- Greg Barker admits 'dramatic reduction' in support for small scale wind
- Hundreds of high-tech UK manufacturing jobs at risk
- Development rights for small wind urgently needed to bring down costs for consumers
RenewableUK, the trade association for the wind, wave & tidal industry, has expressed high levels of concern over the Government's proposed new levels for feed-in tariffs for small wind turbines. Household-scale wind turbines have had their tariffs slashed by over 40%, while farm and small business-scale turbines have seen cuts of over a quarter. These reductions have been described by the Minister for Climate Change, Greg Barker MP, as 'dramatic'.
RenewableUK's Director of Policy, Dr Gordon Edge, said:
"Government needs to work with industry, to lift barriers for manufacturers and to ensure that these cuts don't take a scythe to Britain's world-leading small wind manufacturing industry, which employs hundreds of people across the UK,. It's really important confidence is retained, and we're keen to work with Government on progressing development rights and developing pre-registration to secure sector confidence..
"Household & business-scale wind turbines have been deployed in line with the Government's predictions – if anything, deployment has not been as strong as we would have hoped because of the difficulty of securing planning permission for even small wind turbines. The Government points to capital costs for some turbines coming down – but overall project costs have been rising across the technology sizes and manufacturers will face real dangers with the proposed cuts – we want to work with Government to ensure lower costs for consumers and protection for our UK-wide industry"
Unlike solar panels, wind turbines require planning permission to erect, presenting a barrier to potential customers and additional costs to homeowners and businesses seeking to generate their own energy. An Act passed into law in 2009 required the Government to bring forward proposals to ease this restriction for domestic and non-domestic small wind turbines before the middle of 2010.
Source:www.bwea.com
For futher information : http://www.bwea.com/media/news/articles/pr20120210.html