Renewable Energy

(asked on 15th November 2018) - View Source

Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what plans his Department has to encourage the wider use of green energy sources by (a) private industry, (b) the public sector and (c) domestic consumers.


Answered by
 Portrait
Claire Perry
This question was answered on 21st November 2018

The Department runs a number of schemes to encourage the wider use of green energy sources.

The Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) scheme promotes the uptake of renewable heat technologies through financial incentives. The Non-domestic RHI is open to both private industry and the public sector, and the Domestic RHI is open to domestic consumers. The scheme has funding confirmed until 2021. Beyond this, the Department is developing policy proposals for a clear framework to phase out high carbon fossil fuels for domestic and non-domestic buildings off the gas grid in the 2020s.

The Contracts for Difference Scheme is our main mechanism for supporting new large scale renewable energy generation projects. The next competitive allocation round for less established technologies such as offshore wind will open by May 2019, with subsequent auctions around every two years, using the £557 million that was announced as part of the 2016 Budget.

The Feed-In Tariffs (FITs) scheme has also been successful in attracting investment in small-scale (up to 5MW) low carbon electricity generation since it was introduced in 2010. The Government announced the closure of the FITs generation tariff on 1 April 2015 and has recently consulted on closing the export tariff. We are currently considering options for small-scale low carbon generation beyond April 2019 and will make a statement in due course.

Reticulating Splines