last updated 6th October 05
by 4ecotips.com

Householders and community projects

New capital grant programmes, for community and household applications of renewable energy technologies, have been launched by Government. In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, the DTI has announced the 'Clear Skies' programme (www.clear-skies.org).
This programme offers capital grant support for a range of renewable energy technologies (solar thermal, wind, hydro, wood pellet stoves and woodfuel boilers) including closed-loop ground-source heat pumps. 'Clear Skies' offers £1200 per installation for approved closed-loop, ground-source heat pumps.

In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, this DTI programme is managed by BRE. In Scotland, under the auspices of the Scottish Executive, a parallel grant programme has been launched. Called the 'Scottish Community Renewables Initiative' (www.est.org.uk/scri/) the scope is very similar. SCRI is administered by the Energy Saving Trust in conjunction with Highlands & Islands Enterprise. For 'SCRI', ground-source heat pumps must operate on a 'green electricity' supply.

The £10 million 'Clear Skies' Initiative aims to give homeowners and communities a chance to become more familiar with renewable energy by providing grants and advice.

Homeowners can obtain grants between £500 to £5000, whilst community organisations can receive up to £100,000 or 50% of project costs for grants and feasibility studies, whichever is the lower. The grant support available for domestic heat pump installations is £1,200, irrespective of system size. Typical system costs are given as being in the range £4,000 to £6,000.

Both 'Clear Skies' and 'SCRI' initiatives are intended to work in the same way, namely, installers of heat pumps (and other technologies) will be required to be accredited. There are to be accreditation processes for each technology, which will be based on installers demonstrating relevant experience and, in due course, it is intended that there should be installer-training programmes.

In the initial phases of the two initiatives, following Provisional Accreditation, installers will be able to install two systems with grant support, pending full accreditation. The details of fully accredited installers will be made available in published lists and on the dedicated websites.