Tag Archives: renewable energy

Lucy Care

Opinion: Feed-in tariffs and the Lib Dem fight to ensure the Coalition really is ‘the greenest government ever’

By Lucy Care | Mon 7th November 2011 - 11:40 am

Feed-in tariffs, a policy mechanism designed to accelerate investment in renewable energy technologies, have been used successfully in many countries to increase the amount of electricity being generated from renewable sources.

The UK has actually been fairly slow off the mark on this. Our aim to be ‘the greenest government ever’ included support for feed-in tariffs.

Indeed, in the Coalition Agreement the preamble to the section on Energy and Climate Change said: ‘We need to use a wide range of levers to cut carbon emissions, decarbonise the economy and support the creation of new green jobs and technologies.’ It went on to say ‘We will establish a full system of feed-in tariffs in electricity,’ and ‘We will encourage community-owned renewable energy schemes where local people benefit from the power produced.’

So what is happening to the system of feed-in tariffs? And how are the changes going to encourage community-owned renewable energy systems?

Continue reading »
Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged , and | 14 Comments
Advert

Recent Comments

  • Hywel
    "According to the regulator’s own figures, pipeline gas from Norway is produced with less than a third of the emissions of Britain’s North Sea output." W...
  • Chloe
    Well said David. There are 20 million gas boilers in the UK & not everyone has a spare few grand to change to heat pumps or have a suitable system that enab...
  • Mick Taylor
    John Shipley was never a Liverpool councillor, but he was leader of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne city council...
  • David Evans
    It's profoundly sad to see how easily greenwash is accepted by so many good Lib Dems when it comes to the UK extracting oil and gas from the North Sea rather th...
  • Jana
    “ There is a better use for what is left under the North Sea: leave it there” I’m afraid this is an extremist position to take at a time when there is ...