A survey recently carried out by Scottish Renewables has revealed that the nation’s businesses are missing out on much needed revenue and profits because of a lack of investment in renewable energy technologies and a lack of understanding of the Feed-in-Tariff.

Scottish Renewables compiled a record of all the registrations made for Feed-in-Tariffs over the last year. They found that 95% of all registrations were made by homeowners. In comparison just 3.6% of registrations were made by businesses.

A further breakdown of the figures revealed that on average there were 326 domestic Feed-in-Tariff registrations per month as opposed to just 3 registrations a month for commercial and industrial installations. The specific breakdown for wind turbines were slightly more evenly balanced; 27 domestic turbine registrations a month and 8 a month for industrial and commercial purposes. This would suggest that the benefits of a wind turbine is more apparent to those businesses that have the opportunity (in terms of available land etc) than other forms of renewable generation.

Feed-in-tariffs work as follows.

The owner of a renewable energy generator is paid for every unit of electricity that they are producing. There are two seperate tariffs; the Generation Tariff is a set rate which is paid for every unit of electricity generated, even if the owner uses it to power their own home or business, the Export tariff is a set rate which is paid for every unit that is exported into the National Grid. Feed-in-tariffs are set at a fixed rate from the time at which a generator is operational and connected to the National Grid for a period of twenty years.

Daniel Borieswitz, Policy Manager at Scottish Renewables released the following statement:

“Scottish businesses are missing out on a huge opportunity to not only to produce their own electricity but also receive up to 8% return on their investment by installing renewable technologies.

“It is clear that the public are already very much on board with the Feed-in-Tariff with domestic installations accounting for 17MW of installed capacity in the last year, but we need to encourage companies to take full advantage of these payments offered by the government especially if they are to meet their own carbon and environmental targets.

“With the Renewable Heat Incentive expected soon this is an ideal time for businesses to think seriously about how they can harness the natural resources on their doorsteps to power their companies.”

It is very much true that the Feed-in-Tariff offers a unique opportunity in these economically uncertain times for businesses to access a steady revenue stream and a substantial return on their investments. Businesses such as golf clubs, supermarkets, industrial estates and all manner of rural companies are being presented with a huge opportunity. A company such as ours with experience of both the planning process and working with such businesses can help to capitalize on this situation.