There has been a great deal of pressure on governments worldwide to address renewable energy. Avoiding the full effects of climate change will depend largely on tapping into renewable energy sources, so renewable energy policy is increasingly important. This means that both governments and individuals should look to use renewable energy on a much larger scale. There are various areas where policy encourages people to invest in renewable energy.
The government is committed to compensating households who invest money and time in solar power solutions and other methods of renewable energy. In some places, this comes in the form of a one-off lump sum grant. Another way of encouraging renewable energy is to pay users a fixed rate per kW that they generate. Deed-in tariffs are often available at an even higher rate if you generate too much energy, and are able to feed it back into the grid.
While renewable energy sources are very feasible for some households, the future if renewable energy policy will depend on whether energy can be deployed into the grid from large scale solar and wind farms. The UK is on target to generate 15% of its energy via renewable sources by 2020.
Renewable energy commercialization involves the deployment of three generations of renewable energy technologies dating back more than 100 years. First-generation technologies, which are already mature and economically competitive, include biomass, hydroelectricity, geothermal power and heat. Second-generation technologies are market-ready and are being deployed at the present time; they include solar heating, photovoltaics, wind power, solar thermal power stations, and modern forms of bioenergy. Third-generation technologies require continued R&D efforts in order to make large contributions on a global scale and include advanced biomass gasification, biorefinery technologies, hot-dry-rock geothermal power, artificial photosynthesis and ocean energy.[3] [4]