Industry calls for FITs boost for home heat and power

Green jobs could be safeguarded if the Government boosted subsidies for renewable energy generation, according to three trade associations representing the micro-CHP industry.


The call, from the Combined Heat and Power Association (CHPA), the Heating and Hotwater Information Council (HHIC) and the Micropower Council (MPC), asks the Government to raise the Feed-In Tariff (FIT) for micro-CHP to ‘accelerate’ the take up of home boiler replacement technology.

When the FIT was set up the industry asked for 15p a kilowatt hour and instead received a tariff of 10p, the Government also set a cap on 30,000 units receiving FIT money at which point it would review the situation.

The industry wants the 30,000 unit cap removed because ‘it creates uncertainty for investors’ and raising the small tariff for micro-CHP to at least 15p a kilowatt hour (kWh).

In a joint statement the associations said: “Manufacturers and energy suppliers have invested hundreds of millions of pounds to bring micro-CHP to world markets.

“Much of the development work, and a large part of the manufacturing, are being done in the UK, it is essential the product is a success in the UK for this work to stay here.”

A spokeswoman for the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), said: “We aim to release the second consultation on Phase II of the Feed-in Tariff by the end of this year – this will include proposals for tariffs for all non PV technologies, including micro CHP.”

Luke Walsh

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