Sustain the World's Environment

£11m in new funding has been secured for a Welsh tidal power project. Welsh First Minister Carwyn Jones announced the funding recently for the 1.2MW DeltaStream device next year at a location off the coast of Pembrokeshire in south-western Wales. £6.4m came from the European Regional Development Fund, with the rest from the investors of Eco2 Ltd. Cranfield University will monitor the project and independently assess the performance of the demonstration device. If the trial is successful, the company intends to deploy eight further devices with up to 10MW capacity from 2015. The potential of tidal power from Britain's coastline is huge, with studies showing that tidal power could provide 15 to 20 per cent UK's electricity by 2050. Funding flows to flagship Welsh tidal power project - 21 Jul 2011 - News from BusinessGreen

Image by now picnic via Flickr The British Government is proposing to offer loans so householders can install solar panels. This is not a new idea, as in the US so companies and local authorities have already started doing this. The cost of installing solar panels on a typical house in the UK costs @ £12,000. This is more than many families can afford in the current economic climate. The loans will repaid with the savings householders make from the electricity they generate . The model relies on the recently announced ‘feed-in tariff’ that will give householders an income from feeding surplus electricity into the National Grid . This could amount to hundreds of pounds a year. The tariff pays up to 36p per kW/hr of electricity generated form not only solar panels but also wind turbines , hydro power or anaerobic digestion. This is paid even if the electricity generated by these means is not fed into the National Grid but used instead by the householder. Any that is fed back i