Two Preston councillors have accused the government of “strangling the solar industry at birth” by making cuts to the price of energy sold from solar panels.

A motion tabled at a full council meeting last month by Moor Park’s Labour councillor David Borrow and Larches Labour councillor Sam Gardiner was approved and a letter sent from the council to Whitehall.

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The letter, sent to Energy & Climate Change secretary Chris Huhne, accuses the Government of making it more difficult for people to install solar power by reducing the tariff.

The motion states:

the Government’s planned cuts to Feed-in Tariffs, suddenly brought forward at a few weeks’ notice before the consultation on the changes had even finished, putting thousands of jobs in the solar industry at risk and excluding nearly nine out ten families in Preston from installing solar power

the cuts to multi-installation tariffs, which will hit local Housing Associations and community groups and make solar power the reserve of a wealthy few

Currently 91 homes in Preston have installed solar power since the introduction of the Feed-in Tariffs policy.

The current price for producing under 4kW (kilowatt) of energy is 37.8 per kW and the review would reduce this to 21p per kW.

Are you planning to install solar panels? What do you think about the review? Let us know your comments below

Image credit to Tony Worrall