Ed Davey urges UK to invest in community energy

Published March 1, 2016

The UK must keep investing in community energy, which is the “sector of renewables that will weather the storm” of political uncertainty, former energy secretary Ed Davey has insisted.

Speaking at an investor conference, Davey, who is chairman of community energy firm Mongoose Energy, called for continued investment in renewable community energy resources “despite some fairly unwelcome announcements from the election”. Those announcements included

Discontinuing support for the Green Deal Finance Company.
Killing off the Green Deal and the Green Deal Home Improvement Fund.
Abolishing feed-in tariff pre-accreditation.
Scrapping the Code for Sustainable Homes.
Removing tax relief on community energy schemes.
Abolishing the zero-carbon standard for new homes.
Scrapping the zero- carbon non-domestic buildings standard.
Cancelling the competition for carbon capture and storage technology.
Ending the Allowable Solutions carbon-offsetting scheme.
Closing the climate change levy exemption for zero-carbon energy.
Cutting £700 million from the Renewable Heat Incentive budget.
Increasing VAT on energy-saving measures.
Reduction of the feed-in tariff by up to 65% but pulling back from a proposed 87% reduction following industry pressure.
Ending new public subsidies for onshore wind.
Closing the Renewable Obligation early.
Reducing the guaranteed level of renewable obligation subsidy given to fossil-fuelled power stations converting to biomass.
Introducing a second reverse capacity market auction creating an unexpected boost to the diesel generator market.

“I think this country has to keep investing in renewable resources, despite moves from the Department of Energy and Climate change.”