"Interestingly, the NOP survey commissioned by the DTI finds that despite all the hot air and scepticism from certain quarters, 85% of the general public support the use of renewable energy, 81% are in favour of wind power and just over three fifths would be happy to live within 5km of a wind power development.

"But it's not just large scale renewable energy projects that we want to encourage but also more localised generation, such as micro wind turbines, solar panels and combined heat and power biomass boilers. That is why I am pleased to announce details of the successful applicants from the final round of funding under the Major Photovoltaic Demonstration Programme.

The 16 schemes across the UK will share almost £1.2 million to help install solar panels and reduce the carbon emissions from their buildings.

"Funding support for solar and the other types of microgeneration technologies will now continue through the £80 million Low Carbon Buildings Programme that was announced in the spring." *

DTI Renewable Energy Awareness and Attitudes Research Background DTI commissioned GfK NOP Social Research to conduct a quantitative research project to explore awareness and attitudes to renewable energy amongst the general public in Great Britain, and determine influences on their opinions of this subject.

The main objective of this research was to provide a measure of awareness and attitudes to renewable energy amongst a representative sample of the British public. More specifically, the research needed to examine the following:

- Awareness levels of renewable energy sources

- Attitudes to renewable energy

- What influenced these opinions

- Gauge perceptions of recent media coverage on renewable energy

The research was administered by telephone using CATI (Computer Aided Telephone Interviewing) via two different surveys. A telephone omnibus (GfK NOP Telebus) was carried out amongst 1,932 respondents over two consecutive weekends between 17th and 26th March 2006, providing a nationally representative sample of adults aged 16+ in Great Britain. In addition, an ad hoc boost survey of 100 respondents in the Highland & Islands of Scotland was conducted.

The ad hoc survey provided a robust sample for analysis of opinions in the Highlands & Islands region. The results from these two surveys were combined and weighted so that the Highlands & Islands boost data are in the correct proportion to Great Britain as a whole (this region accounting for about 0.74% of the total British population aged 16+).

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