The year is 2010 and the UK government is looking for ways to boost the take up of renewables and reduce Britain’s reliance on fossil fuels. By the beginning of 2011 they had 2 schemes running to incentivise both the public and businesses to invest in renewable energy – the Feed In Tariff and the Renewable Obligation Certificate.
Great Britain 1 FIT
Community Energy London chair Syed Ahmed revealed that his group believed that London had the capacity to reach 1GW of community energy capacity by 2030. Yet the sector is currently lagging far behind this.
Community Energy England’s State of the Sector 2022 report makes clear the potential growth of the community energy sector, but also how far behind we are in achieving this.
On Thursday 7 June, as Johnson’s government was in its undignified death throes, one of it’s major success was being unveiled to the world. The results of an auction for renewable energy production to power the UK into the 2020s mean that UK will have record renewables at record low prices. However, it is not all good news. The relative success of renewables makes the failures in other areas weigh heavier and, as Greens, we need to be consider that this is coming at a cost.
Thirty years ago Cornish farmer Peter Edwards, his late wife Phillipa, and his son Martin installed Great Britain’s first wind farm despite the attacks of those who said it couldn’t or shouldn’t be done. But they persisted, overcoming all the planning objections and the naysayers, completing the project in late 1991.
However, with government incentives now reduced, there’s a belief it could be the last turbine in the UK to start spinning with a Feed-in Tariff (FiT) accreditation.
The UK government’s plan to abandon the feed-in tariff (FIT) system for small renewable energy projects did not go down well, especially since it meant the loss of the export tariff. Householders who invested in a photovoltaic (PV) array on their roof have used that to offset the cost of their investment by selling any extra power they generated at a reasonable rate – 5.24 p/kWh – to their grid supplier. However, with the FiT, along with the export tariff, to be closed to new applicants from the end of March, they will get nothing for any exports.
The UK Government on Tuesday finally proposed what amounts to relatively mediocre guidelines intended to support the development of small-scale renewable energy technologies by ensuring remuneration for any and all electricity generated that is supplied to the grid by small-scale generators.
Within that guidance was the clarification that homes with solar already installed that then added battery storage units or smart meters would continue to receive deemed export tariff payments, a matter which had been in doubt following come contradictory guidance.
14th March 2018 — Yesterday trade organisation RenewableUK added its voice, calling government decision-making a “key factor” in the fall of one of the sector’s “best-known and most iconic companies”. The Feed-In Tariff – designed to encourage renewable power by rewarding the generation and export of power from green devices – is due to close to new applicants next March and RenewableUK says the failure to set out future policy is “having a serious impact”.