MILLIONS of homes, schools and other public buildings could be turned into micro power stations under proposals to promote renewable energy that will be announced this week.

The scheme would see householders, schools and businesses offered grants to install wind turbines, solar panels, “ground source heat pumps” (devices that can extract energy from under lawns and flower beds)and other systems to generate their own electricity and export it to the National Grid.

For some the scheme could even herald an end to electricity bills, because if they generated more power than they consumed then power companies would have to pay them for it.

Malcolm Wicks, the energy minister, will give details of the scheme when he launches the “microgeneration strategy”.

This follows last week’s budget in which the chancellor said that the government would spend £50m on a low carbon buildings programme.

Wicks will go much further, publishing studies showing that microgeneration could provide up to 40% of Britain’s electricity needs by 2050. “My vision is that community buildings such as schools and hospitals will eventually all have solar panels, wind turbines and other microgeneration systems to cut power use. The same applies to homes,” he said.

The strategy is expected to see householders and others who adopt such technologies early on being offered grants of up to 30% of the cost.

The idea is that the money will help Britain’s fledgling renewable energy industry to expand and bring costs down to the point where subsidies are no longer necessary.

Wicks’s proposals would also allow householders who generate green electricity to claim “renewable obligation certificates”. These are a form of subsidy for green electricity providers, more than doubling the income that they would get from selling the power alone.

A typical householder with a wind turbine would be able to claim about £50-£100 a year, enough to help to pay back the cost of installing such a system in five years.

Wicks acknowledges that his proposals could have planning implications and would change the appearance of buildings and whole areas if widely adopted.

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