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Low Carbon Buildings Programme is Announced |
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Submitted: 2 November 2005 |
| The edited RPA press release can be downloaded below, this is a comment by Seb Berry, Micro-renewables Policy Manager |
| The Government chose the first day of the Climate Change Dialogue Ministerial meeting in London to announce the funding package for the DTI's new Low Carbon Buildings Programme. The contrast between the scale of support for micro renewables at home and the Government's rhetoric on the need for global investment in "new technologies" abroad could not be greater. We do of course welcome the fact that the DTI have responded positively to our call for continuity funding to ensure a smooth transition between current grant programmes and the new LCBP. Some £1.5 million of the LCBP's £30 million will be brought forward for allocations under the current Clear Skies and solar pv MDP programmes. But the downside of this decision is that it makes the new programme even smaller at just £28.5 million over three years. The statement also fails to confirm that this is a six year programme. The Devil remains in the detail with a further statement from the DTI to come later today or tomorrow. Despite recent Parliamentary written answers suggesting that the LCBP will launch in April, yesterday's statement simply refers to "early in the financial year" 2006/7. |
| For solar pv, last night's announcement of £28.5 million over three years for all technologies in the LCBP confirms the Government's 2004 u-turn on its earlier 2001 and 2003 White Paper commitments to a ten year pv programme "in line" with Japan and Germany. In terms of the overall funding pot for the LCBP the Government has taken a significant step backwards from current clearksies and solar pv MDP funding levels. The combined funding levels for allocations under these programmes including the new £1.5 million to be brought forward from the LCBP is £45 million from 2002-2006 or £11.25 million pa. The LCBP's £28.5 million over three years amounts to an average of just £9.5 million per annum. More importantly, the actual spending levels under the current programmes have accelerated since 2002 up from just over £1 million in 2002/3 to a projected £13 million at least in 2005/6, with industry now scaled up for the increase in grant support that ought to have been forthcoming from a medium term market building measure to 2012. |
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The LCBP's very modest three year budget confirms the programme's status as another limited demonstration programme and makes it imperative that the broader issues to be addressed in the Micro-generation strategy to be published in April 2006 provide real and urgent policy impetus rather than another statement of general intentions. The RPA is at the very heart of those discussions and there is still much to play for. Finally, while it is tempting on one level to say that the LCBP funding "could have been far worse", given the scale of the climate change threat this is surely not the point.
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 Related Web Site(s) |
Guardian reports on key role of schools in the LCBP
education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,1606871,00.html
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Malcolm Wicks announces funding level
www.gnn.gov.uk/environment/detail.asp?ReleaseID=176001&NewsAreaID=2&Navigat . .
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BBC Reports on funding
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4398258.stm
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 Associated File(s) |
| Comment from Seb Berry |
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Comment from Seb Berry.doc
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| RPA Press Release- Response to LCBP funding announcement |
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051102 Low Carbon Building Programme announcement.pdf
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