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Low Carbon Buildings Programme - Solar PV Launch Event

Malcolm Wicks MP,  Minister of State for Energy
University of East London,  10 March 2008

Government is often involved in decisions and announcements about renewable electricity generation on a large scale. The projects that grab the headlines are things like the London Array, to which we gave final approval last year, and which will be the largest offshore windfarm in the world, or our recent launch of a feasibility study into harnessing the tidal power of the river Severn, a project which could ultimately provide 5% of the UK’s electricity from a renewable source.

It’s not surprising that people focus on these exciting and ambitious schemes. They’re important for the country, and individual people can help by supporting them, even if it means seeing a wind turbine in the distance from a top-floor window. But there’s also a huge amount that people can do more directly, both in terms of saving energy, which is something I’d like everyone to do, and in terms of microgeneration, which in its own way can be every bit as important as the great engineering projects that cost millions or billions of pounds.

Today, we have a great opportunity to see an example of microgeneration in practice. Here we have 2 examples of small-scale renewables: photovoltaics and a wind turbine, which together will generate enough electricity to power the 800 computers in the building and help power the business incubator units.

While paying tribute to everyone who’s worked to bring this about, I’d also like to claim a little credit for the Government - because this installation is one of the many schemes benefiting from our Low Carbon Buildings Programme.

Through this programme, we have made £86 million available to help with the upfront costs of installing microgeneration - including solar panels, heat pumps, wind turbines and biomass boilers, and we welcome applications from householders, public sector bodies and charities.

This particular project was funded from the £50 million specifically for public sector bodies and charities. One of the aims of the project is to achieve economies of scale and help bring down costs. I know that costs of installing PV and other forms of microgeneration can be high, and we want to make it easier for organisations such as UEL to choose to install these technologies. The Low Carbon Buildings Programme provides a 50% grant for PV installations, such as we see here today, and I hope other Universities, as well as other public sector and charitable organisations, will take advantage of the opportunity that LCBP provides and follow this example. You might know that we already have PV installed on one of my Department’s buildings, in Bloomsbury. I’ve also asked my officials to look into the possibility of adding on-site renewables to the Department’s headquarters in Westminster, and our other buildings, and we are consulting with the Carbon Trust about the feasibility of the various options.

We need to make sure that organisations that are eligible under phase 2 of the Low Carbon Buildings Programme know that they’re eligible, and know what’s possible with the technologies that are on offer. We’ll be doing more to make sure people are aware of it, and over the next few months we’ll be hosting a series of events around the country to explain the processes to people and show them how the scheme can help them. But it’s also important that organisations that have benefited, such as this university, tell others about what they’ve done. Please, get out there, talk to other Universities and schools and let them come and see what you’ve done here.

You will all know that we have signed up to an EU wide target of 20% of all energy - transport, heat and electricity - coming from renewable sources by 2020. Following that, we are now proposing a new Renewable Energy Strategy and will be consulting on it in the early summer. They’re extremely challenging targets, and we clearly have some way to go - much of this will come from larger scale renewables but microgeneration also has an important role to play.

At the moment, there are about 100,000 microgeneration installations in the UK, but we believe this could be greatly increased. Almost exactly 2 years ago, we launched a strategy that aims to make microgeneration more commonplace, and I am pleased to say that this is progressing well. We have already removed many of the barriers to more widespread uptake of microgeneration.

I’m currently working on taking the Energy Bill through Committee in the House of Commons, and the changes that we’re making through that bill will enable microgenerators to claim twice as many ROCs - the Renewable Obligation Certificates that everyone who makes electricity from a renewable source is entitled to - as they can now. Along with exemption from the climate change levy, the Renewables Obligation will be worth up to £1bn per year to the renewables industry by 2010. We have also made changes to make claiming them an easier process.

We know that people want to sell electricity that they generate, but don’t use themselves back to the grid. This is already possible, but we want to make the mechanism more transparent, and so we have encouraged energy suppliers to offer export tariffs and many now do so. I encourage you to find out what rate you can get - perhaps in the holidays or Friday afternoons when the students have logged off, you’ll be able to export quite a lot of electricity back to the grid!

I’m sometimes asked why people need planning permission to install solar panels on their roofs but not, for example, a satellite dish. I think this is a fair point, and I know from my own attempts to install a wind turbine on my roof how difficult planning can be in practice. So I’m pleased that we will shortly be bringing in changes that allow householders to install some microgeneration technologies such as PV without needing planning permission. However, I understand there are still issues to resolve on permitted development for micro wind and air source heat pumps. We are also looking at extending this to non-domestic buildings such as this one.

We have recently made the very ambitious commitment that all new homes will be zero carbon by 2016. We have had a very positive response to this. People can relate to the idea of living in an environmentally friendly home, generating their own heating and electricity.

The new Microgeneration Certification Scheme evaluates products and installers against robust criteria for each microgeneration technology, providing greater protection for consumers - and it also covers the likely performance of the technologies and a Consumer Code of Practice. This will allow people to make decisions on which technologies are appropriate to them with confidence. With over 400 companies registered on the installer scheme, we’re making good progress.

We’re also working to ensure that accurate information and advice is available to planners, to the public, to architects and to the construction industry on other aspects of microgeneration.

The installation of microgeneration in a public setting, as we see here today, can make a significant impact in terms of engaging people in tackling climate change. I know that projects like this do inspire other people to install sustainable energy measures in their own homes, and I do hope that everyone who studies and works at the University of East London is sufficiently proud of it to encourage others to follow this excellent example.