Higher (British) gas and electricity bills to pay for shift from fossil fuels

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http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/utilities/article4215085.ece

From The Times
June 26, 2008

Higher gas and electricity bills to pay for shift from fossil fuels

Siobhan Kennedy, Politics and Business Correspondent

Householders will be warned today to expect five years of higher home energy bills to pay for a green power revolution.

John Hutton, the Business Secretary, will outline plans for a massive shift away from fossil fuels to wind, solar and tidal power, but will add that the change comes at a price. “We think there will be a cost,” he told The Times yesterday.

The plan, which he calls the biggest shake-up in Britain's power generation since the Industrial Revolution, requires £100 billion of new investment but would lead to five years of higher gas and electricity bills from about 2015, he said.

Homeowners will be given financial incentives to fit their roofs with solar panels and there will be ambitious targets to increase their use from 90,000 today to seven million within the next 12 years. The plan also envisages a 90 per cent increase in the use of ground and air-source heat pumps that provide “free” heat by tapping the warmth in the air or the earth.

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