Energy minister Malcolm Wicks has conceded that the Government target to meet some 30-40% of Britain’s power from renewables by 2020 is not realistic.

Giving evidence on 26 March before the Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills select committee investigation into renewable electricity generation technologies, he told committee chairman Phil Willis that the “goal posts have been changed” by the new EU renewable energy targets signed up to by former Prime Minister Tony Blair at the EU heads of government summit a year ago, hence the review of renewable energy strategy to be launched for consultation in the summer.

Wicks said that a major expansion of offshore wind ”would be top of my list of the way in which we are going to hit our target.” However, he also asserted: “I think micro generation can play an increasingly important part.” He said the option of feed-in tariffs was particularly relevant for microgeneration, commenting ”we need to revisit whether we are providing enough incentives for microgeneration - something I am very interested in and the Government is very interested in; there is not a great deal of microgeneration in Britain at the present time.

There are some incentives for householders in terms of micro, but are there enough? Maybe not, and I have said that as part of our renewable energy strategy review we will look again at microgeneration and on the table will be one or two different mechanisms including feed-in tariffs.”