[Grants, Research and Development]

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Grants:, Research and Development

 

If a cheap and reliable supply of electricity is to be made available generation planning is essential for all new power stations. The economics are one of the most important factors for a new development to be considered feasible. Things to take into account include:

    - Capital cost

    - Taxes and insurance

    - Labour and maintenance costs

    - Interest and so on.

Technologies such as renewable energy systems have higher capital costs the newer they are. Grants and R&D programmes have been made available so that economic thresholds can be overcome and new "marginal technologies" can become viable.

Grants:

There are available grants. The DTI SR2000 Allocation and the New Opportunities Fund (NOF) are two of them.

To be more specific:

SR2000 Allocation provides funding for:

- Offshore Wind

- Photovoltaics

The NOF provides funding for:

- Energy Crop technologies

- Offshore Wind

- Small scale Biomass heat/ CHP

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Research and Development

DTI: £18m per annum for 3 Years from 2001/2

EPSRC (Engineering and Physical Sciences Resaerch Counsil): £3.5m per annum

The EPSRC also provides grants to students willing to go on postgraduate courses in sustainable engineering.

Other research counsils are spending small amounts on renewables as well.

To date £11m research projects are underway.

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