Government must protect FITs, says Plumb Center

The Feed-in-Tariff scheme to encourage the take-up of domestic renewable energy products must be retained if the country is to really benefit from the emerging market, says head of sustainability Tim Pollard.

Around £900m was made available. A 10% reduction in the funding for 2014-15 has already been announced as part of last year’s wide-ranging spending review.

The scheme allows users to sell back their unused electricity generated by renewable technologies back to the government. Initially, £900m was made available, although cuts were recently announced to the subsidies for large-scale photovoltaic install.

The cuts are designed to make sure that funding isn’t consumed by these large-scale projects, leaving nothing in the bank for householders or small community projects.

Plumb Center is urging the government to protect Feed-in Tariffs, which give homeowners cash incentives to choose renewable solutions to their energy needs.

Pollard, said: “While any changes to the FiT scheme which compromise the commercial feasibility of the product are regrettable, it is encouraging that the domestic programme will remain unaffected under the scope of the fast track review.

“However, it is absolutely crucial for the long term success of the industry that we have a period of extended stability to allow for sensible investment decisions to be made. Any compromises in the short term are likely to have very serious implications for an emerging market which has potential to make enormous contributions to lower impact living and working.”

He added: “Plumb Center is working actively with key supply partners and customers providing quality products which will deliver economic and practical outcomes.”