The document summarizes the agenda and discussion topics for a meeting of Energise Hastings, including feedback from a subgroup on setting up the organization, policy updates on proposed changes to UK feed-in tariffs for solar energy and the Green Deal energy efficiency program, possible project ideas, and responses to a carbon economy reception.

1. Energise Hastings 6 December 2011 Sussex Coast College Hastings Ore Valley Campus

7. Consumer focus analysis The table below compares typical income and savings made for an average sized solar PV system in the UK along with simple payback period (cost divided by combined income and savings) Based on a 2.9kW system, install cost of £11,500 18 640 Proposed 21p/kWh 10 1,190 Current 43.3p/kWh Simple payback (years) Total annual earnings and savings with a 2.9 kW system FIT rates

8. Rationale “ If the Government took no action, by 2014-15 FITs for solar PV would be costing consumers £980 million per year, adding around £26 (2010 prices) to annual domestic electricity bills in 2020. The proposals will reduce this impact to £23 per year. A recent surge in households installing solar PV has threatened to break the budget, with nearly three times as much solar PV as projected so far installed, with over 100,000 separate installations with over 400MW capacity. As part of the review consider what more could be done to enable genuine community projects to able to fully benefit and whether a definition is required, and what this might be.” Department of Energy and Climate Change press release 31 Oct 2011

9. Green Deal and ECO The Energy Act 2011 made provisions for the development of a Green Deal and a new Energy Company Obligation (ECO) to replace the existing Carbon Emissions Reduction Target (CERT) and the Community Energy Saving Programme (CESP) , which will both expire in 2012. Green Deal is a market led framework that will allow individuals and businesses to make energy efficiency improvements to their buildings at no upfront cost. Central to the Green Deal is a finance mechanism that will allow access to the finance needed for the improvements with repayment, in instalments, attached to the electricity bill. Underpinning the delivery of the Green Deal is the ECO. ECO will place one or more obligations on energy companies requiring them to generate a specific amount of credit by facilitating the installation of energy efficiency measures in homes in Great Britain before a set deadline. ECO has been designed to fit within the Green Deal framework and provide support, in the domestic sector, where Green Deal finance alone is not enough.