Baxi Group calls for government funding for microgeneration

Date:

05/06/2008

The chief executive of the Baxi Group, one of Europe's leading heating groups, has called for more government grants to support innovative new technology like the group's new Baxi Ecogen boiler.

Martyn Coffey was speaking on BBC Radio 4's 'You and Yours' from the 2008 Micropower Annual Conference about different home-based and small-scale energy generation.

Describing Baxi Group's latest product, Mr Coffey explained: "This is a micro CHP boiler, so effectively what you're looking at is a standard wall-hung boiler which effectively has got a Stirling engine in it.

"So it produces 24 kilowatts of heat, but in generating that also generates one kilowatt of electricity."

As for how long it would take for the boiler to come onto the market, he pointed out: "At the moment we're making 150 of these boilers as we speak which will be put into installation, in a commercial sense, and then in the first quarter of 2009 we'll be offering this to the mass market."

When it came to the cost of the technology, Mr Coffey said this was "going to be driven by support we can get for renewable energy.

"What we're looking for is government support in term of grants to allow that to become in line with the current boiler."

However, he highlighted that his company and other manufacturers had been initially reluctant to promote the boiler to avoid making "consumers frustrated".

"I think the key from a manufacturer's perspective is you don't want to raise awareness and expectations before you've got the product," he said.

"So if you take this product that you're looking at here it has probably been five, six years in terms of development and only now in the next few months are we able to sell them."

A new report out this week commissioned by the Department for Business, Energy and Regulatory Reform suggested that both grants and incentives could lead to nearly 10 million microgeneration systems being installed by 2020 - saving 30 million tonnes of CO₂.

External links

You can listen to copy of the transmission on the BBC website.