United Kingdom
A grant system for installation has been operated by the Energy Saving Trust.
Maximum of £2,000 per kW of installed capacity, subject to an overall maximum of £2,500 or 50% of the relevant eligible costs, whichever is the lower.
Tariffs for electricity sale and purchase are determined by individual electricity companies in a free-market situation, where consumers may choose their electricity supplier. There is no current feed-in tariff.
Proposed UK Feed-in Tariffs 2010.
The UK Government is proposing to introduce a feed-in tariff for small scale (up to 5MW) renewables by April 2010 and is currently undertaking a consultation period on the proposals, which can be summarised as follows:
* From April 2010, the FIT will offer a fixed payment per kilowatt hour generated (see table) and a guaranteed minimum payment of 5p per kWh exported to the market. Tariffs will not be index-linked.
* Projects up to 5MW will be eligible, including off-grid installations.
* Technologies that will be eligible for the FIT from April 2010 are: wind, solar PV, hydro, anaerobic digestion, biomass, biomass CHP and non-renewable microchip (see table for tariffs).
* The FIT will be offered for a 20 year period, with the exception of solar PV projects for which the period will be 25 years.
* The FIT designed with the aim of delivering 2% of the UK’s energy from small scale projects by 2020.
* Where appropriate, support will degress in line with expected technology cost reductions.
* Support levels will be reviewed periodically and in response to sudden changes in technology costs. However, tariff levels will be grandfathered, so that projects continue to receive the levels of support offered at their registration.
* Projects below 50kW must be installed by MCS accredited installers. 50kW to 5MW projects will be subject to accreditation similar to the current RO process.
* Projects installed in the interim period between the announcement of the FIT (15 July 2009) and the start of the scheme (April 2010) will be eligible to receive the tariff with some conditions on the support period. However, any non-domestic projects that receive grant funding from central government will have to return the grant before they can receive FIT payments.
* Regardless of technology, projects installed prior to 15 July 2009 will be eligible to receive generation payments of 9p/kWh and export payments of 5p/kWh, provided they were previously receiving support under the RO scheme.
* Projects up to 50kW in size will no longer be able to claim the RO; existing installations will be automatically transferred to the FIT. New and interim period projects between 50kW and 5MW will be given a one-off choice between claiming support under the FIT or the RO. Existing projects between 50kW and 5MW in size will remain under the RO, with no opportunity to transfer to the FIT.
* Government is not proposing to offer financial support for the up-front capital costs of projects.
* Proposed tariffs by technology type and size are detailed in the consultation document: Renewable Electricity Financial Incentives Consultation
History
In October 2008 the UK Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, Ed Miliband, announced that Britain would implement a feed-in tariff by 2010, in addition to its current renewable energy quota scheme (see ROCS). In July 2009, the politician in the cabinet of the Labour Government’s Prime Minister Gordon Brown has finally presented UK’s new Feed-in Tariff Programme, expected to begin in early April, 2010.[36] Miliband has given a new name, “clean energy cash back”, to this policy which falls fully within the framework of Feed-in Tariffs and is based on a few, extensively discussed, key elements:
a) only 2% of Britain’s electricity consumption, by 2020, will be provided by renewable energy sources. The 2% target requires the “green generation” of only 8 billion kWh (that is 8 TWh) per year. France, thanks to its system of Feed-in Tariffs, in 2008 generated already nearly 6 TWh, and only from wind energy; in the same year Germany generated more than 4 TWh from solar PV (photovoltaic), and reached 40 TWh from wind energy.
b) The project involves only renewables sources which can produce less than 5 MW energy; so, UK’s new FiT’s project cap is 5 MW. Depending on law, only renewable energy sources and generators within this cap can benefit from tariffs: the government still prefers resorting to the Renewable Obligation Certificates mechanism for developing larger projects.
To prevent companies from moving large scale (for example big wind) projects from the ROCs to the Feed-in Tariff programme, a number of anti-gaming provisions has been inserted in the policy design; this should avoid the breaking up of bigger projects into several small ones, to fit within the 5 MW energy size cap.
c) The contract term is 20 years, 25 years for solar photovoltaic projects: this means that, starting from 2010, British providers of Wind Energy, Hydropower, Energy from Biomass and Anaerobic Digestion falling within the Renewable Sources eligible in accordance with the provisions of the proposed FiT scheme will be rewarded with a tariff rate guaranteed for the next 20 years – 25 years for Solar PV generators. In this way UK’s renewable energy industry has a somehow long-term certainty, and can advantage of the FiT over other policy options.
d) Costs for the programme will be borne by all British ratepayers proportionally: all electricity consumers will bear a slight increase in their annual rate, thus allowing electricity utilities to buy renewable energy generated from green sources at above-market rates set by the government.
e) Generators can be green fields (they do not have to be metered customers).
f) The new UK’s Feed-in Tariff Programme review is scheduled for 2013.
The new FiT design “made in the United Kingdom” seems not to be a system of false feed-in tariffs, “in name only”; this sophisticated programme rather distinguishes itself under several points of view, for example:
One new feature is the inclusion of tariffs for Combined Heat & Power (CHP), which only a few other systems provide for.
Another one is the provision of two distinct tariffs, one for small solar photovoltaic installations on new houses and the other for existing homes.