‘Clean Energy Cashback’ under criticism

• Mar. 12 by Tamar (0)

Following the article concerning m Birmingham City Council ‘refusing loans to make homes greener’, it is apparent that the government’s seemingly appealing ‘Clean Energy Cashback’ plan is not as impressive as it appeared when first announced.

Property owners in the Birmingham area were outraged upon hearing the news of Birmingham City Council’s reluctance to offer the ‘green loans’ as part of the government’s strategy to encourage property owners to install renewable energy systems in their homes.

However, the government’s proposal for the feed-in-tariffs that are to be introduced in April 2010 and April 2011 in fact pose many problems that were part of the council’s decision to withhold from offering financial systems.

To begin with, the ‘green loan’ that the government is offering has only been put in place for low income property owners. Consequently the many of people who do not fall into that category must offer the money upfront in order to install the renewable energy system.

However the individuals who are not low income property owners are more likely to install an energy system into their homes rather than those with low incomes.

Subsequently if one does not receive a loan it will take around fifty years to pay back, meaning that no benefits to the system will be seen for the amount of time that it takes to pay back. Evidently the rewards to be reaped are few.

Furthermore, the government is linking the ‘green loan’ with the property that has an installed system. As a result, the property owned becomes rather less appealing as there is a loan attached to it, making it harder to sell.

Birmingham City Council has released a statement: “Combined, these issues must be scrutinised before any benefits to it are noticed regarding improving the state of our environment.”