The Comprehensive Spending Review 2010 has come and gone and the dust has settled to a degree. Whilst some of the announcements were reasonably detailed some of the content was rather general and we will have to wait and see how the cuts play out.
Even those things that seemed clear have become less clear. For example we were to have two aircraft carriers because the contractual arrangemenst were such that cancellation was not an option. I now read that this is being revisited. This does leave me wondering whether anything we heard can be relied upon. The problem with such uncertainty is that it makes life difficult for businesses trying to plan the future.
So what did it do for business and the environment and our green future? There were lots of things mentioned including a new Carbon Plan to be published in 2011, the Green Investment Bank, CCL and carbon pricing, the CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme and other areas.
Of particular concern to the renewable energy industry is the Feed-in Tariffs and the Renewable Heat Incentive. We still have the Feed-in tariff which is great but it looks like the terms will be changed until the planned review in 2013 but will probably reduce the tariff values. The uncertainty relating to changes is not helpful but given the clear commitment we should be pleased to be able to get on with business.
We also have confirmation of the Renewable Heat Incentive with £860 million over the period of the CSR (up to 2014/15) which although again great news is a 20% saving compared with the previous proposals. The RHI is due to start in 2011/12 but watch for a bit of slippage on exactly when. There is to be a delay in providing the details with a consultation response from DECC in about a month. So then we will be able to get into serious planning for implementation.
All this makes for a tricky time for business but at least now we know that things are really about to happen and the expectation is that the RHI will drive a more than ten-fold increase of renewable heat over the next decade. It seems that at last renewable heat has finally come of age.