This is an opinion from somebody involved in the renewables industry - which is shared by many on the recently rushed and rather drastic review of the Solar PV Feed In Tariff rate.

It is very difficult to understand the reason behind the Government's cuts
to the solar PV feed-in tariff. The attached article from the editor of
Business Green indicates the cost of leaving the existing tariffs in place
to 31st March 2012 would only add £1 per year to domestic electricity bills
by 2020.

The argument that DECC/ the Big 6 utility companies actually don't want
microgeneration and wish to maintain the existing centralised grid with the
attendant lack of competition and local economic opportunities is very
worrying. I believe in Germany only approx a third of electricity is
supplied by the large utility companies and two thirds from local embedded
generation.

I have a lot of respect for Alan Simpson, the ex-Nottingham MP who is now
Friends of the Earth's Energy Advisor. He wrote this in Sept, before the
solar PV FIT cuts were on the horizon:

"Solar is the key to tomorrow’s energy agenda. Germany has used it to
transform its thinking about the very nature of energy markets. Citizens
use it as part of their current and future energy security. Towns and
cities promote it as part of a new ‘energy democracy’ that Britain barely
comprehends.

Across Europe, PV costs will hit grid parity within this decade,
transforming the notion of sustainable jobs as well as sustainable energy.
As ever, it is a revolution Britain threatens to lead from the back;
obsessed more by organised under-achievement than imaginative leadership.
To change this, we need to open up the public debate about Britain’s energy
future. It is the ’vision’ thing that parliament and government doesn’t
get. And it’s the vision thing that the public has to inject."