Renew On Line (UK) 26

Extracts from the May-June 2000 edition of Renew
These extracts only represent about 25% of it

6. CREA on the DTI renewables report

The Government policy of requiring electricity companies to buy 10% of their electricity from renewables by 2010 was welcomed by the Confederation of Renewable Energy Associations. ‘The target of 10% of UK electricity from renewables by 2010 is greatly welcomed,’ said David Fitzherbert CREA Chairmam‘ but there are a number of critical details which have not been thrashed out yet: what will be the penalties if the electricity companies have not contracted for their 10%? Unless these penalties are severe then the policy will be toothless. Second, renewables projects are often small and difficult to finance; this new policy will make it more difficult to raise finance than the previous policy. Thirdly, the largest single obstacle to the development of renewables has been the planning regime; until Government addresses this issue there is little chance of reaching the 10% target’.

Meanwhile, though CREA felt that the renewable resource in this country remains a vast and untapped asset; the generators of renewable power are amongst the most advanced in the world and we are capable of generating well in excess of 10% of the UK's electricity needs.

CREA had also welcomed the Climate Change Levy but felt that there was ‘still great uncertainty within the renewable energy industry. The new electricity trading arrangements stand to severely disadvantage renewable generators and the expected announcement of future renewable policy has been repeatedly delayed.’

CREA: David FitzHerbert, Chairman, Tel. 0171 629 2668,
Gaynor Hartnell,, Tel. 01273 472468

 

ELECTRICITY ASSOCIATION on the DTI target

The Electricity Association, the trade body which represents the UK electricity industry on a national and international level, believes that the Government's target of 10% renewable generation by 2010, as reaffirmed in the new DTI report, was "challenging but feasible". However, it questioned whether the interim target of 5% by 2003 was realistic if the Government decided to exclude large scale hydro, due to planning and infrastructure constraints. With the current level of renewable electricity apart from hydro at around 1%, the increasing difficulty in obtaining planning consent, and limited UK manufacturing capacity for renewable generation plant, the EA doubted that there was enough lead-time to bring sufficient new generation projects on stream.

Philip Daubeney, the EA’s Chief Executive foresaw an ‘increasingly difficult planning environment which sees a large proportion of proposals turned down at local planning inquiry stage. These unresolved planning issues, together with the lead times required to bring any generation project on stream and the limited UK manufacturing capacity for renewables plant, must put a question mark against the Government's interim target if it decides to exclude large hydro generation".

He added, "Climate change is a societal issue and the public needs to understand that to achieve the required level of renewable capacity could involve significant areas of land being given over to wind farms and greater numbers of locally sited green generation schemes. The Government should now grasp the nettle and provide a proper planning framework within which local planning authorities have to identify suitable locations for new renewables projects. The Government's overall strategy of seeking to deliver growth in renewable sources of energy through a market-based mechanism does, nonetheless, provide a good basis for meeting its long term targets for renewables. This will in turn help deliver the UK's CO2 emissions reduction required under the Kyoto protocol, which the UK electricity industry supports."