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Renewable Energy Association comments on Feed-in Tariff Debate
Gaynor Hartnell, Chief Executive of the REA, said “We enjoy the way George Monbiot creates debate with his controversial views, but the REA wants to correct key factual errors in his original article and to clearly explain the purpose of the scheme.” The original article claimed that the scheme would transfer £8.6bn from the poor to the middle classes. In fact the cumulative subsidy cost of the scheme to 2030 is estimated by DECC at £6.4bn and this cost is shared among all users of electricity, including the public, business and commercial sectors. Only a portion of the £6.4bn will be paid for by homeowners, and over the course of the next twenty years this works out at an extra £8.50 per year to the average electricity bill. By comparison the new carbon capture and storage levy is anticipated to add between £15 and £17 to the average annual domestic electricity bill by 2020. Monbiot’s article creates the impression that the scheme aims to pay for a relatively small amount of local power. In fact the scheme aims to reduce the cost of technologies so that subsidy is no longer needed – from this point on capacity will increase substantially. “We are all familiar with large power stations (termed centralised power). This dispute shows that small scale decentralised energy is a very different concept, which can be difficult to grasp. We are talking about the economics of mass manufacturing and mass deployment. Feed in tariffs have been demonstrably successful at reducing technology costs through mass production. For example, feed in tariffs halved the price electricity from solar photovoltaics (PV) in Germany within a decade.” Monbiot creates the impression that Germany has abandoned its tariff scheme for solar PV. In fact a press release by the German Environment Ministry, dated 3rd March, lauds the scheme and underlines the importance of future market growth. The German PV tariff levels will be reduced to reflect the rapid rate of technology cost reductions. “It is important to engage people directly with renewables, so that they buy-in to the concept at all scales. It also creates a more diverse and dynamic energy industry. Like George Monbiot we want to see the benefits of the FIT scheme equitably shared. The scheme must work well for social housing providers and we’re particularly keen to see effort targeted at the fuel poor.” Source: REA |
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