The Government currently has several schemes in place that incentivise companies to act in environmentally friendly ways. These can offer organisations savings through their business energy usage, while also helping the environment, through changing energy habits, generating energy locally or improving the efficiency of buildings.
The Renewable Heat Initiative pays companies a subsidy for generating its heat from environmentally sound sources such as solar, geothermal, biogas or biomass. The tariff subsidy can fund business energy usage, paying up to 8.5p p/kWh (for solar). The Renewable Heat Initiative is currently in operation for business energy users and is due to be rolled out for residential users.
Feed-in Tariffs (FITs) pay individual and business energy users for generating their own electricity through solar or wind power. Residential and business energy users who install solar panels or wind turbines on their properties can benefit from reductions in their electricity bill. There is also an added incentive where any excess can be redirected back into the national grid. FITs currently pay 43.3p p/kWh, although the government is seeking to reduce this to 21p.
Another scheme, the Green Deal, is aimed at upgrading buildings that are currently inefficient in their energy usage. Some properties, through age or lack of investment, allow a great deal of heating to be lost, resulting in a need to generate more heating and resulting in increased electricity costs for the owner. The Green Deal aims to address situations where improvements are not undertaken due to the financial costs involved by funding the upfront cost of property improvements through structuring savings in electricity bills.