THE Government should act "ruthlessly" to cut subsidies paid to green energy producers in order to reduce household bills, a report has recommended.
The Policy Exchange think tank said renewable energy subsidies should be reduced if the technologies fail to come down in cost under strict time limits.
The report urges the Government to hold the offshore wind industry to claims it can reduce its costs significantly by the end of the decade.
Earlier this month, ministers increased state help for offshore wind, with a strike price of £140/MWh for 2018/19, £5 higher than previously planned.
But the Policy Exchange report argued the offshore industry aimed to get its costs down to £100/MWh for projects beginning in 2020.
The report called for the Government to speed up the introduction of auctions, instead of fixing predetermined strike prices for renewable producers.
Simon Moore, the report's author, said: "The Government needs to act more ruthlessly to reduce household energy bills by cutting state support for renewable technologies that do not come down in price.
"Offshore wind may play an important role in our future energy mix. But it should not be given favourable treatment."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article