Increased Incentives Means More Green Power

Image by Getty Images via @daylifeby Lizzie Westminster

Governments around the globe are using incentives to try to cut their carbon footprint on the planet, this has led to a huge take up in interest in producing green energy from all areas of communities. The UK is one of the country's leading the way in this globally important field.

At sustainable energy seminars, workshops and meetings around the country local residents, businesses large and small, landlords, property developers and farmers are learning how they could benefit from producing their own renewable energy.

One reason for an increase in interest in renewable energy generation is the impending implementation of the governments Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) which has increased not only the interest, but excitement about potential opportunities.

The RHI payments scheme is aimed at promoting the generation of energy by providing payments over a period of 20 years to bridge the financial gap between the cost of conventional and renewable heat systems. The RHI scheme should not be confused with the longer standing electricity feed in tariffs for more general electricity, the new scheme is only for power used to generate heat. The scheme starts in July 2011 for non domestic premises, however it is hoped that a domestic version can be supported from October 2012.

Interest in renewable energy generation of all kinds is gathering momentum and again the UK is at the forefront, with farmers and landowners all over the country looking at the issues around planning permission for wind turbines as they look to create additional income streams from the land by investing in wind farm technology.

The planning issues around intentions can be complex and usually requires the intervention of a rural planning consultant or chartered surveyor. Recent news stories about the inefficiencies of large-scale wind farming has seen a growth of interest in smaller arrays of turbines in suitable areas of the country, these have less of a visual impact and are likely to meet with less objections from the local community and planning offices.

Solar power is now looking very attractive to investors and small-scale users alike, perhaps the 2 main driving forces of this are the previously mentioned debate about the efficiency of wind farming and the constantly improving Photo Voltaic (PV) technology.

With ever-increasing output and better storage and distribution abilities solar energy has become an attractive option, combined with the potential payments from the RHI scheme more and more people and businesses are looking to utilise their south-facing aspects in this way. All other renewable sources have also seen interest rise as a result of the new incentives, biomass boilers, ground source heat pumps and biogas to name but a few are all becoming the topic of hot debate.

Now is the time to consider your carbon emissions from home or business and look into how to reduce them while the incentives exist. Using naturally renewable sources such as wind power, solar energy or water if you have it makes perfect sense in today's world, the rising cost of fossil fuels, the damage they do to the environment and the availability of tax breaks, incentives, feed in tariffs and a host of other grants and financial aids means that not only can you save money but you can also turn a healthy profit and almost negate the cost of initial investment. Perhaps we can change the world after all.

Liz Westminster is an author with a keen interest in all environmental matters, she passionately believes that the time is here when we need to seriously attempt change in how we deplete the planet's natural resources. With no wish to become a Luddite or technologically retarded in anyway she is continually investigating sensible ways to change our reliance on fossil fuels and oil dependency.

When it comes to green energy she believes every one of us should take responsibility for our own environment and encourage businesses to do the same by practicing responsible consumerism, if we only support environmentally aware businesses, more of them will become environmentally aware in an effort to gain our business.

Resources used in this article:

Wind turbine planning specialists H & H Bowe Chartered Surveyors.
Build Your Own Home with green energy built in at build-houses.com.

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