Solarcentury CEO Jeremey leggert calls on Tony Blair to end the "crippling uncertainty" facing the photovoltaic industry.
The boss of a leading solar technology firm has written to the prime minister questioning his commitment to sustainable technology.
Solar Century CEO Jeremey Leggert said that Tony Blair was in danger of breaking promises he made about supporting the growth of the photovoltaic industry.
Leggert said: “We can’t understand why [promises] aren’t being met, and why we face the prospect of a ruinous gap in government support, especially given the importance of global warming in the G8.”
Leggert wrote to the Prime minister after the government pulled the plug on the Major Photovoltaics Demonstration Programme in March. The £31m grant programme had helped to encourage major companies such as Sharp to set up manufacturing plants in the UK.
The government said it planned to replace the grants with a Low Carbon Buildings Programme, but did not say if there would be continued funding for the solar industry.
In his letter Leggert called on the Pime minster to end the “crippling uncertainty” that faced the PV industry.
Leggert said that the government had promised to help expand the PV market in its Energy White Paper. He also said Tony Blair had made commitments in a visit to Solarcentury’s offices in London last year, where he announced the climate and Africa themes of the upcoming G8 summit.
Leggert said that on his visit Blair had supported the fledgling solar industry. He told Solarcentury staff: “First of all there’s keeping the funding going through the renewables programme, which we will do.”
The MPD and Clearskies programme, for solar thermal and microgeneration technologies, will officially end in March 2006, six years earlier than planned.
