With 48% of British people willing to pay more towards investment in renewable energy and tackling climate change and solar PV generating enough energy last year to power over a million typical households in the south of England, the renewables industry has enjoyed strong growth recently, with consumer interest growing.
To maintain this, NAPIT is pushing for continued stable government support through the Feed in Tariff (FiT). This would enable the domestic market for solar PV to continue on the trajectory to cost-neutral and no longer need government support, providing a stable future for solar PV installers.
To ensure this happens the government must leave the FiT scheme untouched, allowing the continuation of stable growth while managing costs through effective degression. Through recently published campaign infographics, NAPIT has effectively summarised the FiT policy and set out potential risks and proposals to mitigate these.
The renewable heat market is also receiving a boost through government policies such as the domestic Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) and a £3 million fund announced earlier this year to aid low carbon heating. With nearly 2,000 installers registered to install renewable heat technologies and over 9,000 installed over the course of a year this market has generated significant interest.
However, as it stands, the RHI budget is only ring-fenced until March 2016 with no promise of funding beyond this. NAPIT is calling for the government to announce its intention to continue the domestic RHI as soon as possible to ensure installers have long-term certainty and incentive reason to invest in upskilling.
Other changes to the domestic RHI would also create a more stable environment and increase interest in renewable heating such as: introducing third party finance to encourage new sources of investment, re-aligning tariffs to ensure the scheme is technology agnostic and targeting conventional heating installers with diverse training offerings could broaden the supply chain.
David Cowburn, managing director of NAPIT Certification, said: “We mustn’t let the positivity seen in the renewables industry go to waste. If an announcement is made confirming the ambition of the government to continue funding the domestic RHI and the FiT remains in place then there is no reason this growing market can’t become a strong contributor to meeting the UK’s legally binding target of 15% renewable energy by 2020. Installers have the opportunity to position and differentiate themselves as industry leaders if they get trained and certified to install these technologies now.”
Drawing on feedback from members, NAPIT has provided campaign infographics to call for changes to be made to help grow this industry and give new MPs and influential organisations in the sector an insight into the way big policy decisions affect the lives of hardworking installers across the country.
The NAPIT Campaign RHI and FiT infographic is available to view on the NAPIT website.
To expand your business into renewable technologies for the domestic market, it makes sense to gain approval under the Microgeneration Certification Scheme, particularly if your customers want to be eligible for various government initiatives such as the domestic RHI or FiT.