Its amendments prevent projects that are expanded in this way from being paid tariffs designed for smaller schemes.
The move is in response to reported concerns within Government that projects which had qualified for the subsidy level for projects of under 50 kilowatts were then expanding those plans to create projects producing five megawatts of energy, while retaining the much higher level of subsidy that was designed for smaller schemes.
"In all cases where an installation is extended by increasing its capacity to generate electricity using the same energy source for which it is accredited, the extension is to be treated as a separate eligible installation and, if it is accredited to receive feed-in tariffs, is to be assigned a tariff code based on the aggregate capacity of both the extension and the existing installation," said the explanatory note to the amendment.
