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Renewable Energy & You - Part Two.

Picking up where the last blog left off, here I'll be telling you about Feed-In Tariffs (FITs) and the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) available from the government when you produce your own energy. You can even get paid for energy you use yourself, so not only will you make savings but also a profit.

I'll also touch on some of the grants available to make these changes to your home. There used to be thousands of pounds available to anyone who wanted to switch to renewable energy. The grants have slowly diminished, but there is still money to be grabbed if you know where to look.


Feed-In Tariffs
If you have any of the electricity generating technologies described in yesterdays' post, you may be eligible for payments from your energy provider. The 'Big 6' energy companies are required by law to make these payments, but smaller providers aren't so if you're with one of these check if they have 'opted in' to the scheme. The technology and its installer must be certified under the Microgeneration Certification scheme, so be very careful when choosing who will do the work.

How FITs work.
1. Electricity is generated by your solar panels (or other generator) and your energy provider pays you for each unit you generate.
2. You use that electricity in your home, saving money as you're not importing it from the grid.
3. You export any excess electricity back to the grid, at which point you receive further payment for each unit.
4. If you're not generating enough electricity for your needs, you import electricity from the grid at your usual tariff price.

Benefits.
Generation Tariffs are paid for every unit of electricity you produce, whether it's used in your home or exported back to the grid. The price per unit you will receive can range from 9p/unit up to 28p/unit depending on the type of technology providing it.
Export Tariffs are paid at an extra 3.2p/KWh for every unit that gets exported back to the grid.
Energy Bill Savings will be made, as you don't have to import as much electricity from the grid. The lower your energy usage, the more you could save as you'll generate a higher percentage of your own electricity.

Your average solar energy system with a size of 3kWp could save you around £670/year when these benefits are combined.

Renewable Heat Incentive
This is a much newer incentive that the government is still working on, so details are still unclear on the eventual tariffs that will be paid out, however Phase One has already been introduced. Phase One is called the Renewable Heat Premium Payment and is a grant available to anyone who wishes to install appropriate sized renewable heat systems. Phase Two of the scheme will deal with the tariffs paid to those who have these systems, however as details are not finalised being eligible for the RHPP grant does not mean you will be eligible for the payment tariffs when they're eventually brought in.

Benefits will be much the same as the FIT benefits, in that you'll be paid for the heat you generate and save on your heating bills by using your own heat. However since you can't export the heat anywhere there will be no export tariffs.


Grants
There are three main sources you can get grants from; the government, energy suppliers and your local council.

The government has different schemes available for households on particular benefits and for people over a certain age. These schemes are for making your home more energy efficient; upgrading the boiler, insulating the loft etc. There are also other schemes available for cavity wall insulation.

The Carbon Emission Reduction Target (CERT) means energy suppliers with a certain number of customers in the country are required to reach targets for improving home energy efficiency. To reach these targets the companies make a variety of options available to put in energy efficiency measures, from free low-flow shower heads to significantly reduced boilers. An added bonus is that you don't have to get these improvements from your own energy supplier - you can get them from any of the suppliers that are required to provide them.

Your local council can also provide energy-saving grants for local residents to make energy efficient improvements to their home.

For information on all these sources check out this website.

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