Huge jobs cuts loom at Carillion as solar FiT cuts bite

The company, which was re-branded following the £306 million acquisition of Eaga plc in April, was the sole installer for the UK's largest rent-a-roof scheme, HomeSun.

But today the firm's workforce face an uncertain future after they were handed notice of a 90-day consultation exercise following the announcement that the solar PV subsidy would be slashed in half from December 12.

Carillion Energy last year posted revenues of £762.2 million and was a leading player in providing solar PV for social housing projects.

As part of Carillion's Carbon Services' business, the company had invested massively to develop its solar PV programme and released a target of fitting 30,000 homes with solar panels.

Carillion Energy Services, formerly known as Eaga, was founded in 1990 in Newcastle upon Tyne as the Energy Action Grants Agency (EAGA) Partnership to administer the Home Energy Efficiency Scheme in the local area.

In 2000, the company was restructured to become an employee owned business. In 2005 it acquired Millfold and in 2006 it acquired Everwarm and established HEAT. It was first listed on the London Stock Exchange in 2007 following a £450 million Initial Public Offering.

In December 2010 Eaga announced that it would be cutting 700 jobs across the country due to Government cutbacks in the Warm Front grant.

A spokesman for the Carillion Energy Services confirmed to ClickGreen that staff briefings were taking place today to commence a 90-day consultation process to determine the number of job losses.

The company was forced to respond earlier than expected to the Government's decision to bring forward the cut-off point for Feed-in Tariff support, but the spokesman said it was too early to confirm the exact number of job losses.