Low Carbon Building Programme

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The Low Carbon Building Programme (LCBP) was a payments system in England, Scotland and Wales. The UK Government programme was administered by BERR (formerly the DTI) and ran from 1 April 2006 until its closure to new applications on 24 May 2010. [1] The scheme was replaced by the Renewable Heat Incentive in November 2011. [2]

Department of Trade and Industry (United Kingdom) 1970-2007 department of the United Kingdom government

The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) was a United Kingdom government department formed on 19 October 1970. It was replaced with the creation of the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform and the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills on 28 June 2007.

The Renewable Heat Incentive is a payment system in England, Scotland and Wales, for the generation of heat from renewable energy sources. Introduced on 28 November 2011, the RHI replaces the Low Carbon Building Programme, which closed in 2010.

Contents

Operation

The LCBP offered grants towards the cost of installing domestic microgeneration technologies and larger scale distributed generation installations for public buildings and businesses, subject to energy conservation standards being met. The programme was split into two phases - phase one, managed by the Energy Saving Trust, divided into two streams, provided grants for householders under stream 1, and grants for businesses under stream 2. Phase two, launched in 2007 and managed by the Building Research Establishment, provided grants for public sector, charitable and third sector organisations.

Microgeneration small-scale generation of heat and electric power

Microgeneration is the small-scale generation of heat and electric power by individuals, small businesses and communities to meet their own needs, as alternatives or supplements to traditional centralized grid-connected power. Although this may be motivated by practical considerations, such as unreliable grid power or long distance from the electrical grid, the term is mainly used currently for environmentally conscious approaches that aspire to zero or low-carbon footprints or cost reduction. It differs from micropower in that it is principally concerned with fixed power plants rather than for use with mobile devices.

Distributed generation, also distributed energy, on-site generation (OSG) or district/decentralized energy is electrical generation and storage performed by a variety of small, grid-connected or distribution system connected devices referred to as distributed energy resources (DER).

Energy conservation reduction in energy usage

Energy conservation is the effort made to reduce the consumption of energy by using less of an energy service. This can be achieved either by using energy more efficiently or by reducing the amount of service used. Energy conservation is a part of the concept of eco-sufficiency. Energy conservation reduces the need for energy services and can result in increased environmental quality, national security, personal financial security and higher savings. It is at the top of the sustainable energy hierarchy. It also lowers energy costs by preventing future resource depletion.

Grants were only offered to installations using products and installers either on "Clear Skies" lists or products and installers assessed and certificated to robust standards under the new Microgeneration Certification Scheme mark (or its equivalent, for products). The first company in the United Kingdom, to install a solar heating system under the Clear Skies Grant Scheme was Eco-Exmoor Ltd. [3]

Grants

Grants were normally in the 10 to 50% range, according to the applicant and the technology. Funding for domestic schemes, restricted to £500,000 per month and allocated on a first-come-first served basis, was well below demand. In January 2007 funds were exhausted within 12 days, [4] and in March 2007 within 75 minutes. [5]

Although funding in the 2007 financial year was increased, as detailed below, there were no domestic grant allocations in April 2007 as the scheme was suspended while it was restructured. [6] The suspension lead to a sudden drop in demand and job losses in the industry. [7]

The revised domestic scheme, launched on 29 May 2007, cut the maximum grant by 50% to £2,500, and required the householder to complete the works within strict time limits. [8]

Funding

Funding for the LCBP was originally set at £30 million for the first three years. [9] £6.5m of this was allocated for domestic installations, £4m for community installations and £18m for others, [10] while £1.5m was reallocated to plug the financial gap that appeared between the earlier programmes ending and the start of the Low Carbon Building Programme.

A further £50 million was announced in the April 2006 budget, which was used to establish phase two of the programme. Phase two used a framework of suppliers and products which had to be used by applicants when applying for a grant. The framework was established through an OJEU tender process, with the intention of providing certainty to the industry and further reducing technology costs through economies of scale.

The schemes replaced by the Low Carbon Building Programme were also seen as being under funded, with only £45m having been invested in them. The Solar PV programme was originally intended to ‘establish the UK as a credible player.... alongside Germany and Japan’, however in 2004 the UK installed 2.5MW of photovoltaic electricity capacity, compared to over 300MW in Germany. [11]

On 21 March 2007, it was announced in the Chancellor of the Exchequer's Budget Statement that the funding of grants for homes would be increased again to £18 million in the new financial year [12] for a new, restructured, scheme. [6]

Closure

The LCBP was closed to new applications on 24 May 2010, as part of a plan by the Department of Energy and Climate Change to cut £85m from its budget as its contribution towards the Coalition Government's spending cuts. [1]

Previous schemes

The LCBP replaced two earlier schemes, the 'Major Photovoltaics Demonstration programme', which assisted with photovoltaic installations, and the 'Clear Skies' programme, which aided other microgeneration installations.

The Government were criticised by the photovoltaic industry for ending the PV programme 6 years early. [13] and also for allowing a funding gap to develop between the old and new programmes, which caused significant disruption to the renewables industry. [14] [15]

See also

Related Research Articles

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References

  1. 1 2 Closure of the Low Carbon Buildings Programme Archived 2011-08-21 at the Wayback Machine , Low Carbon Buildings Programme, accessed 2011-03-11
  2. ↑ Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) Scheme Archived 2011-01-15 at the Wayback Machine , Department of Energy and Climate Change, published 2011-03-10, accessed 2011-03-11
  3. ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2013-12-18. Retrieved 2013-11-16.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  4. ↑ http://www.r-p-a.org.uk/article_default_view.fcm?articleid=2322&subsite=1 r-p-a.org.uk
  5. ↑ http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2024685,00.html business.guardian.co.uk
  6. 1 2 http://www.est.org.uk/uploads/documents/housingbuildings/Extra%206m%20for%20green%20householders.pdf est.org.uk
  7. ↑ http://environment.guardian.co.uk/energy/story/0,,2061739,00.html environment.guardian.co.uk
  8. ↑ http://www.lowcarbonbuildings.org.uk/how/householders/ Archived 2007-05-06 at the Wayback Machine lowcarbonbuildings.org.uk
  9. ↑ http://www.gnn.gov.uk/Content/Detail.asp?ReleaseID=176001&NewsAreaID=2 Archived 2006-05-23 at the Wayback Machine gnn.gov.uk
  10. ↑ http://www.lowcarbonbuildings.org.uk/about/useful/ Archived 2006-09-25 at the Wayback Machine lowcarbonbuildings.org.uk
  11. ↑ http://eeru.open.ac.uk/natta/renewonline/rol60/7.htm eeru.open.ac.uk
  12. ↑ http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/budget/budget_07/bud_bud07_speech.cfm Archived 2007-03-28 at the Wayback Machine hm-treasury.gov.uk
  13. ↑ http://technology.open.ac.uk/eeru/natta/renewonline/rol56/4.htm Archived 2007-06-26 at Archive.today technology.open.ac.uk
  14. ↑ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4338246.stm news.bbc.co.uk
  15. ↑ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5390022.stm news.bbc.co.uk

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