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Moray solar company boss to tackle government policy changes with energy minister

Managing Director of AES Solar George Goudsmit will voice his concerns over the tariff policy changes in March when he meets eneregy minister Claire Perry. Picture: Marc Hindley
Managing Director of AES Solar George Goudsmit will voice his concerns over the tariff policy changes in March when he meets eneregy minister Claire Perry. Picture: Marc Hindley

A Moray renewable energy expert will meet a UK Government minister to discuss policy changes that could have a huge impact on the industry.

George Goudsmit, managing director of solar panel company AES Solar – based in Forres – will meet with Energy Minister Claire Perry to talk about the impact of policy changes which will come into effect in March.

Currently, the Feed-in Tariff provides a payback for excess energy solar customers generate.

If the tariff is removed, as it is proposed in March, these customers could end up supplying large energy companies with power free of charge, which in turn could be sold back to the public, with no benefit to the customer who generated it.

Mr Goudsmit said: “We put a lot of time and effort into lobbying both the Scottish and UK Governments for the benefit of the industry, customers and our environment.

“We are solar energy specialists, it’s all we do, so it is critical that we campaign for fair and sensible policies and we will communicate that to Claire Perry when we meet.

“We agree with the minister that ‘crude tariffs’ are long gone. All we want is clarity for our customers about how the export tariff will look and when we can expect it to be in place.


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“The bigger picture, and our mission statement, is about decarbonising our energy supply to reverse the damage done by climate change and create a sustainable clean energy supply.”

Moray MP Douglas Ross visited the solar panel company in December and organised the meeting in Parliament.

He said: “A Government consultation is now underway looking into suppliers paying small-scale green electricity generators for the electricity they put into the national grid.

“I was keen to raise this with the Energy Minister following an excellent visit I had to Forres-based AES Solar recently.  I sought reassurances from Claire Perry that the responses to this consultation would be listened to, after 91% of respondents to a previous consultation by her department were opposed to the ending of export tariffs, yet it looks like this will go ahead.”