The government has today revealed plans to cut incentives for small scale wind and hydroelectric schemes from April this year, despite relatively slow adoption of both technologies.

However, the micro combined heat and power (CHP) sector could be in for a boost after the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) announced proposals to increase the level of support available for the technology from 11p/kWh to 12.5p/kWh.

The wide ranging proposals were released as part of a consultation, published alongside the government's controversial plans to slash the level of support for solar installations by up to 35 per cent from July.

The consultation, which will now be open until April 26, sets out a series of reforms for the management of feed-in tariff incentives paid to wind, hydro, anaerobic digestion, and micro-CHP installations.

Most notably, the consultation proposes slashing the level of support for the small wind turbines with less than 1.5kW capacity by over 41 per cent, cutting payments from 35.9p/kWh to 21p/kWh.

The new proposals would effectively cap payments at 21p/kWh, setting the same rate for all wind turbines with 100kW capacity.

Cuts would also be imposed on larger wind farms with between 100kW and 5MW of capacity, while the government confirmed further cuts could be imposed on the largest wind farms eligible for the feed-in tariff if the government decides to adopt proposals to cut the level of support available to onshore wind farms through the Renewables Obligation to 0.9 Renewables Obligation Certificates per MW.

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