Monbiot is wrong - had to happen!

In his latest article, George Monbiot heavily criticises the UK Feed In Tariff scheme for being a “rip off” and a “pricey conceit with little benefit”.

We disagree.

While its true that FITs will be paid in part by all bill paying electricity consumers, the amounts are small and the benefits of de-centralised, local generation at the point of consumption are real and valid. Moreover, on the same day the Government announced the “pay as you save” scheme to allow lower income households to have micro-generation technologies installed without paying a penny – so Monbiots other claim that only middle class households could afford to install PV and the like would also seem to be false.

FITs may prove to be far from perfect and the laws of unforeseen consequence might one day prove it was folly. But right now its what we’ve got and it could be a step in the right direction to a lower dependence on fossil fuels.