Climate change minister Greg Barker has revealed plans to encourage domestic energy efficiency by linking Feed-in Tariff (FiT) payments for solar photovoltaic (PV) installations to the Green Deal.

Reports suggest that this new link with the Green Deal will introduce measures requiring general energy efficiency to be considered as pre-requisite to obtaining FiTs payments.  So installers of renewable energy generation will have to demonstrate that they are dealing with energy waste before getting their tariff.

This announcement comes just days before the unveiling of the government’s major forthcoming FiTs review, which is widely expected to reduce the FiT payments issued for those installing a PV installation from 43 p/kWh to 20 p/kWh.

Jon Swain from Farm Energy says:

“The cut to support for small scale solar will not be welcomed by the PV industry, having already suffered a similar cut to large scale systems earlier in the year. However, the scheme has stimulated many more PV installations than anticipated, and the Government now wishes to focus the incentive in other areas of energy generation and saving.

“The proposed linking of renewable energy eligibility to energy efficient practices seems entirely sensible, and is very much in-line with what Farm Energy has always suggested – reduce energy wastage first, and then consider installing renewable energy.”

To read Greg Barker’s speech in full, please visit the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC)’s website:

http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/news/gb_solarpowruk/gb_solarpowruk.aspx