The UK government consultation on whether “devastating” cuts to the Feed in Tariff should go ahead will close today.

Industry has urged the renewable sector to “make its voice heard” if it hasn’t already done so before the 11.45pm deadline tonight (Friday, October 23).

Greenpeace policy director Doug Parr said: “If this goes ahead the impact will be devastating, but right now, we’ve got a chance to push back.” He also added :

“The government cannot pretend cuts to subsidies for the nascent solar industry are necessary to save families money whilst throwing much more money at well-established technologies. The timing couldn’t be worse as the young and potentially booming solar industry is on track to go subsidy free but if these cuts happen, it will be too sudden, too soon and too dramatic and is likely to irrevocably damage the domestic solar industry losing thousands of jobs and millions in investment.”

For its part, the UK government said it wants to maximise value for money to British electricity bill payers by “reducing FiT expenses”. Last September, the U.K. Energy and Climate Change Secretary Amber Rudd, explained that the government had “overspent” on subsidies, pointing to the runaway success of solar under the FIT :

“Take-up has been so great that we expect to achieve our ambition (of supporting 750,000 installations by 2020) by the end of this year. But this has meant that the overall cost of the scheme has also exceeded expectations.”