Feed-in Tariff (FITs)

The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has introduced a system of feed-in tariffs (FITs) to incentivise small scale (less than 5 Mega Watts), low carbon electricity generation. The FITs scheme went live on 1 April 2010. Through the use of FITs DECC hopes 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 both for the electricity they generate and export.

Householders considering generating their own electricity should look at the Energy Saving Trust’s Clean Energy Cashback web pages. Please click here for more information on energy efficiency measures as well as independent advice on the technologies concerned.

Small-scale low-carbon electricity technologies eligible for FITs are:

• Wind;
• Solar photovoltaics (PV);
• Hydro; 
• Anaerobic digestion; and 
• Domestic scale microCHP (with a capacity of 2kW or less)*

* Domestic scale microCHP pilot will support up to 30,000 installations with a review to start when the 12,000th installation is completed.

Solid or liquid biomass technologies continue to be supported under the Renewables Obligation (RO) at all scales.
Wind, solar PV and hydro projects of 50kW or less and microCHP projects supported through the pilot will have to use the Microgeneration Certification Scheme (MCS)[External link] in order to be confirmed of their eligibility for FITs. Any other technology and scale of project must be registered through a process based on the existing RO process, known as the ROO-FIT process. For more detail, please read The Department's Response to the Consultation on Feed-in Tariffs. Further information will be made available through Ofgem[External link] closer to the scheme launch.

The feed-in tariffs work alongside the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI).