Tory 'green' paper includes £1bn investment in national grid to enable homeowners to sell energy from domestic renewables

The conservatives have launched plans to lower carbon emissions, create jobs and make it easier for householders to save energy.

Under the plans announced by David Cameron, homeowners would get a £6,500 entitlement to make their homes more energy efficient through measures such as installing insulation as well as a £1 billion investment to create an intelligent electricity grid. This would include installing smart meters in every home which monitor energy use and tell consumers when it is cheapest to use electricity and also make it easier for them to sell energy generated from domestic renewables back to power companies.

According to Cameron the proposals would create thousands of jobs and cut householder’s energy bills.

Other measures in the ‘green’ paper include:

  • Decentralising power generation into smaller, local power stations
  • Making it easier for large scale use of renewable energy sources by introducing feed in tariffs for home owners to sell energy generated by via photovoltaics or wind turbines back to the power companies;
  • Giving councils the power to establish local heating networks where CHP plants are used to generate power and the waste heat is harnessed for use in local homes and commercial properties;
  • Replacing up to half of gas used to heat homes with methane produced from waste vegetable matter from homes and businesses.