Dec 01 2011
Households taxed £260 a year for Nuclear Energy but less than £2 for Solar PV
The Government’s rationale for cutting the Feed-in Tariff for Solar PV so fast and so drastically is that it is a necessary measure in order to keep expenditure of Feed-in Tariffs in check. Many reports in the media and statements by ministers themselves have suggested that Solar PV is costing households a large amount on their energy bills (the Feed-in Tariff is considered levy on energy bills by the Treasury and therefore labelled a form of taxation). We are concerned that the Government and the large energy companies are not being transparent about how much of taxpayers money gets spent on the various energy technologies and misleading people into believing the cost of renewable is higher than it really is.
As an example, according to an email seen by Engensa from the energy regulator Ofgem, officials have calculated that the cost of the Feed-in Tariff to household energy bills is less than £1 per year. This agrees with Engensa’s own research found here. In contrast, the UK tax payer pays hundreds of times more than this towards the cost of decommissioning nuclear power stations and looking after the nuclear waste they generate. According to the Government’s own figures, £6.93bn of taxpayers money was given to the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority in 2010-2011, which equates to £260 per household.
As Green Party leader Caroline Lucas MP pointed out in a recent speech, when there are dozens of Big 6 employees working inside Parliament contributing to policy as secondees, and hordes of energy company lobbyists pushing for the decisions they want, it is very important that the Government is absolutely transparent about the costs and benefits of the various options so that the public, not big companies, can decide.
www.engensa.com
Tags
carbon emissions China Clean energy cash back Climate change DECC Department of Energy and Climate Change Ed Milliband electricity energy act Energy Bill feed in tariff FIT fossil fuels Friends of the Earth Germany Gordon Brown green energy green investment green new deal green policy Greg Barker Kevin Langley Megawatts National grid photovoltaic PV renewable energy solar solar energy Solar Feed In Tariff solar fit solar industry solar installation solar investment solar investments solar panels solar power solar products solar PV Spain UK UK Government US wind power wind turbine
