Renewable energy courses could become more popular as a result of the green concerns of private investors in house building.

Chayley Collis, marketing manager at the Green Building Store, claimed there is a lot of interest from homeowners and people developing properties.

"While there is little public sector building at the moment, private homeowners, social landlords and self builders are really driving low-energy building," she said.

In her view, there are plenty of incentives the government could offer in order to encourage greater take-up of certain products such as insulation.

Ms Collis urged homeowners to start off by cutting the amount of energy they use before installing sustainable power generators, as it is much more cost-effective to do so.

The Guardian recently argued that buying solar panels is becoming increasingly attractive as costs fall, particularly since users can benefit from feed-in tariffs that offer people a better return on their investment than ever before.

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