With climate change becoming an ever more serious threat, I welcome all our attempts to increase use of renewable energy. I am pleased that the Government is committed to meeting 15 per cent of the UK's energy demands from renewable resources by 2020, and I believe solar power has an important role to play in this.
I recently asked the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change what funds and subsidies are available to encourage people to install renewable energy into their homes. I was pleased to learn of the Feed-In Tariff and Renewable Heat Incentive, which both incentivise domestic deployment of solar panels and provide a guaranteed tariff of over 20 years.
Renewable energy is also supported through a scheme called the Levy Control Framework, which allows the Government to control public expenditure paid for out of consumers' energy bills through the Renewables Obligation. This has provided significant financial support to the renewable sector, but in real terms current LCF forecasts are equivalent to an increase from £7.6bn to £9.1bn in 2020/21. This makes it necessary for DECC to take action to control costs, so the Department is now consulting on a set of proposals that include closing the Renewables Obligation to new solar PV projects of 5MW and below, and additional capacity added to an accredited solar PV station up to 5MW, from 01 April 2016.
Government support has already driven down the cost of renewable energy significantly, and this makes it easier for parts of the industry to do without subsidy from taxpayers. I believe it is important to reduce carbon emissions in a cost-effective way while keeping household energy bills as low as possible, protecting existing investment as well as consumers.