UK From 1 April householders and communities who install low carbon electricity technology such as solar photovoltaic (PV) panels and wind turbines up to 5mW will be paid for the electricity they generate, even if they use it themselves. The Feed-in Tariffs scheme aims to encourage deployment of additional low carbon electricity generation, particularly by organisations, businesses, communities and individuals who are not traditionally engaged in the electricity market.

This 'clean energy cashback' will allow many people to invest in small scale low carbon electricity, in return for a guaranteed payment for the electricity they generate.

The level of payment depends on the technology and is linked to inflation (approx 41.3p for each kw hour for PV panels). The scheme will apply to installations commissioned since July 2009, when the Government policy was announced.

A blueprint for a similar scheme to be introduced in April 2011 to incentivise renewable heatgeneration technologies such as groundsource heat pumps, biomass boilers and airsource heat pumps. For more information, see the website.