§ Andrew GeorgeTo ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what assessment she has made of the progress made by Government assisted projects to develop area based(a) sustainable energy projects and (b) domestic energy savings and health initiatives. [96955]
§ Mr. MorleyWe are making good progress with these projects. The majority of them operate on a national basis, providing assistance to households and communities across the country.
To encourage sustainable energy projects:
We are spending £50 million over two years on the UK wide Community Energy programme which promotes community heating. So far £8.5m of grants have been approved. Two of these grants have been for innovative energy from waste schemes.
The Energy Crops Scheme has allocated £650,000 of grants to promote the establishment of energy crops in England.
We fund the Countryside Agency's Community Renewables Initiative, which promotes the establishment of local renewable energy schemes in England.
The DTI fund both the UK wide Bio Energy Capital Grants Scheme and the UK wide £10 million Clear Skies initiative. Both are relatively new initiatives. The Bio Energy Capital Grants scheme aims to ensure the development of 100MW biomass heating provision at all scales, whilst Clear Skies provides advice and support for the installation of household and renewable community renewable schemes.
To encourage domestic energy savings and health initiatives:
We fund the Warm Front grant scheme which assisted over 400,000 households living in Fuel Poverty by installing energy efficiency measures. This indicates that the Government is making good progress toward meeting its target of assisting 600,000 homes by 2004.
The Government has established the Energy Efficiency Commitment. The Commitment requires electricity and gas suppliers to achieve targets for the promotion of improvements in energy efficiency, with an emphasis on helping lower income customers. The overall target on all suppliers is a combined saving of 62 fuel-standardised terawatt hours.
Defra and DTI are funding a pilot Warm Zones initiative in five areas in England. The zones attempt to identify all fuel poor households in an area, and ensure 671W that existing schemes are used to improve the energy efficiency of those homes. The pilot is being evaluated at present and an interim report is expected shortly.