Melanie Onn – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Energy and Climate Change

The below Parliamentary question was asked by Melanie Onn on 2016-03-03.

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, if she will estimate the change in the number of jobs that will be lost in the solar industry as a result of the early closure of the renewables obligation.

Andrea Leadsom

The Department of Energy and Climate Change does not maintain data on the number of jobs in the solar industry. In order to support the path to subsidy-free solar deployment, we have decided to keep the Feed-in-Tariff scheme open, and expect that the scheme could support 15,000-23,000 jobs in the sector.

We expect subsidy-free solar to be an increasingly attractive option. Lightsource, the biggest solar developer in the UK, have said publically that they will be installing and connecting subsidy-free sites in 2016.