A promising start
Posted on October 16, 2008
Filed Under Small is Beautiful
It looks as though the new Energy and Climate department is getting off on the right foot. Buried part way down this article is a quote from the minister saying that the Energy Bill will be amended to incorporate a feed-in tariff for microgeneration. Finally.
For years, microgeneration advocates have looked at the rapid deployment of solar and wind in Germany and called for similar incentives, which pay microgen owners for exporting their electricity to the grid, here in the UK. But in 2005, my research found that the UK government was fundamentally opposed to this option as an unnecessary intervention in the market. Obviously, market intervention has become a little more fashionable of late but there have also been serious economic analyses published to say it is in fact more economically-efficient to promote renewables and microgeneration using a feed-in tariff, rather than the current renewables obligation mechanism.
Of course the details haven’t been announced yet. But that the fact that a feed-in tariff is now being considered, alongside the government’s new commitment to a 80% – not 60% – reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, suggests that things may be changing in Whitehall. Let’s wait and see.
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Thanks for highlighting this. It will go in this week’s news on the microgenscotland website, along with another photofrom last week’s opening of Proven’s new offices in East Kilbride.