Renewable energy
More and more householders are looking to use some form of renewable energy in their home to generate electricity, heat their water or warm the house. In many cases it can save money.
The most common technologies are solar panels (either for heating water or generating electricity), heat pumps, wind turbines and biomass burners.
Renewable energy is clean and produces few waste products, and comes from sources, like the sun or wind, that won’t run out. This is in contrast to conventional sources of energy such as oil, gas, coal or nuclear power.
Click here to go to a page that has links to videos, among which are introductions to the main renewable energy technologies.
Feed-in tariffs (or 'clean-energy cash-backs') became available in Great Britain on 1 April 2010. Under this scheme householders and communities can be paid to generate their own electricity from renewable or low-carbon sources. Here's an example of how it works, or for more details read the feed-in tariffs pages of the Energy Saving Trust website.
You may find yourself approached by a company or organisation that wants to install solar panels on your roof and offers an incentive such as some free or discounted electricity. Some offers may be good, others are likely to be a rip-off. CSE has produced guidance for householders that you can read here.
CSE has a wide range of specialist knowledge and experience in this field and we work with public and private-sector organisations, community groups and others to develop renewable energy strategies and options (see delivering renewable energy).
If you are part of a community that wants to explore the benefits of a renewable energy project then why not check out our PlanLoCaL project. The resources made available through this project are helping hundreds of communities up and down the country shape their own low-carbon future.
