Department of Energy & Climate Chance '-

The Rt Hon Gregory Barker MP Minister of State

Department

of Energy & Climate Change

3 Whitehall Place London SW1A2AW

Justin Tomlinson Esq MP House of Commons London SW1A OM

www.gov.uk

Our ret: MC2014/02973/RH

February 2014

Dear Justin, Thank you for your letter dated 12 February to Michael Fallon, enclosing correspondence from your constituent, Mr Lee Mason, about the difficulties they are experiencing following the recent flooding, to connect large scale solar farms before the planned degression of support under the Renewables Obligation (Ro) takes place on 1 April. I am replying as this matter falls within my portfolio. The Ra is currently the Government's main mechanism for incentivising the deployment of large scale renewable electricity and following the banding review, which concluded in 2012, new support rates for the period 2013-17 were implemented through secondary legislation which came into force in April 2013. Grace periods were considered as part of that review and very specific grace periods for radar and grid delays were introduced for 1 April 2013. However, as part of that banding review it was decided not to introduce grace periods for the degressions in 2014 and beyond given the greater amount of notice developers will have had of the timing of these changes. I do appreciate the difficulty your constituent and others are experiencing. However, I am afraid there is insufficient time to change the Ra legislation to implement a grace period before the support rate reduces on 1 April. We estimate it would take at least six months to effect a change in the legislation because there would have to be a banding review, a consultation and the legislation would have to be scrutinised by both Houses of Parliament under the affirmative procedure.

We have also considered whether it would be possible to introduce a grace period for flood-affected schemes retrospectively. Grace periods are part of the rules that determine the level of RO support that technologies are eligible to receive, and as such, can only be implemented under the RO legislation following a banding review. It is possible for banding reviews to lead to increases in support levels for stations that have already been accredited, but because various statutory factors have to be considered in any such review, there could be no guarantee that in this case a banding review and consultation would lead to the introduction of a grace period to bring flood-affected solar farms that had accredited after 31 March at the 1.4 ROe band into the 1.6 ROe band. In addition, such a change could not be backdated to cover the electricity which was generated before the legislation implementing the grace period came into force. We are writing to the District Network Operators with our concerns that the current disruption could hinder the ability of some renewable generators to commission their generating stations before the fall in RO support levels for solar PV on 1 April. We will urge them to do all they can to facilitate these new connections, while recognising that efforts to reconnect existing electricity customers must continue to take priority. Yours ever,

GREGORY BARKER