Britain’s government yesterday moved to rein in the spiraling costs of renewable power subsidies, which it said threatened to push up household bills.
The plans include closing support for small-scale solar projects a year early, changing the way renewable projects qualify for payments and modifying subsidies for biomass plants.
The proposals come just a month after the government said it would scrap new subsidies for onshore wind farms from April next year.
‘BLANK CHECK’
“We can’t have a situation where industry has a blank check and that check is paid for by people’s bills,” British Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Amber Rudd said on BBC radio.
Figures published by Britain’s Department of Energy and Climate Change show the cost of renewables subsidies could reach ￡9.1 billion (US$14 billion) a year by the 2020-2021 tax year compared with a proposed budget of ￡7.6 billion.
BIOMASS
The government also confirmed changes to its support for projects to produce power from biomass, which it signaled late last year, saying it would no longer guarantee subsidies offered for biomass conversion projects.
The decision sent shares in power company Drax, which is in the process of converting its coal plants to using biomass, down about 2 percent.
As part of extensive reforms of Britain’s electricity market, the government has been changing the way it supports renewable energy by replacing direct subsidies with a contracts-for-difference (CfD) system.
Under the scheme, qualifying projects are guaranteed a minimum price at which they can sell electricity and renewable power generators bid for CfD contracts in a round of auctions.
However, Rudd on Tuesday cast doubt on whether there would be another auction of CfD renewable support by telling a parliamentary committee she could not confirm it would take place.
Asked to clarify Rudd’s comments, a department spokeswoman said only that decisions on any further CfD auctions would be taken in due course.
Under the first round of auctions held in December last year, the government awarded contracts to 27 renewable projects worth a total of more than ￡315 million.
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