Last Saturday the Guardian devoted a four page supplement to the Feed-In
tariff, the scheme that earns you money for installing photovoltaic
solar panels on your roof. "Fit" as it is known, guarantees you 41p for
every unit of electricity the panels generate, as well as the 14p you
save from not having to buy the electricity.
The Guardian's Miles Brignal, says "So what's the catch? There isn't
one." For home owners this may be true. But is 'fit' a good policy? And
is it an equitable one?
The issues of Climate Change are wider than electricity generation and
must include proper concern for social justice, both in Europe and the
Global South. So who pays for 'fit'? Unfortunately, we all do, and as
usual, when we all pay, the disadvantaged pay more. The subsidy is paid
by the electricity producers, who in turn will claw it back from our
electricity bills. While I have been able to afford to insulate the
house, buy energy efficient fridges and boilers and reduce my
electricity demand to less than 2,000 units (1 tonne CO2 emissions) a
year, there are 3 million households classified as 'Fuel poor', who can
neither afford to pay their electricity bills nor make the improvements
that might help them economise. They will face a further £300 on their
electricity bills to cover the cost of 'fit'.
So should you install PV? Yes – if it's part of your plan for the
complete upgrade of your house and this is the right moment in that
plan. We are going ahead because if we don't do it now, while we are
fixing the roof, technical issues means we will have missed the
opportunity.
Climate change work is full of these contradictions, but we hope that
Cambridge Carbon Footprint can help you work through them. But it sticks
in the craw that this tiny contribution to UK renewables comes at such
personal gain to us and such personal cost to others.
Corroboration from George Monbiot!
There is more discussion in the Ethical Consumer magazine september/october 2010 issue, which also provides rankings for PV panel manufacturers. Top of their list were GB-sol (manufactured in Wales) , Solarcentury
and Solarworld, Suntech, Yingli . At the bottom were Schott, Sanyo and BP .
More about Fuel Poverty and the inability of current policies to address it in Brenda Boardman's latest book, "Fixing Fuel Poverty" (Earthscan 2010)
More info about FIT at DECC and EST and Cambridge info from Transition Cambridge.
There
I can't really recommend installers, but various Cambridge Carbon Footprint supporters have been happy with
Solarworks Ltd , Chelsfield Solar and Midsummer Energy
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