The Solar Trade Association (STA) has warned a cut to the Feed-in Tariff will inordinately hurt large solar roofs and small solar farms.

From 1 July, any new small solar farms built under the Feed-in Tariff (FiT) will receive 28% less for every unit of electricity they generate, from 6.16p/kWh to 4.44p/kWh.

The STA has said the cut will be 'dramatic' for small solar farms below 5MW in size due to a 'hyperdegression' in the tariff for ground-mounted solar.

The trade body has previously stated that due to the design of the FiT, just a small amount of solar deployment can trigger a very large cut in the tariff.

The STA said: "This means smaller solar farms, including those where ownership is shared with the local community, will struggle to get built going forwards."

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Large scale roof projects (250kW+), which represent only 1% of the UK market, will also be affected.

Just 70 projects have been installed with FiT help since 2010.

These projects are grouped together with the successful small-scale commercial roof market and therefore will be affected.

STA Head of External Affairs, Leonie Greene, said: "The Feed-in Tariff helps to democratise energy in the UK because it enables homes, businesses, schools, farmers, communities and big industry to invest easily in solar power.

"But some of the FIT cuts make no sense, particularly for large solar roofs on factories and industrial buildings, or for community groups looking to invest in a local solar farm.

"The industry still awaits clear policies from Government but Ministers have spoken positively about community solar schemes and larger solar roofs, so we very much hope the new Government will correct the FIT to boost these markets.

"We have set out how easy and cost-effective it would be to do that in our Solar Independence Plan."

The Solar Trade Association has put forward a set of detailed proposals for the forthcoming review of the Feed-in Tariff in its ‘Solar Independence Plan for Britain’ to fix this ‘hyperdegression’ problem.

This allows more growth in commercial rooftop solar and small solar farms while gradually bringing tariffs for new installations down to zero by 2020.

(LM)