Lead Authority: Lewisham London Borough Council

Proposal theme: Environmental sustainability: Significantly increase the fund for grants for people to install micro-renewables such as solar panels and small wind turbines for their homes (known as the Low Carbon Building Programme).

The current Low Carbon Building Programme is offering £131m in grants for microgeneration technologies (following the announcement of an additional £45 million in the 2009 budget). The main objectives are to demonstrate the potential for encouraging both energy-efficiency and microgeneration technologies in a range of buildings, driving down costs in the process, and making the microgeneration market more sustainable. The Government’s Warm Front programme is targeting insulation for its grant programme, but the Energy Savings Trust has warned that retrofitting insulation will not be enough to help the domestic sector reach its emissions reduction targets by 2020, therefore it will be essential to increase the grants available for installing renewable energy sources.

The cost of changing from fossil fuel energy supplies to renewable energy supplies by the installation of solar panels, wind turbines and any other form of renewable energy generally takes a number of years to be recouped compared to the cost of the fossil fuel energy consumption.  This means a high capital outlay for a family, individual householder or commercial entity.  A grant towards the costs of such installation, provided on a sliding scale according to means, would be a strong incentive for people to take measures to install the most effective means of renewable energy for their particular property.

Solar panels can save up to 70% of a household’s water heating bills and reduce CO2 emissions by up to half a tonne.

The work will provide employment in the area, and priority should be given to using local firms where possible and training local people (and facilitating apprentice schemes). However, there should be safeguards in place to ensure that only competent plumbers/installers are permitted to carry out this work, and customers should always contact previous clients of the workmen to confirm that a satisfactory job has been carried out (to avoid waste of government money).

Significant investment would be worth the investment in terms of reducing use of fossil fuels and carbon emissions, as well as reducing fuel bills.