Homeowners who install solar panels and wind turbines will be paid for any electricity that they feed back into the National Grid, the Government confirmed yesterday.

The payments will be based on a fixed price per unit of electricity and will be set high enough to encourage hundreds of thousands of homes to invest in renewable sources of power.

Local energy suppliers will adjust the bills that they issue according to the number of units fed back into the grid. Homeowners with low energy consumption and a solar panel could receive net payments from their energy company.

Ed Miliband, the Energy and Climate Change Secretary, said that the “feed-in tariffs” would be available from next April. He added: “The crucial thing about feed-in tariffs is that they do speak to people’s wish to do their bit and to see benefits flowing back to their community from renewable energy generation.

“We can harness people’s enthusiasm for getting involved, doing their bit, to help create the clean energy of the future.”

However, small-scale electricity production is expensive and the feed-in scheme will need to be funded either by a government subsidy or through higher bills for ordinary households without their own generators.

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