Tories plan £300m green energy revolution to avoid nuclear option
Thursday, 6 December 2007
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A Tory government would spend up to £300m on a "green energy revolution" by encouraging householders, small businesses, schools and hospitals to create their own electricity from renewable sources. The Tory leader, David Cameron, will announce today that his party would scrap grants for people who install wind turbines, solar panels or combined heat and power generators. Instead, it would guarantee prices for electricity created by householders through a system in "feed-in tariffs".
The reforms could help a future Conservative administration avoid building more nuclear power stations if it was successful in reducing carbon emissions. At present, the Tories say they would use nuclear power as a "last resort" but have not ruled it out.
Unveiling his Green Paper, Mr Cameron will promise to create a "safer and greener" Britain by adopting a decentralised system of producing energy on the model of countries such as Germany and the Netherlands. His pledge to go "from laggards to world leaders" on green energy is part of a policy offensive aimed at telling voters what a Tory government would do.
Mr Cameron will argue that by relying on government and big energy companies, Britain has been heavily reliant on fossil fuels and that too much energy is wasted through heat loss and distributing power to the consumer. A "do-it-yourself" approach would give people a direct interest in saving energy, he will say.
The Tories would streamline the planning laws to make it quicker and easier to install micro-generating equipment. They would ensure there was a market in which it was as easy to sign a contract to create electricity as to buy a mobile phone. Surplus electricity would be sold to the local network for more than the market price.
Smart meters to measure the electricity flowing in and out of homes and offices would be available free to anyone installing DIY energy equipment.
In the short term, the cost of kickstarting the switch to low carbon energy would be met by abolishing existing grant schemes for micro-generation. The long-term bill of between 200m and 300m would be found from the auction of permits under the EU's emissions trading scheme.
Ofgem, the regulator, would be obliged to cut carbon emissions by encouraging decentralised energy.
The Tory policy document will say: "In the face of the enormous challenge of man-made climate change, "business as usual"or the incremental adaptation of our economy is not enough. Britain needs dynamic industrial change if it is going to compete and win in the new low carbon era."
John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace UK, said: "Cameron gets it. But where's Brown? Guaranteed higher prices for clean electricity have kick-started the green energy revolution in Europe. It's high time Britain joined in."
What the party is proposing
* Decentralised energyto play "major part" in meeting Britain's needs.
* Every household, small business, school, hospital able to generate electricity through micro-generation.
* Feed-in tariffs to guarantee fixed price for electricity from decentralised, low carbon sources such as wind power, photovoltaic, combined heat and power, biomass, waste and micro-hydro.
* Any person or organisation allowed to install a low carbon generating appliance of below 250kW using accredited professional.
* Credits on electricity bills for surplus amounts fed into local network.
