Contributed by Fiona: Is Renewable Energy Finally About to Boom?

After what seems like decades of scientific evidence and expert advice all pointing us in the direction of sustainable fuel, the past few months and years have really shown a turnaround in the ways that we in the UK source our power. Renewable energy initiatives are finally starting to gather momentum both commercially and privately, as companies and home owners discover that the rocketing cost of fossil fuels is harming electricity price sand driving up costs.

The UK government is emulating the efforts of Germany in an attempt to encourage more UK residents and business owners to use energy from renewable sources, and to conserve the energy they do use. The ‘Green Deal’ scheme has been implemented as an incentive to home owners who wish to insulate or improve their homes to conserve fuel and heating costs by offering vouchers for various improvements, including loft insulation and draught proofing.

On an even greater scale, incentives have been offered both to domestic and non-domestic recipients. One such initiative is the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI), launched by the UK government in 2014, offering payment to scheme participants who generate their own heat from renewable sources, rather than relying on fossil fuels. The scheme is open to home owners, landlords, businesses and public sector organisations, and is claimed to be ‘the world’s first long-term financial support programme for renewable heat’.

Aside from schemes and incentives such as these, the UK government has also shown over the past few years that it is interested in increasing our own production of renewable energy in a bid to reduce our use of fossil fuels. Offshore wind farms are being built in various parts of UK waters every year, and even onshore wind farms are proving quite successful in certain less urban areas of the country. Geothermal energy and nuclear power are also being considered by officials, though it’s too early to say just how big an impact these will be permitted to have on our fuel usage as the years go by.

While we may not be leading the rest of Europe in renewable energy just yet, the signs are certainly there that the UK is ready to step up and compete as a nation determined to cut its use of fossil fuels. As more and more people look to learn more about Business Energy to cut costs in the face of rising annual fuel bills, we must turn to renewable energy as a reliable and sustainable way to bring energy prices down and power our homes and businesses efficiently.

Of course, that’s not all we stand to gain by boosting our use of renewable energies; not only will increasing our production of renewable energy drive prices down in the long run, but it will also help the planet; the burning of fossil fuels has long been deemed a serious contributor to global warming, and the further we move away from relying on them, the better off we’ll all be. For more information on the potential renewable energy boom, check out Love Energy Savings.