Get Sust! Issue 25

What would you do with £50 million?

Phase 2 of the DTI’s Low Carbon Building Programme (LCPB) has recently opened - offering around £50 million-worth of grants to encourage the uptake of renewable energy technologies.

Specifically, the Phase 2 grants are available for the installation of microgeneration technologies in public sector buildings including local authority housing, housing association properties and schools. The scheme is also open to buildings belonging to charitable bodies. Applicants can receive up to £1 million to install:

solar photovoltaic
solar thermal hot water
wind turbines
ground source heat pumps
automated wood pellet stoves
wood-fuelled boilers.

Renewable energy technologies have been viewed as an expensive “luxury”, but these grants, plus on-going improvements in manufacturing and installation techniques, means that these technologies are becoming more cost-effective.

Once the technologies are installed they will, of course, include the ability to sell surplus electricity back to the National Grid; and the government recently announced that income tax on these re-sales is to be scrapped.

Learn more:

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For more information on the grants and how to apply for them, visit www.lowcarbonbuildingsphase2.org.uk.