The government has launched the second phase of its Low Carbon Buildings Programme, which aims to encourage the take-up of microgeneration in schools, not for profit and public sector buildings.
Over the next 18 months, £50 m in grants will be made available to help fund the installation of photovoltaics, solar hot water panels, micro wind turbines, biomass and ground source heat pumps.
The Renewable Energy Association gave it a cautious welcome. Graham Meaks, head of fuels and heat for the organisation, commented: “This new programme gives public sector organisations a real opportunity to ‘go green’.
With many schools set to benefit, we hope it will have a valuable impact in putting renewableenergy at the heart of our communities.”
He added: “What sort of longer-term impact the Programme will have on the wider micro-renewables market remains to be seen. We are still extremely concerned about the limited and short-term approach of the government’s capital grant policy”
At the launch of the scheme, Alistair Darling secretary of state for Trade and Industry said. “Combining energy efficiency measures with the fitting of micro generation technologies on schools and other public sector buildings can and will make a real difference.”
He also added that the selling of any electricity produced by such technologies back to the national grid is another benefit of having them installed and the scrapping of income tax on re-sales announced in the Pre-Budget Report is a real incentive to increasing local level energy production.
As part of the Programme Solar Century and its partner Scottish and Southern Energy have been appointed by the DTI to supply and install photovoltaic panels.
Source
Building Sustainable Design
