Renewable grants in doubt
The Government has closed the Low Carbon Building Programme (LCBP) to new applications as part of its first round of public spending cuts.
However, some industry figures have expressed the concern that this, along with continuing uncertainty over the proposed Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI), would undermine confidence in the long-term prospects of the renewable and low carbon building market. The consultation about the RHI ended on April 26 and no decision has yet been announced.
The LCBP grant programme delivered around 20,000 grants for the capital and installation costs of microgeneration equipment and the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has promised to honour the £63m worth of grant applications still in the pipeline – assuming they make it through the assessment process. Originally, the plan was for the LCBP to continue until the launch of the RHI in April 2011, but DECC said that much of the LCBP money was already allocated so the impact on the market would not be that significant. The early closure has only saved the department about £3m.
Stuart Pocock, technical director at the Renewable Energy Association (REA), urged the coalition to clear up any doubt over the RHI: “The lack of certainty on the RHI means many of our member's projects are on hold and the industry cannot move forward. If you are trying to run a business, sudden announcements on valuable funding streams like this are obviously unhelpful and contribute to a growing sense of uncertainty," he said.
However, M&E Sustainability chairman Jim O'Neil (left) said grants for renewables were not necessarily the right policy. He urged the sector to "focus on the basics of good engineering and in ensuring our buildings are fit for purpose rather than chasing grant support for solutions that are often not appropriate".
“Too much money is being thrown at renewables in order to make them more financially attractive because the economics don’t stack up,” added Mr O’Neil, who is also technical services director at Shepherd Engineering Services. “That money would be much better spent on retrofitting existing homes and buildings to get them up to energy efficiency standards.
“We should also be backing the design of low carbon rather than zero carbon new buildings because the latter are too expensive to build,” he said.
“I would also urge the new government to outline how it is going to support the programme, identified by Chief Construction Officer Paul Morrell, of retrofitting 2,000 homes a day to meet our long term carbon reduction targets.”