The Government has lost an appeal over its Feed in Tariff (FiT) plan to cut subsidies for solar panels on homes. The appeal in January was against a High Court ruling that blocked a plan to halve to around 21p per kW hr the payments made to households with solar panels.
Greg Barker, Minister of State for Energy and Climate Change, had claimed the FiT was unsustainably high.
The new tariff of 21p per kilowatt-hour, down from 43p, was due to come into effect from 1 April. However, the Government said last October that it would be paid to anyone who installed their solar panels after 12 December. It announced a consultation on the proposals which closed just before Christmas.
The High Court ruled that changing the tariffs before the end of an official consultation period was flawed.
Upholding that ruling, the Supreme Court said Whitehall's 's appeal 'does not raise an arguable point of law of general public importance which ought to be considered by the Supreme Court at this time'.
Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Davey said: 'We will now focus all our efforts on ensuring the future stability and cost effectiveness of solar and other microgeneration technologies for the many, not the few.'
Responding to the Supreme Court decision, Friends of the Earth's executive director Andy Atkins said: 'This is the third court that's ruled that botched Government solar plans are illegal - a landmark decision which will prevent Ministers causing industry chaos with similar subsidy cuts in future.
'The Coalition must now get on with the urgent task of restoring confidence in UK solar power. The Government recently pledged a huge increase in solar by the end of the decade; it must now spell out how it is going to achieve this.
'Investing in clean British energy will create thousands of new jobs and help reduce our reliance on expensive fossil fuel imports.'
