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New Budget for Renewable Energy

 

Announcement by Trade and Industry Secretary Alistair Darling:

Extra £6m for green householders – Darling

A 50% increase in funding for householders to install small scale renewables such as micro wind turbines and solar panels was announced in the Budget today.

It will take the total available under the Low Carbon Building Programme to more than £18million. At the same time the scheme is to be re-shaped to make best use of the extra funding. Proposals will be brought forward in May.

Trade and Industry Secretary Alistair Darling said:

“With this extra £6m there is now £18m for homeowners who want to go low carbon.

“There has been exceptional demand for grants under the Low Carbon Building Progamme. We are backing it. But there have been problems in meeting that unprecedented demand. We will re-structure the scheme to make it work better.

“We want many more people to be able to install low carbon technologies on their homes to help reduce damaging carbon emissions. This extra money will help us do it. Good for homeowners and the environment.”

While the scheme is re-structured the decision has been taken to suspend it for the April allocation. It’s important that this final additional funding for household renewanbles, due to end in mid 2008, is used to best effect to bring on a micro generation sector that can stand on its own two feet without further subsidy.

DTI Ministers will be meeting with industry to discuss how best to operate the new scheme and will announce the way forward in May.

There were also a number of other ways of encouraging microgeneration in today’s Budget.

We will be consulting this spring on EEC3 and how micro generation can be included within the Energy Efficiency Commitment (EEC) as a measure energy suppliers can provide to their customers to meet their commitments.

These initiatives, along with the waiving of income tax on any surplus electricity sold back to the grid by micro generators, add up to a major focus on reducing carbon emissions from our homes.