New incentive for renewable energy

Farmers have been urged to consider the viability of renewable energy projects following the launch of an incentive scheme this month.

Feed-in Tariffs offer index-linked payments of up to 41.3p/kWh for generated power and an additional 3p/kWh for exported power. The money is guaranteed for 20-25 years and targeted at smaller-scale wind, hydro, solar and anaerobic digestion projects of up to 5MW.

“At a farm level, FiT provides a financial incentive to meeting the farm business energy needs with the added bonus of a return on any surplus electricity supplied to the grid,” NFU Scotland president Jim McLaren said.

“There is an expectation that, by 2020, FiT will support more than 750,000 small-scale, low-carbon electricity installations across the UK and will have saved 7m tonnes of carbon dioxide.”