http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article3226406.eceTories plan £300m green energy revolution to avoid nuclear option
By Andrew Grice, Political Editor
Published: 06 December 2007
A Tory government would spend up to £300m on a "green energy revolution" by encouraging householders, small businesses, schools and hospitals to create their own electricity from renewable sources. The Tory leader, David Cameron, will announce today that his party would scrap grants for people who install wind turbines, solar panels or combined heat and power generators. Instead, it would guarantee prices for electricity created by householders through a system in "feed-in tariffs".
The reforms could help a future Conservative administration avoid building more nuclear power stations if it was successful in reducing carbon emissions. At present, the Tories say they would use nuclear power as a "last resort" but have not ruled it out.
Unveiling his Green Paper, Mr Cameron will promise to create a "safer and greener" Britain by adopting a decentralised system of producing energy on the model of countries such as Germany and the Netherlands. His pledge to go "from laggards to world leaders" on green energy is part of a policy offensive aimed at telling voters what a Tory government would do.
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What the party is proposing
* Decentralised energyto play "major part" in meeting Britain's needs.
* Every household, small business, school, hospital able to generate electricity through micro-generation.
* Feed-in tariffs to guarantee fixed price for electricity from decentralised, low carbon sources such as wind power, photovoltaic, combined heat and power, biomass, waste and micro-hydro.
* Any person or organisation allowed to install a low carbon generating appliance of below 250kW using accredited professional.
* Credits on electricity bills for surplus amounts fed into local network.