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UK: May 28, 2007
LONDON - Britain from next week will again offer households money for wind turbines or solar panels after a two-month grant freeze.
From Tuesday, homeowners can apply for a share of the 11.9 million pounds available under the government's Low Carbon Buildings Programme (LCBP), which is aimed at cutting carbon emissions by encouraging small-scale clean power generation.
"The microgeneration industry has tremendous potential in the low carbon economy," Trade and Industry Secretary Alistair Darling said in a statement on Friday.
"This grant scheme is designed to maximise carbon savings, demonstrate potential and help the sector become more commercially competitive in the long term."
Despite public interest in microgeneration, the scheme has has limited success because of problems with the application process.
As a result, since it launched in April 2006 the LCBP has only directly funded 2175 installations on homes in a country of over 60 million.
Some 242 mini-turbines, 313 solar photovoltaic projects and 1,467 solar thermal heating systems have been installed but the government had to freeze the scheme in March to streamline the process.
Changes include the removal of the monthly cap on the number of grants that can be awarded and a new requirement to have planning permission before applying for the grants.
On Monday, the government proposed removing planning obstacles to building a range of energy projects, including small wind turbines and roof-top solar panels, in an effort to speed up the growth of clean technologies in the face of growing concern over carbon emissions and the global warming they cause.
Until those proposals become law, potential household green power generators will still have to get planning permission.
REUTERS NEWS SERVICE
