Wednesday 3 October 2012

DECC confirms support for small scale renewables

DECC confirms support for small scale renewables

The Government will be supporting new small scale renewable technologies between 50kW and 5MW after originally planning to cut them out of the loop.

It recently reviewed the amount of money handed out through the Renewables Obligation (RO), the subsidy given to businesses for the amount of renewable electricity they generate.

Earlier this year, DECC suggested excluding new scale small installations such as solar, onshore wind, anaerobic digestion and hydropower from April next year.

But after receiving feedback from the industry it has opened both the Feed-in Tariffs (FiTs) rates and the RO for firms investing in projects under 5MW in size.

Energy and Climate Change Minister Greg Barker said: “I am fully committed to spurring on growth in clean green energy generation across the nation and want to provide long term certainty for those who choose to invest.

"In light of feedback from industry on our intention to consult on the overlap between the RO and FiTs we believe that now is not the time to make further changes to these schemes. Industry needs certainty, and keeping the current arrangements for small scale renewables as they are will help provide this assurance.”

Last month, the Government also released its consultation on the level of support for solar and biomass, with large-scale solar installations to receive 1.5ROCs/MWh from March next year.

Written by

Bruna Pinhoni

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