Fears over delay to feed-in tariff designed to kickstart domestic energy revolution

The government will come under fire today from a renewable energy sector increasingly concerned about potential delays in the implementation of a " feed-in tariff" meant to kickstart a domestic green power revolution.

David Kidney, an energy minister, will be questioned at a summit in London organised by Renewables UK, formerly the British Wind Energy Association, over its failure to pass a statutory instrument needed for the introduction of the tariff.

The power companies told the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) that it should introduce the legislation before Christmas if they were to be ready to start the clean energy scheme by the agreed date of 1 April. The statutory instrument giving energy regulator Ofgem the power to introduce the tariff at the start of next month has still not been laid in front of parliament, despite needing a 21-day lead-in time for it to become active.

"The government has basically got a narrowing window of 10 days now," said one key industry figure, who asked not to be named. "DECC officials are being given a hard time about the continuing delays."

A spokeswoman for DECC denied there was any threat to the tariff's start date, saying it remained committed to 1 April, while Ofgem said it was doing all it could to ensure the tariff was introduced on time. An Ofgem spokesman said: "We will ensure that all the core functions are in place for administering the scheme for when we go live on 1 April." Asked what would happen if the relevant law was not in place for the regulator to carry out its role, the spokesman replied: "That is a question you must ask DECC."

Utilities helped by the Business Council for Sustainable Development complain that they are not being able to plan properly because of the uncertainty. They want to be clear on exactly how they will need to handle power being sold on to them from wind turbines and solar panels on homes.

The government is hoping to emulate the success of Germany, where a generous feed-in tariff has led to a massive solar energy sector developing. But the delays in the UK also come at a time of growing unease about the cost of subsidising micro-generation, compared with industrial-scale windfarms or alternatives such as nuclear.

Until recently, critics have come from those traditionally opposed to wind or solar power, but they have been joined by the likes of George Monbiot, the green campaigner and Guardian columnist. He launched an attack on the government's feed-in tariff earlier this week, saying it would cost more than £8bn and only save 7m tonnes of carbon by 2020.

"The money will come from customers in the form of higher bills. It would make sense if we didn't know the technologies the scheme will reward are comically inefficient," wrote Monbiot, who believes the tariff is nothing more than a "scam".

This article first appeared at the Guardian

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