Overhauling solar grants by leaving them “same old same old”

When is an overhaul not an overhaul? The answer is simple; when the Government of England and Wales adjusts an incentive program without really making any changes.

 

The Low Carbon Building Programme has been “overhauled”. The scheme is in effect a way of subsidising householders who want to install some form of microgeneration.  The most popular microgeneration of energy that householders want to undertake is to install solar water heating systems. It is also the most economically viable and the most useful, a fact recognised throughout the world.

 

The scheme also provides a 30% subsidy for not for profit organisations to install renewable microgeneration which is being increased.

 

The case for subsidy or incentivising this form of energy creation is quite straightforward. A householder investing in microgeneration pays a capital sum for his or her own benefit in the long term, but in committing the capital he saves everyone the cost of coping with excessive carbon emissions to an extent.

 

Of course in the case of microgeneration for schools, I cannot understand why there is a need for any subsidy at all for these institutions already funded at state expense; appropriate microgeneration should be installed on all state funded institutions. The state is in effect sending its own institutions round with a begging bowl for the unfunded portion of the “subsidy”.

 

The householder does have a reasonable return on investment but the return for the public good, in terms of fossil fuel saving, reduced emissions and national energy independence is also very great and accordingly the householder ought to be rewarded in terms of some kind of incentive.

 

I would prefer some kind of tax rebate as an incentive but the government has chosen a very modest direct grant system; you can claim £400 provided you jump through the hoops of the grant application.

 

The problem is that the grant is only available conditional upon the householder having undertaken certain energy saving measures which have nothing to do with water heating; these include loft and cavity wall insulation and low energy light bulbs. The cost of compliance with these conditions (which I repeat at the risk of boring you) will not save a gram of carbon dioxide that is inevitably spent in heating your domestic water.

 

I do not know which genius devised these grant conditions but since their implementation in the name of a “holistic” approach to carbon saving, has led to the budget for this part of the grant programme instead of being used up within a matter of six months, the grant “budget” will last (if the present numbers of people applying continue) for around five years. In other words fewer measures to save carbon being undertaken as a direct result of the incentive programme.

 

Mr Wicks who is the Energy Minister has spun these minor adjustments to an incentive programme which is fundamentally flawed to an overhaul that the grants will now last to 2010, or sooner if used up, instead of to the original shorter deadline. In other words the failure of householders to claim the grant is now claimed to be overhauled so that the same money will last longer than anticipated because many fewer people are bothering to claim it.

 

Mr Wicks has said “Overhauling the grants system makes small scale green energy technology more affordable.” That is true but the trouble is that he has not overhauled the system at all.

 

What is does overhaul mean in ordinary everyday usage, and not it the special meaning of the word that Mr Wicks applies? It is the making of necessary repairs, or the restoration of something into a serviceable or useful condition.

 

If we overhauled plant and equipment in the way that Mr Wicks has overhauled the grant programme we would have plant and equipment that would not be fit to use; a bit like the present Low Carbons Building programme for householders.

 

If as a nation we are to be serious about making emission savings we ought to have an incentive programme that operates as an incentive, not as an opportunity to make false claims about things that are not happening. Saving emissions by thermal solar technology is well known and used significantly in most of the developed world, except the United Kingdom.

 

Sometimes it is good to be different but sometimes being different is simply foolish.

 

 

An array of Genersys panels installed in Tenesssee, United States of America