Government seeks Supreme Court appeal on solar cuts

LONDON (Reuters) - The government said on Thursday it is seeking permission to appeal to the Supreme Court to overturn a High Court ruling that the timing of its decision to cut subsidies for solar panels on homes was unlawful.

The Court of Appeal on Wednesday rejected Energy Secretary Chris Huhne's claim that he had the power to go ahead with subsidy cuts for solar power feed-in tariffs (FITs) from December 12, nearly two weeks ahead of the end of an official consultation period.

"We respectfully disagree with the judgment and are seeking permission to appeal to the Supreme Court," Huhne said in a written statement.

The High Court ruled that the government's timing of a change to the FITs subsidy was legally flawed, arguing that the government did not have the power to impose a deadline for rate cuts before the legal consultation period had ended.

"The reason for appealing is that we want to maximise the number of installations that are possible within the available budget for FITs, rather than use available money to pay a higher tariff to half the number of installations," Huhne said.

Solar installations in Britain have skyrocketed since the government introduced subsidies in April 2010.

Last year, Britain installed around 3 percent of the world's new solar panels, double the numbers added in much sunnier regions such as Greece or Israel, figures from the European Photovoltaic Industry Association showed.

The uptake has been much greater than anticipated, and in an effort to prevent state funds earmarked for renewable energy running out early, the government last October proposed a drastic reduction in FIT rates.

(Reporting by Henning Gloystein; editing by Jason Neely)