As with all NATTA materials, the views expressed should not be taken to
necessarily reflect the views of all NATTA members, EERU or the Open University.
Bids for nearly 900 projects, totalling nearly 8.5 Giga watts of
capacity, have come from potential generators of electricity from renewables for
the fourth competition under the Non-Fossil Fuel Obligation (NFFO). That's a
staggering amount: NFFO-1 had only attracted 370 bids, NFFO-2 282 and NFFO-3 520
bids and 8.5 GW is about 14% of the UK's total generating capacity!
Junior Energy Minister Richard Page commented:
"This is a most encouraging response which reflects the enthusiasm and commitment of an emerging new industry. The Non-Fossil Fuel Obligation is one of the world's toughest competitions for generators of electricity from renewables. Those who are successful will be well placed to participate in the rapid expansion of export markets.'
He added "I expect the prices paid under NFFO 4 to reflect continuing convergence with the market price for electricity."
The bids cover a wide range of technologies. There were expressions of
interest from potential suppliers for 177 landfill gas projects, 284 waste fired
projects of which 89 were combined heat and power (CHP), 227 wind energy
projects, 79 small scale hydro projects and 123 using biomass, of which 89 were
by gasification.
In the next stage of the exercise the Generators will be providing further
information on their projects before making firm price bids by 15 January 1997.
The NFFO 4 order will then be formally set and, as we reported in Renew99 (and
in Renew On Line 2), it is expected to require the
Regional Electricty Companies to contract for 400 to 500 MW DNC (Declared Net
Capacity) of new capacity and be made early in 1997. Specific contracts will
then emerge. One further round of the NFFO (NFFO-5) is planned after that.
The last NFFO order, NFFO 3, was made in December 1994 and generators have
up to five years in which to commission their power stations and generate
electricity. The DTI says that 'good progress is being made by NFFO 3 projects'.
So far NFFO's 1,2 and 3 have resulted in the installation of 334 MW of
renewable energy capacity in England and Wales, compared with the 1251 MW
specified in the NFFO orders. As we note in Renew 101, apart from a few
withdrawn or failed projects, NFFO 1 is now more or less complete, but NFFO 2
seems likely never to be fully completed. So even if NFFO 3 does well, the total
number of live projects in the NFFO as a whole will be significant less than
that originally contracted for and there will still be some way to go before the
overall year 2000 target of 1,500MW (DNC) is reached. As we noted in Renew 99,
NFFO 4 and 5 may be used to compensate for that.
For more details see the DTI's press release on
http://www.coi.gov.uk/coi/depts/GTI/coi6259b.ok
Germany continues to expand its wind energy capacity- which reached 1.1
Giga Watts by the end of last year, with about 20% of it being locally owned.
Meanwhile in the UK, although more than half of the current round of
planning applications for new NFFO supported wind farms have been successful,
significant local opposition still exists.
John Edwards, Vice Chair of the Gwent Branch of the Campaign for the
Protection of Rural Wales, gave vent to typical opposition sentiments in a
letter to the Independent (23/11/95) in which he attacks the move to larger
machines.
The initial wave of 300-350kw turbines was he said bad
enough but now the developers were 'massively increasing the size of turbines',
with for example a 1000 kw demonstration machine being proposed for Mynddislwyn
near Caerphilly.
This may be a bit of an over-reaction - doubling or trebling the size of
power output doesn't mean doubling or trebling the size of the windturbine,
since power output is the square of blade diameter. Even so higher rated
machines are bigger - and size evidently matters in visual terms in the UK, as
well of course as the question of ownership.
Local community ownership has still not yet got off the ground in the UK,
although the British Wind Energy Association's Community Ownership Committee is
lobbying hard, and there are some small wind projects in NFFO3 and 4, plus a
number of relevant DTI funded feasibility studies, carried out in conjunction
with the ALTENER scheme.
One of these involves the study of local renewable options for the town of
Hatherleigh in Devon (see Renew 91), the results of which should emerge soon.
Another involves the idea of a wind cluster on the Isle of Islay in Scotland,
possibly with support from the Wind Fund.
There's also a similar study being done of a possible wind energy project
at Harlock Hill, Cumbria.
The DTI has also been supporting a 'scoping study' of renewable energy
resources for the Broughton Village Project (see Renew 97 and 82).
In addition the DTI will shortly publish a short popular version of the
report for ETSU on Community Involvement in Renewable Energy Project carried out
by Ray Mitchel from Rubicon Link in 1994 (see Renew 95).
While in the UK we are still at the feasibility stage, in Denmark,
Germany, Sweden and Holland community owned schemes are common. For example in
Denmark over 2,000 wind turbines are locally owned by wind guilds, with over
50,000 guild members investing in them.
As we noted in Renew 98, Germany now has more wind capacity than Denmark and
is still pushing ahead with windfarms very rapidly - 1100 MW has now been
installed, including some larger machines. But interestingly, 700 wind turbines
representing around 20% of the wind capacity installed so far in Germany, are
locally owned by community groups: that's equivalent to the total capacity so
far installed in the UK.
However there have been suggestions that the German wind boom will slacken
shortly, and certainly current progress in the USA is not inspiring: budgetary
cutbacks and the de-regulation of the electricity supply market are taking their
toll, with integrated resource planning/DSM falling out of favour in preference
for short term competition on supply. And, we hear that Sweden is backing off
windpower .....
So it's the usual mixture of ups and downs.
Back in the UK the Countryside Commission has come out with a fairly critical report on windfarms, following a year long review. Although it says it is not against windfarms in general, it is concerned that planning permission has been given for 10 windfarms in or near national parks and 17 in or near areas of outstanding natural beauty. Richard Simmonds, the Commissions Chair, told the Daily Telegraph (13/1/96)
'The cumulative industrialising effect on our landscape is of much concern,' and suggested that planning controls be strengthened.
Energy scenario's are back in vogue again: see for example the new
World Energy Council Scenario's (reviewed in Renew 100). Shell International in
London have produced their own, which suggests that renewables might supply 50%
of world energy by the year 2060. As we noted in Renew 95, Roger Booth presented
an outline account of the new scenario to the 21st Anniversary Conference of the
UK Solar Energy Society last year, and more details have emerged subsequently,
with Shell's long planning group evidently keen to get reactions.
The key element in Shell's 'sustained growth' scenario is the assumption
of continued overall growth in global energy demand - which the scenario
suggest, will increase three fold by 2060. That leaves plenty of room for fossil
fuels, nuclear and renewables to co-exist. Nuclear's share expands slightly, but
renewables expand dramatically after 2020, and while gas stays more or less
constant, oil and coal start to fall off around 2030 and 2040 respectively.
The message seems to be that given 'sustained growth' (at around 3% of GDP
pa) there is initially room for all the sources to expand - although in the long
term, fossil fuels will decline or in the case of gas stabilise. In effect this
represents a challenge to some other more radical scenarios, particularly that
from Greenpeace (see Renew 83) which has fossil being phased out entirely by
2100, and nuclear disappearing long before then.
It also challenges the more orthodox view that coal use will expand, while
oil and gas resource limits will be reached relatively early on. The new World
Energy Council scenario (see Reviews) also makes the same point: there are, they
say, abundant reserves of all the fossil fuels, the main issue being whether we
can safely use them given the prospects of global warming. Shell think we can.
In the 'worst case' put forward by the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate
Change, carbon dioxide emissions accelerate upward to three or more times
current levels by 2100. But in Shell's 'sustained growth' scenario carbon
dioxide emissions from fossil fuels continue to rise up to 2020, but then fall
dramatically after 2050 or so, reaching 1990 levels by around 2090, presumably
because gas and nuclear continue to expand while after 2030 the use of
renewables expands significantly.
Shell also explore a 'de-materialisation' scenario in which much less
energy is required since economic growth can continue with less use of energy
intensive materials and systems and a move to the 'information based economy'.
On this basis, the increase in carbon dioxide emissions is less and begins
to fall dramatically after around 2030, reaching 1990 levels by around 2080.
So we can for a while have our cake and eat it: fossil fuels and
renewables - although in the case of the de materialisation scenario the
majority of renewables are not needed until after 2060!
Speaking at the Alternative Energy Conference at the Global Partnership
Conference and Exhibition at the Barbican last November, Roger Booth from Shell
emphasised the point that renewables would expand more or less rapidly, but it
was not a matter of renewables replacing fossil fuel: the latter would be used,
and in some cases in increasing quantities, for decades ahead, even if
eventually they would decline.
Shell International's scenarios are described in outline in 'The Evolution
of the World's energy system 1860-2060', which you may able to obtain from the
Public Affairs Department, Shell Centre, London, SE1 7NA.
It concludes with the following nice quote from WellemVan Oranje,
reflecting Shell's Dutch base: "there is no favourable wind for those who
do not know where they are going".
SunWorld, the journal of the International Solar Energy Society, has been
running a series of fascinating articles by oil expert Colin Campbell who
suggests that a new oil price shock is imminent and warns that the world was
once again heavily reliant on cheap oil.
See 'The Coming Crisis' in Sun World, Vol.19 No.2, June 1995.
The latest report from the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change
may have confirmed that global warming looks increasingly real (see Renew 101,
forthcoming), but the European Commission and European Union seem to be locked
into internal disputes over part of its response, following allegations that
funding for its non-nuclear energy programme has been mishandled.
As we noted in Renew 99 only 81m of the 100m ECU evidently sanctioned for
expenditure on renewables under the Joule R&D was allocated - 20m ECU or so
had, it seems, been re-allocated to fossil fuels and the 'rational use of
energy' without proper sanction. On the one hand there have been allegations of
an anti-renewable conspiracy and, as Windpower Monthly reported last October,
suggestions that some good projects had been turned down, with some technical
assessments being interfered with. But inadvertent bureaucratic bungling seems
an equally likely exploration, given that the EC department DGXII is generally
very supportive of renewables.
In its November issue Windpower Monthly reported on the complex process of
assessment for candidate projects - a process which was it seems hurriedly
revamped when anomalies were discovered: some projects which had been turned
down by technical assessors had in fact been allowed to go on to strategic
assessment and there was a risk that the budget would be overspent. The response
was evidently to slam on the brakes - but this was done too hard and not enough
projects survived the new re-assessment. The official line was that there were
not enough projects of sufficient quality.
However, following this, the Commission has tried to correct the budget
shortfall, by reassessing and reinstating a number of projects, with some being
taken from the reserve list. So it's all turned out OK. But not before some
fierce invective was hurled around.
Herman Scheer from Eurosolar saw it as
'a surgical operation to cut out the key areas of renewable energies currently at the forefront of the technologies. Projects involving large wind turbines have been removed, even though they promised cost reductions of up to one third
And Hiltrud Breyer, a German MEP, who led the counter attack, told
Windpower Monthly that she suspected the French and German nuclear utilities of
attempting to
'stop the market breakthrough of renewables'
We'll probably never know what really happened, but it does suggest that
renewables are becoming politically important!
Return to index
Greenpeace have been running a campaign aimed at getting more support
from the government for solar photovoltaic cells.
As part of the campaign Greenpeace have produced a new report, "Unlocking
the Power of our Cities?" which outlines the case for solar powered
buildings in Britain. The report describes the unique characteristics of solar
photovoltaics, which it says is the only renewable energy technology that can be
deployed on a mass scale in our towns and cities. It highlights the
opportunities there are for installing solar power on the estimated 2 million
square metres of commercial building roof space constructed every year in the
UK.
Greenpeace believe that the use of photovoltaics in combination with
energy efficient design offers an exciting opportunity to reduce the
environmental impact of our buildings. As the case studies illustrate (and as
Godfrey Boyle's article in our Technology section reports) solar panels are
already in widespread use in other European countries, are technically proven,
and can be used in place of conventional building materials. Although still
expensive, costs are falling rapidly. The report indicates that pv cladding
costs around £700 - 1000 per sq. metre compared to £500 for stone and
up to £1,500 - £1,700 for polished stone facades.
Greenpeace have also produced a briefing paper 'Failing British Industry
and the Environment' which chastises the government for its alleged lack of
support for photovoltaic technology. In particular it claims that opportunities
are being wasted to support British solar products in the current multi-million
pound upgrades of Whitehall departments.
The briefing paper notes that in 1995 a major study by the European
Commission on Energy (DG XVII) reported on prospects for PV to the year 2010. It
provided compelling evidence on the market potential for solar photovoltaics,
stating that. The roof and building mounted facade grid-connected market
represents the fastest growing (solar) market in Europe. It is estimated that
618GWp is potentially installable on roofs in Europe and more than 1100MWp in
the other OECD markets.' (Photovoltaics in 2010, EC Directorate General for
Energy, 1995).
The report also predicted that the number of jobs that would result from
growth in solar markets could range from 450.000 jobs by 2010 in a mid-range
scenario, to over 1.3 million jobs in a top end scenario. Greenpeace also point
out that the Government were warned of the dangers of missing out on these
growing markets in a report to the DTI in 1993:
"The UK P.V. industry is at risk of losing out to European competitors in the grid-connected system market at home and abroad. At least a modest, coherent national programme is required to give the industry the credibility of a national interest. Failing this, the UK market in the future will be dominated by European manufacturers who will have had the benefit of participation in national and international programmes to assist them to develop their products.' (Grid connection of photovoltaic systems. ETSU 1394-P1.DTI Report 1993)"
However, despite repeated advice to this effect the UK Government has,
says Greenpeace, failed to establish a programme to encourage the installation
of photovoltaics on buildings, so that
"Britain remains one of the
few western European countries without a plan to encourage the commercialisation
of solar power."
To be fair, there is of course some funding for R&D and for some
specific projects, and the Technology Foresight Panel, set up by government did
identify pv as one of the key technologies necessary to keep UK industries
competitive in the 21st century.
As we noted in Renew 97, the Foresight energy panel, made up of 25 of the
country's top energy experts from business, academia and government, identified
solar photovoltaics as the highest rated renewable energy technology and
recommended that:
"relevant departments of Government incorporate these findings in their decisions on future programmes, in order to develop appropriate initiatives to progress these issues."
(Technology Foresight report 13, Energy, Office of Science & Technology,
HMSO 1995).
The question is - will there be a response? Greenpeace clearly feel that
opportunities have already been missed in the various government construction
and refurbishment projects on their own headquarters.
"Just six government departments have spent, or are planning to spend, over half a billion pounds on refurbishing and upgrading their HQ's. None of them have integrated photovoltaics into their own offices despite the technical and commercial availability of solar building products from British companies and the enormous benefits that such high profile support would bring to the UK solar industry."
For example
"£60 million was spend refurbishing the DTI's headquarters in Victoria Street during 94/95 - which included extensive work on the external facade and the construction of a large glass atrium, ideal for photovoltaic integration. Despite its inherent compatibility and the benefits that photovoltaics on a flagship government building would have created, no solar cladding was installed."
Greenpeace also feels that the Department of the Environment, which is
responsible for managing the entire Government estate outside Whitehall,
involving over 6 million square metres of office floorspace, should take PV on
board.
It notes that
"in 1993, the last year for which full figures are available, the DoE spent £2.4 billion on capital works on the Government estate, approximately a third of the national commercial buildings market. None of this money has been spent on integrating photovoltaics into the government's building stock."
And as a parting shot they comment
"The DoE's new ?£30 million HQ, Eland House, is being built as a 'state of the art' green building and a showcase for the British construction industry. Eland House can not perform this function if it generates none of its own clean renewable energy, and does nothing to promote British solar companies."
It will be interesting to see if this produces any response! After all in
the USA the Whitehouse has been solarised - so why not Whitehall?
The US Dept. of Energy has recently put $44m into grid linked PV commercialisation while Japan recently increased its solar/pv budget from £87m to £220m and hopes to reach a target of 4.6GW of pv capacity by 2010.
'Power from the Waves' the new book by David Ross, published in Jan. by
Oxford University Press (see Renew 98), should create quite a storm given David
Ross' forthright style.
The book blurb sets the tone, referring bitterly to 'the absurd suggestion
that a fuel which arrives free on our shores is too expensive to capture and
process.'
Although Ross carefully avoids a conspiracy theory approach, he continues,
in the book, in similar vein - charting in detail the technical and political
twists and turns of the development of wave power, in a way that will inevitably
ruffle establishment feathers.
Ross is no stranger to contention: back in 1978 he wrote an article for
New Statesman which was the subject of an internal civil service memo - provided
to Ross in the interests of 'open government' by Tony Benn, then the Energy
Minister, and reprinted in the new book. The memo concludes
'Wave power at any cost is an objective that could very easily be achieved. It would not, however, serve the economic interests, either of this country, or even of wave power. David Ross appears quite unable to appreciate this fundamental point'
So far though, the response to the new book has been fairly muted. New
Scientist reviewed it reasonably favourably, as did Electrical Review, although
both felt that Ross had adopted too one sided and shrill a tone. As Electrical
Review put it (12/12/95) 'even people who are convinced of the case for further
large-scale wave energy research may find themselves siding with the energy
establishment after reading this book.'
European Union Energy Policy, House of Lords Select Committee reports
Vol I and Vol II July 1995.
The Commission of the European Community produced a 'Green Paper' on
energy policy in January 1995, aiming to stimulate debate within the community.
One of the key issues was whether the basic treaties defining the European
Community (or Union as it now is) should be expanded by including a 'chapter' on
energy, similar to those on common transport and the environment policy, with an
interventionist stance being implied.
The House of Lords Select Committee on the European Community held a
series of hearings on these issues calling in evidence from a wide range of
experts and pressure groups.
The starting point was the basic principles of energy policy - which are
seen as
Competitiveness was strongly favoured by the Select Committee, which
very much adopted the Government's market led approach - as did some of the
witnesses. However not all saw it as the complete answer. While DTI Energy
Minister Tim Eggar claimed that 'the best way to deal with security of supply is
to encourage competition', not everyone was convinced.
There was also a need for strategic intervention by the state since, as
Professor Ian Fells put it 'the market place can tell you nothing about what is
going on ten years ahead'.
Fells claimed that many Europeans felt that the UK had let
'liberalization' go too far, and that the regulatory balance might well soon
swing the other way - with a change of Government.
Certainly that's what Greenpeace wanted - they felt that laisez faire
policies had to be replaced by firm commitments to renewables and energy
efficiency - in roughly a 1 to 3 ratio. Thus they called for a European wide
commitment to a 1% pa increase in renewable energy use, and a 3% pa reduction in
energy use via investment in energy efficiency.
The Select Committee however were not impressed. Although they could hardly
object to energy efficiency, they saw renewables as being very marginal - and
were much more in favour of nuclear power.
Their Lordships even seemed to put Tim Eggar on the spot. Thus Lord
Greigson objected to the Government support for windfarms:
'since I live in Hebden Bridge, there is a strange collaboration taking place. Sir Bernard Ingham and I are very concerned about being ringed by windmills. We have thirty already established on various hilltops and the thought of the whole skyline being filled with windmills - it is getting ludicrous, and you are subsidising it all!'
Eggar replied that all the opinion polls elsewhere had shown public support, but the Committee seemed to prefer Lord Lauderdales claim, expressed during the cross examination of Ian Fells, that
'whereas we used to think windfarms were a good thing, on the whole the balance of the argument has now gone the other way, and on tidal barrages too'.
By contrast the Select Committee noted 'with concern the lack of
reference in the Green Paper to nuclear energy' and even seemed prepared to
propose intervention to support it - a view which was of course shared by
Nuclear Electric and Scottish Nuclear, but went against the generally
non-interventionist stance of the Committee.
The end result was that the Committee felt an extra 'energy chapter' in the
EU treaty was probably not needed.
Regulation should in any case be kept to the minimum and the EU's best
policy was to support competition and liberalisation. The Committee had already
come out against the proposed EU's energy/carbon tax and in general seemed loath
to shift much beyond the traditional view that markets work best - with their
main concern being to ensure effective exploitation of the various
inter-european fuel markets that have opened up. The only real problem was that
the EC's involvement in supporting and regulating this sort of activity might
'create tensions between the UK and other member states with fewer indigenous
resources'.
Return to index
"At present the future of UK energy prices is insufficiently certain for British Energy to invest in new nuclear or indeed any other form of new generation in the short term."
So said Dr Robert Hawley, chief executive of British Energy, the new holding
company that is taking over the UK's Advanced Gas-cooled Reactors and the
Sizewell 'B' Pressurised Water Reactor.
Bowing to the inevitable, British Energy announced it would not be
pursuing its plans for the double sized Sizewell 'C' or for Hinkley Point 'C' -
despite the planning permission that had been obtained, after a lengthy public
inquiry, on the latter.
The media heralded this as 'the end of Britain's nuclear era', but there
were also some regrets and warnings. The Independents editorial complained about
shortermism. Gas might be cheap now but we might become hostage to those who
controlled the trans-Siberian gas pipeline, and might not be able to meet our
commitments to reducing carbon dioxide emissions:
'Nuclear generation is therefore likely to be vital in the 21st century.
New nuclear power stations will have to be built in Britain.' (Independent
12/12/95).
The Guardian also worried about gas imports - and still felt there might
be a future for nuclear when and if it was able to deliver energy 'in an
environmentally clean, safe and economic way.' The Observer (17/12/95) felt
similarly. But for the foreseeable future that is unlikely - and the prospects
for the UK nuclear industry are bleak.
MAGNOX will go, then the AGR's, leaving just Sizewell 'B', until it too
becomes obsolete. There has been talk of selling reactors overseas e.g. to
Taiwan, Korea, or even China. But as Prof. Ian Fells put it "If you were
the Taiwan government and were reading that British Energy has decided not to
construct Sizewell 'C' because of economic reasons, would you be happy giving
them a contact for your multi-billion pound nuclear power station?' (Observer
17/12/95).
Of course there will still be a lot of decommissioning work to do, and the
UK nuclear industry could become a world leader in nuclear clean up technology,
as the Technology Foresight Energy Panel suggested (see Renew 97). But
otherwise, if it is to survive, it will have to diversify: Perhaps that's why
the name 'British Energy' was chosen, with natural gas (CCGT) being an obvious
option, at least for the short term.
Certainly diversification seems vital - there are a lot of jobs involved.
It was a pity then that the media didn't mention the renewable energy options.
Scottish Nuclear has after all been supporting the IT Power tidemill prototype
project: small scale of course, but a good indicator of one possible new
direction.
Return to index
This service is free as long as it is not for commercial purposes but please ensure you credit the source of any material you use from RENEW ON-LINE.
EERU Home page
Any comments or requests for further information should be addressed
to;
NATTA c/o EERU
Open University
MILTON KEYNES
MK7 6AA
U.K.