The Feed-in-Tariff (FIT) scheme was introduced on 1st April 2010.  It requires participating licensed electricity suppliers (FIT Licensees) to pay tariffs to generators for electricity generated & exported.  In practice, this means that anyone who installs eligible renewable electrical technology will get a guaranteed payment for the electricity that they generate. 

This scheme has greatly improved the payback and profitability of renewable electricity projects.  Ofgem have released some key figures on the FIT this month which make interesting reading and demonstrate the impact of this scheme:

  • A total of 45,010 installed renewable installations were registered under the scheme from 1 April 2010;
  • 163.5 MW of total installed capacity was registered for FITs since 1 April 2010; and
  • A total of £10,101,593 total FIT payments were due to generators in the period 1 April – 30 June 2011.

Of the 45,010 installations registered since 1st April, one third of these have been registered in the last month showing a dramatic increase in the take-up of this scheme.

Solar Photovoltaic projects represent 98% of all projects registered with a total of 43,100 installations, while from April 2010 to June 2011, only 5 Anaerobic Digestion plants have been registered.

There are big regional variances in the different installations registered for the FIT.  In Scotland, the 48% of projects are wind, 35% are hydro and only 17% are photovoltaic.  In London, 99% of projects are photovoltatic while 1% are wind.

The south east and south west together account for 36% of total installations, while the north east only accounts for less than 2% of total installations.  Yorkshire and Humber accounts for around 5500 installations or 13% of installations

Some useful graphs have been reproduced below.  The full document is found here. http://www.ofgem.gov.uk/Sustainability/Environment/fits/Newsletter/Pages/Newsletter.aspx