Consumers to pay 10 per cent too much for solar farms as subsidies 'too high' But the STA said it had told the government it only needed £99/MWh in 2017-18 - meaning DECC's proposals will leave consumer paying 10 per cent too much. Subsidies for 2018-19 were 9 per cent more generous than the industry had asked for while those for 2016-17 were 4 per cent too high. The solar subsidies set out on Wednesday are separate from "social" levies, some of which will be paid for out of general taxation under plans to be announced by George Osborne on Thursday to cut £50 from the average household energy bill. Unlike these levies, solar subsidies, along with those for wind farms and other green technologies, are expected to continue to be paid for through household energy bills. The STA said that it had sought a price of £91/MWh for 2018-19, which would have been lower than the £92.50/MWh offered to Britain's first new nuclear plant in a generation. Instead, solar farms were offered £100/MWh that year. "Perhaps DECC have sought to spare nuclear's blushes by giving us a higher strike price than them, when we could have gone lower," STA chief executive Paul Barwell said. The STA said that the subsidies on offer for projects starting up in 2014-15 and 2015-16 were too low, however. DECC has set the price at £120/MWh for those years when the industry claims it needs £140 and £133 respectively, because an EU trade war with China is artificially forcing up the cost of solar panels in those years. A DECC spokesperson said: "The strike prices for each technology have been set to meet the government's objectives and to reflect the expected costs of deployment for different technologies."