half of last year meant the scheme had already exceeded its spending cap for this financial year.

'For the current year we are in the red and there is the potential that next year will be in the red. There's some flexibility in the levy control framework [spending cap] on a year-by-year basis... But we have our budget and the Chancellor is not going to reopen the spending review.'

Mr Barker confirmed his department was on track to publish its response to its long-awaited FiT scheme review by the end of January.

'All parties want to see this resolved as soon as possible,' he said. 'If we can get through this difficult period there's still the potential for a bright future for solar and other microgeneration technologies.'

The full review of the FiT scheme is likely to contain proposals designed to avoid a repeat of the current row over solar incentives by making it clearer to the industry when reductions in support will be triggered.

Click here for the full interview.