Green energy push planned for UK
As many as a quarter of British homes could be fitted with solar heating panels under new government plans for a “green revolution”.
Energy Minister Malcolm Wicks told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the new proposals are “the most ambitious” such strategy that Britain has seen.
The goal is to meet the EU target of 15% of energy from renewables by 2020.
But at a time of consumer anger over fuel prices, the plan concedes that green power will cost more.
The plan will also call for 3,500 new wind turbines to be erected across the UK, the Guardian newspaper reported.
The total price tag for the proposals is pegged at £100 billion.
Mr Wicks said the plans, which may include measures to force homeowners to improve the energy efficiency of their homes, were aimed at dramatically increasing Britain’s energy supplies from renewables by 2020.
You will see this week a real determination by the government to move towards 15% of all of our energy from renewables by 2020,” he told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. “That is a green revolution.”
Mr Wicks insisted there was now a “huge momentum” in renewable energy provision and said the government would ensure that carbon emission reduction was the “core concept behind our energy strategy”.
He described the proposals as “the most ambitious renewable energy strategy for Britain that we have ever seen”.
Britain currently gets less than 5% of its electricity from renewables, mainly wind.
According to the Guardian, which has seen a copy of the government plan, the proposals seek a 30-fold increase in off-shore wind power generation, new loans and grants for businesses to increase green energy supply and a compulsory measure on households to boost efficiency.
The plans recognise that the new energy policy could transform large areas of Britain’s landscape and have a “significant impacts on all our lives…not all of these positive”, the Guardian reported.