The Low Carbon Buildings Programme with a budget of £86 million over three years provides capital grants for the installation of microgeneration to households, schools, social and local authority housing, businesses, charities and the public sector. Further information on the programme can be found at:
www.lowcarbonbuildings.org.uk
The Government also place a requirement on all licensed electricity suppliers to supply a specific and annually increasing proportion of their sales from sources of renewable energy. Suppliers who fail to meet their obligation in this way have, instead, to make a payment of £34.30 for each MWh of electricity which they do not supply from renewable sources. This obligation means that consumers will, to some degree depending on how their supplier is meeting their obligation, already be consuming electricity from renewable sources.
The Government recognise the need for transparency to allow consumers to make informed decisions when considering whether to switch to a green tariff and both Ofgem and the Energy Savings Trust have recently published consultations on this issue.