The British government has announced plans to improve the Feed-in Tariffs initiative by making it more transparent to encourage consumers and businesses to invest in renewable technologies such as solar power, wind, and hydro power.

Edward Davey, MP for Kingston and Surbiton and Secretary of State for Energy and Climate says, the current UK government is committed to promoting decentralized energy and the take-up of small-scale low-carbon technologies by the public and by communities.

“The Feed-in Tariffs (FITs) scheme is an important instrument in meeting that commitment, but it needs to be reformed as we want as many people as possible to be able to benefit from the scheme. For too long it has been limited to the lucky few. So today I am publishing a series of documents which mark a crucial turning point for the FITs scheme. Taken as a whole, this reform package will put the scheme on a predictable, certain and sustainable footing for consumers, and for the businesses delivering these exciting renewable technologies.”

Davey acknowledged that the rapid roll out of solar photovoltaic (PV) installations in 2011 strained the FITs budget, which in turn threatened the government’s ability to deploy small-scale, low-carbon technologies.

Davey notes, “We acted as swiftly as possible to respond to the threat this posed both to the future of the FITs scheme and to the bills of hard pressed consumers, through the changes we are now making to the tariffs for solar PV. But that is by no means the end of the story on FITs. We are now taking the opportunity of the review to put right the many limitations of the scheme we inherited. We have looked hard at the FITs budget and made the most of the flexibility available under the Levy Control Framework to ensure that we can keep the scheme going. The reforms I am announcing today are designed to make that budget go as far as possible to maximize the number of people able to benefit from FITs; to provide greater certainty to the industries concerned; and to ensure value for money to consumers who pay the bills.”

The FITs reform package includes the Government response to the consultation on FITs for solar PV; a consultation on solar PV cost controls; a consultation on tariffs for FIT technologies other than PV, and other scheme administration issues.

For more information, visit http://www.decc.gov.uk.

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