[ripter]

Calling it a subsidy seems weird to me. Every state I've lived in will pay you if you generate more electricity than you use. You are providing power back into the grid, of course you should be paid for it. That doesn't sound like government support to me.

[jadc]

It is called a subsidy because the feed-in-tariff you get is generally more than the market rate for the electricity produced. Also in many countries, you lock in a certain tariff for many years (20-25 years) so the amount you get paid vs market rate diverges even more over time.

[itsybitsycoder]

>you lock in a certain tariff for many years (20-25 years) so the amount you get paid vs market rate diverges even more over time.

Isn't that only true if the market rate for power goes ~down~ over time?

[corresation]

It's a subsidy if they're paying residential solar power generators more than they would pay other power sources. I don't know if that is true in the UK, but again to use Ontario as an example, here you get paid almost $0.40 per kWh, while on the open market the power authority pays just $0.03. The difference is a substantial subsidy.