Feed-in tariff incentive scheme must pay all generators the same

With the media awash with stories of rising numbers of new microgeneration installations and entrepreneurial companies springing up who will install them at zero cost, momentum behind the government’s feed-in-tariff (FiT) scheme is really beginning to gather pace.

Since FiTs were launched in April this year, Ofgem figures now show that nearly 9000 new solar, hydro, wind and microCHP projects have been installed around the country

As the UK’s leading 100 per cent renewable electricity supplier, with over 1300 independent generators on our books, Good Energy has been paying our own version of a FiT since 2004. And we’ve campaigned hard for the introduction of a support scheme to provide businesses and households with the financial certainty they need to invest in microgeneration.

We welcomed the introduction of FiT in February as a great step in the right direction. But the news that large numbers of early adopters have yet to register for the scheme, demonstrates that the FiT incentive doesn’t go far enough.

The problem is not that these generators simply don’t know about the FiT incentive, as suggested by ‘industry insiders’, but that they receive a much lower rate of payment than installations which took place after July 2009 – just 9p/kWh for their energy rather than the standard 41p/kWh that solar installations post-July 2009 are paid.

For someone with a 2kW solar PV, that amounts to average payment of around £150 a year – little wonder that they feel disgruntled, disenfranchised, and that it’s not worth the copious amounts of paperwork involved to get the payment.

These individuals and businesses were the pioneers who invested in small and medium-scale renewable generation before the feed-in tariff incentive was created. Why should they be paid less for their energy when they are the very people who took the greatest financial risks in the first place, helping to demonstrate to others how it can be done and encouraging further adoption?

The answer is simple: they shouldn’t.

Since I founded Good Energy 10 years ago I have met scores of companies and individuals who have invested the time, energy and money in renewable projects because of the rewards, both financial and ethical, that they have reaped from them. Those people have been vital to the development of the feed-in tariff scheme we now have in the UK. Without their commitment to microgeneration, Whitehall would have had to spend a lot more time and money encouraging individuals and business to invest in renewable generation projects.

Furthermore, they have taken the risks and broken the new ground necessary to help create the incentive scheme that we have today.

Earlier this year Good Energy launched our Fair Deal for Entrepreneurs campaign which prompted nearly 100 MPs of all parties to back the call to reward pre-July 2009 early adopters for their hard work and innovation. The then Conservative opposition committed, in writing, to reviewing Government policy in this area. Eighty per cent of Liberal Democrat MPs, including leading members who are now in government, backed this campaign.

As Parliament heads into its autumn programme, Good Energy intends to keep up the pressure on the new government, which plans to introduce a “full” FiT scheme.
If Good Energy has its way, the scheme will not only be full, but also fair.
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