2019 update:
The UK Government has announced plans to axe the Feed-in Tariff (FiT) scheme from April 2019. It does not intend to replace the initiative and there will be no grace period for those projects queuing beyond the closure date of 31st March 2019. The date has been set for both export and generation tariff. The FiT scheme was established in 2010 and provided payments to owners of small-scale renewable generators at a fixed rate per unit of electricity produced and is funded through levies on suppliers, which are passed on to consumers.
An average domestic solar installation cost £12,000 in 2010. It is more like £5,000 in 2019. The aim is that this can now be repaid by savings in electricity usage alone.
On 8 January 2019, BEIS has also published a further consultation on a ‘Smart Export Guarantee’, under which government would legislate for suppliers to remunerate small-scale low-carbon generators for the electricity they export to the grid.