Does the structure of the UK feed-in-tariff fpr renewable electricity encourage personal carbon offsetting schemes

Carbon offsetting – the investment in carbon reduction activities to compensate for the carbon emitted by other activities – is a way for people to use carbon fuels without adding to global environmental damage. In 2010, the UK government introduced a feed-in-tariff scheme, which guaranteed small scale generators of electricity from renewable sources at a fixed price for the power they produced that is considerably above the wholesale market price. This was done specifically to encourage consumers to generate their own electricity. Under the scheme, it is unlikely that all the power will be generated by renewable means when it is needed, but it is possible to export surplus electricity to the grid, which can offset the exported electricity when the equipment is not generating. By exporting more electricity than is needed, it is possible to offset the carbon emissions from heating. This paper looks at the potential for using photovoltaic cells (PV) to provide a carbon offsetting scheme. It investigates the impact of the structure of the tariff to see if it encourages installations that are capable of offsetting the carbon used by a range of households.