In this STA Blog, Sonia Dunlop of SolarPower Europe shines a spotlight on the Government’s legal requirement to remunerate small-scale electricity exports at a fair market rate. Amidst the Brexit blur, there a small piece of EU legislation the UK solar industry – and UK consumers – should be paying attention to at the moment. And here’s why. The EU Renewables Directive, which was officially published on the European statute book on 21 December, states that: “renewable self-consumers, individually or through aggregators, are entitled to […] receive a remuneration, including where applicable through support schemes, for the self-generated renewable electricity they feed into the grid which reflects the market value and may take into account the long-term value of the electricity fed in to the grid, the environment and society.” The latest intelligence suggests that the new EU Renewables Directive will apply in large parts to the UK despite Brexit, precisely because its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union has happened before Brexit day on 29 March 2019. Unless Parliament changes the law to say otherwise, the provisions in the European Renewables Directive will apply, apart from perhaps the parts on the target where the UK can no longer contribute. Indeed the UK is already complying with the EU Energy Union governance legislation and has submitted its draft National Energy and Climate Plan to Brussels. What this means is that as of 30 June 2019 it is actually a legal requirement for the UK to ensure that excess PV electricity from both residential and commercial and industrial installs is remunerated at the market value. And as readers will know, the export tariff, as part of the Feed-in-Tariff scheme, is set to close in the UK at the end of this month.
STA 7th March 2019 read more »
