Braithwaite blows hot and cold by Paul Braithwaite The editor's chance to vent his thoughts about the industry and anything else he'd like to get off his chest.

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Is FIT fit for purpose?

30/06/2010 16:03:35 As you will know, I didn't think much of the last government.



I petitioned the government about bring in a Feed In Tariff in this country and many of you joined me in signing that petition but I have been looking again at the Feed In Tariff which was launched on April 1.

As I see it, it was good for photovoltaic but not so good for CHP (combined heat and power)

A group of us went to Germany in 2009 to see how CHP and the German system worked.

We stayed in an hotel which had a CHP machine which produced much of the electricity needs and - the added value - all of the hot water. Even the local museum had a CHP machine and the guides seemed more interested in showing us around the CHP unit than the rest of the museum.

When the last government bought in a Feed In Tariff over here, it did not go far enough. It stipulated that the upper limit was a mere 2kW, which just about stops where the real savings (energy and money) start.

The 2kW top limit means that CHP FIT tops out with householders. Now, I have never quite understood why the average householder would want all that hot water and if the hot water has to go to waste then CHP is not worth the capital outlay.

Conversely, the operations which could show big savings, like that hotel and district heating schemes, are not included in the package. These would have benefited from FIT going to 50kW (which was the original intention of government before it realised how much money was involved).

The hotel/district heating/health care/hospitals sector was the one which would benefit most from the FIT and it bottled out because of the cost. Which for me means government has missed a chance, a real chance, to cut carbon emissions.

Gordon Brown (who pinched all our pensions except those of the MPs and civil servants) should hold his head in shame.

The Germans I spoke to reckoned that with a small change in the technology, all the CHP machines could be brought into action together and it would be the equivalent of two medium sized power stations coming online.

Forget carbon emissions! We have a real problem in the UK. Because of the previous government's procrastination, we are living on borrowed time with ageing power stations already past the decommissioning age, while the next generation is not even built.

Wouldn't it have been good for the country and our emissions, if the government had thought longer and realised the potential of CHP in reducing our carbon emissions and by having thousands of small CHP machines around the country, giving the rest of us a chance of a more secure supply?