How Green Energy Solutions Can Pay Off
Our government promised that by 2020, at least 15 per cent of the energy used in Britain would come from renewable energy sources. However, they must have been having a tough time fulfilling this pledge on their own, because all sorts of schemes have been introduced which mean that you can be paid for generating your own solar, hydro, wind or geo-thermal electricity. In fact, if you use any type of sustainable energy source to power your home, you could get paid for it. And if you don’t currently have a solar panel on your roof, or a wind turbine in your garden, I certainly think this article will give you an incentive to get one!
While the UK has come leaps and bounds in renewable energy production in leaps and bounds, we still have a long way to go to reach our target. As a result, the government has introduced something called a “feed-in tariff”, as a way of encouraging people to generate their own electricity using the sun, the wind, or any other renewable resource they have to hand. The feed-in tariff works in two ways.
The generation tariff
The generation tariff means that you can be paid for any electricity you generate using your renewable resource, even though you’ve used that electricity in your own home. And, in most cases, you don’t pay tax on the money you earn via the generation tariff.
The export or exportation tariff
The export tariff allows you to effectively sell your unused electricity to the National Grid for the country to use in whatever way it needs to. Selling your unused electricity back into the National Grid will make more money per kilowatt than you would make under the generation tariff.
You might be thinking that this sounds too good to be true, but it actually isn’t – you genuinely can make money in this way. Of course, the catch is that you need to have some sort of generator fitted to your house, such as solar panels or a wind turbine. These types of generators can be expensive to install, and for many people, parting with thousands of pounds in a huge lump sum is completely out of the question. Also, some people may find that their house is not suitable to support a renewable energy generator in the first place.
In addition, you may find during some months that the energy supplied by your solar panels, wind turbines and so on is not enough to fulfil your energy needs – in which case, you’d have to buy electricity from your provider as you normally would.
However, despite these practicalities, you may find that it’s really worth your while to look into getting solar panels or wind turbines installed. Energy suppliers such as British Gas offer packages which make the transition from mains electricity to your home-made, eco-friendly electricity as smooth as possible, meaning you can be up and running in no time at all.
Article by Connor Sephton, 15th December 2011. Content correct at the date of publication.
|
RSS | 