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23 July 2007 : Column 913W—continued
Mr. Jim Cunningham: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform what steps his Department is taking with business to encourage the creation of wind farms. [150268]
Malcolm Wicks [holding answer 19 July 2007]: My Department are continuing to work with the renewables industry to overcome the barriers for deployment.
The Renewables Obligation (RO) is the Government’s main support mechanism for supporting renewables generation. The RO places an obligation on suppliers to source a specific and annually increasing proportion of their sales from renewable sources. The RO is currently technology blind so that as long as the generation is from an eligible renewable source the generator will receive one Renewable Obligation Certificate (ROC) for every 1 MW of renewable generation.
We are currently changing the RO to allow banding whereby differing values of ROC’s dependent on what the generating source is and we announced in the Energy White Paper the proposed bands for renewables under the RO.
Mr. Jim Cunningham: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform what further wind farm developments are planned. [150269]
Malcolm Wicks [holding answer 19 July 2007]: It is for the wind farm developers to decide the best location for the wind farms and for them to take them through the planning process.
According to the British Wind Energy Association (BWEA) there are currently:
32 onshore and seven offshore wind farms are under construction.
96 onshore and seven offshore wind farms are consented but not yet under construction.
217 onshore and seven offshore wind farms are in planning.
Mr. Jim Cunningham: To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform what recent discussions he has had with his colleagues in HM Treasury on tax incentives related to wind power. [150270]
Malcolm Wicks [holding answer 19 July 2007]: I have had no recent discussions with my colleagues at HM Treasury on tax incentives for wind farms.
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