Environmental legislation 'boosted green energy market'

Environmental legislation has been praised for boosting the domestic green energy market.

According to Laurie Eve, director of Source Renewable, the government's feed-in-tariff (FIT) scheme has encouraged the uptake of renewable fuel in households across the UK.

He said since the initiative was introduced in April 2010, it has "really kickstarted the whole industry", as it offers incentives for small-scale, low-carbon electricity by offsetting the cost of the energy generated from the technology.

"Before the FITs, a solar PV (photovoltaic) installation would probably take 25 to 30 years to pay for itself, whereas now a typical domestic installation would take eight to ten years to pay for itself," Mr Eve commented.

He added that the scheme has been well thought-out and well implemented, despite saying there is still room to improve it.

Earlier in the month, Ofgem revealed that there were more than 16,000 domestic renewable energy installations accredited with FITs last year.

Posted by Joseph Hutton