Planned Czech Solar FIT cuts will heavily favor subsidies to Small Distributed Rooftop Installations

Czech has seen the biggest Solar Growth Explosion compared to its size powered by extremely generous feed in tariffs.This has made Czech one of the top solar installers in the world and led to a huge public backlash.The Czech government has responded by proposing to bust the Solar Energy Bubble by drastically cutting down the Feed in Tariffs.The administration is also trying to reign in the ballooning subsidies from existing solar plants by imposing taxes on solar plants and carbon credits.This is being done as the Czech consumers face a 15-25% increase in electricity prices next year.The country had little option as its very badly designed tariffs had led to  a situation where Czech Industry faced the prospect of becoming uncompetitive.

The Czech legislature has passed a law which will sharply cut the subsidies and heavily favor small residential installations under 30 kw.This follows the trend in other European countries like Spain and Germany which have changed FIT to favor small distributed solar owners in comparison to larger solar projects which are owned by large organizations.UK has alos implmented a FIT policy which had led to a huge boom in small solar installations avoiding the mistakes made by Spain and Czech.

Czech lower house cuts support for new solar plants – Reuters

The Czech lower house approved a bill on Friday that cuts most of the country’s exceptionally generous support for photovoltaic power plants newly built as of March 2011.

The new law, which still requires clearance in the parliament’s upper house, limits support only to those newly built photovoltaic plants on buildings, not on land, and only to those whose capacity does not exceed 30 kW.Existing plants built by March 2011 will keep operating under the current favorable conditions.