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Renewable Energy

Volume 496: debated on Wednesday 9 September 2009

To ask the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change what the size is of the fund established for the clean energy cash-back scheme announced in the UK Low Carbon Transition Plan; and from which heading of his Department's budget the payments will be drawn. (288568)

The clean energy cash back scheme comprises two policies, the Feed-In Tariffs (FITs) for small scale low-carbon electricity, which will take effect from April 2010, and the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI), which will be implemented in 2011.

We are currently consulting on the detail of the FITs scheme. We do not propose to set limits on the total amount of funding available from the scheme. Payments to generators under the scheme will not be made from the Department’s budget, but from electricity suppliers.

Powers were taken in the Energy Act 2008 which allow the RHI to be funded through a levy on fossil fuel suppliers. We will be consulting on the detail of the RHI later in 2009.