What is a Feed in Tariff (FiT)?

WHAT’S ALL THE FUSS ABOUT GETTING FiTs IN THE NEW YEAR?:

The UK Government is to support a new era of small-scale renewable electricity with the announcement on Monday 01.02.2010 of the final structure of Feed-in Tariffs (FiTs) for small-scale generators.

FiTs are a per-unit support payment (p/kWh) for electricity generation and are already widely in operation in other EU Member States to support renewables.

The Government claims the introduction of FiTs on April 1 2010 will signify a major departure from how small low-carbon generators in the UK are currently rewarded.

The new FiT scheme, to be unveiled on Monday morning by Energy Minister Ed Miliband is designed to “provide the right level of simplicity” to encourage non-energy professionals to invest in small-scale generation.

It will provide non-taxable, cash-linked incentives to encourage those generators to consume the electricity they generate and become more energy efficient while they do so.

The scheme will operate on two levels and allows fixed payment from the electricity supplier for every kilowatt hour (kWh) generated, known as the “generation tariff”.

Another payment will be made additional to the generation tariff for every kWh exported to the wider energy market, to be called the “export tariff”.

The renewable technologies that will qualify for FITs payments are anaerobic digestion, biomass, hydro, Photovoltaic (PV) solar panels and wind.

Only small-scale generators with a capacity of up to 5 megawatt can be considered for inclusion and both the installer and the equipment must be accredited by the Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS).

According to the proposals, generators will be guaranteed a market for their exports at a long-term guaranteed price. The generator may choose whether to sell exported electricity to the supplier at this guaranteed export tariff, or negotiate a price for exported electricity in the open market.

In addition, generators will benefit because they will have the opportunity to use that electricity on-site to offset some or all of the electricity they would otherwise have had to buy.

He will also reveal details of a renewable heat scheme (RHI), which will be launched following a similar FiT-style consultation next year. Reference 'Click Green' 31.01.2010

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