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The Renewable Energy Association (REA) has urged government not to make cuts to the feed-in-tariff (FiT) for anaerobic digestion (AD), which it said would bring development of the industry to a halt.
REA head of biogas Kiara Zennaro told Utility Week: “We really strongly ask the government to not apply these caps and reduce the tariffs for large scale to zero.
“Developers and investors have already been withdrawing funding and pulling out of projects because the economics don’t stack up. Even the projects that are currently in the pipeline are at severe risk because of this and there is a serious risk that the sector will be brought to a halt.”
The Department of Energy and Climate Change has proposed cutting the tariff for large scale AD projects from £7.81p/kWh to zero and reducing it for small and medium scale projects by 46 and 35 per cent respectively.
Zennaro added that the assumptions made by the government that led to the consultation on FiT rates for AD are incorrect: “We disagree with some of the assumptions made by the government,” she said.
“The assumption that these projects will be able to rely only on the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) [when part of a combined heat and power installation], when actually the tariffs for large scale plans under the RHI at the moment are already very modest anyway.”
The REA release a report yesterday, warning about the future impact on renewables of the government’s “numerous policy interventions”.
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