Green companies may be forced to abandon Northern Ireland and shift jobs to Scotland or England if the province fails to develop its green energy industry.

That’s the warning from the Sustainable Energy Association, which says some of its members are already considering moving as the NI Assembly falls behind the rest of the UK on developing the renewables industry.

Northern Ireland may miss out on creating hundreds of thousands of new “green collar” jobs, SEA spokesman John Hardy warned. While the UK government made an announcement on how it will create jobs and drive growth through renewable energy, the Assembly is not implementing the plans, disadvantaging companies and homeowners here.

The Department for Energy and Climate Change has published a Renewable Energy Strategy, outlining how the UK will invest £30bn in financial support for renewable electricity and heat mechanisms aimed at meeting its goal of sourcing 15% of energy from renewable sources by 2020.

These include a Renewable Heat Incentive and Feed-in Tariffs for small scale energy generation.

“Essentially, the UK government has realised it has to catch up with its European neighbours in supporting the renewable |energy industry to help create jobs, lower carbon emissions and generate cheap, secure energy, but in Northern Ireland we seem to be sitting on our hands,” Mr Hardy said.

“The failure to implement Renewables Obligations and feed-in tariffs in the same timescale as the UK will see the renewables industry in Northern Ireland collapse as companies move to England or Scotland, or even the Republic to take advantage of the growth in the industry.”

“Above all, it is the homeowners and businesses of Northern Ireland who will lose out if feed-in tariffs and a Renewable Heat Incentive are not introduced in NI next year. These would see people who generate heat or electricity from renewables being paid for the energy they produce, which helps to off-set the installation cost. But instead of getting over 20 -30p a unit guaranteed they will still be stuck on 7.4p a unit, making the investment unviable instead of a money-earner,” he said.

Horizon Renewables, one of the largest installers of PV and Wind in Northern Ireland is already seeking premises in England.

Managing director Ruth McGuigan said: “We are coming to the end of the grant schemes for renewables but there is no planning as to how our industry will continue post 2010 — our only option is to move. It’s the usual stop-start approach to policy.”

Enterprise Minister Arlene Foster said her Department recently released its Strategic Energy Framework for consultation. “That consultation makes clear that DETI is working towards ensuring the most effective form of support for renewable heat and microgeneration for Northern Ireland, in addition to the successful Northern Ireland Renewables Obligation, which has doubled renewable electricity generation since it began. The Department welcomes views on the consultation which is available on its website,” she said.

“DETI also plans to issue a consultation on the Northern Ireland Renewables Obligation later this year which it is planned will include areas contained in the GB consultation on renewable electricity support systems, including microgeneration.”