Renew On Line (UK) 29a

Extracts from the Jan-Feb 2001 edition of Renew
These extracts only represent about 25% of it

8. UK Funding for New Renewables

As we noted in the Stop Press sent out with Renew 128, last Oct., in his ‘Richer and Greener’ policy speech, the Prime Minister announced that £150 million of New Opportunities Funding (NOF) will be available to help the environment, with £50m allocated to offshore wind and wood-fired and other energy crop power generation. In addition, £13m of the £50m allocated for energy efficiency measures from the Climate Change Levy will go to the DTI for work on renewbles, and £4m for MAFF and energy crops.

According to Blair, this is on top of the £39 m allocated to the DTI for offshore wind projects, and pressumably the £4m to MAFF is also additional to the £12m for energy crops mentioned by the DTI - and the £30m for energy crops already agreed by MAFF. If so, the prospects for renewables are looking up.

Capital grants are to be made avilable to support offshore wind and energy crops projects. According to the proposals in the DTI Consulatation document these grants will go to ‘a few’ early ‘projects’ selected on a competitive basis, with up to £60m worth of bids expected. The competition will start this April and be open until the end of the year, to give participants time to draw up bids. The funds will be for up to 40% of the capital cost of the successful projects, but will only be available for the costs over and above those for an equivalent capacity combined cycle gas turbine plant (currently around £400p/kWh) adjusted, in the case of wind projects, by 0.43 (the DNC value) to take account of the intermittent nature of the source.

Slightly different arrangements will apply for the £12m (plus the new £4m mentioned above) available to MAFF energy crop projects, with several issues being raised in the DTI consultation - should there be an emphasis on large or small projects, advanced or conceptional technology - for example should pyrolysis and gasification be prioritised?

What about the other renewables? The DTI consultation paper says that ‘Renewables such as wave and photovoltaics will need further development before they are likely to be able to play a more significant role in the renewable energy portfolio’. But surely that's a case for providing some extra funding? Particularly if waste combustion is to be downgraded. Otherwise how can we expect to meet 5% by 2003and 10% by 2010 renewable targets?

All is not lost however. In his ‘richer and greener’ policy speech, Blair indicated that ‘Helen Liddle has set up a task force to examine ways of promoting solar energy. And I have also asked the Performance and Innovation Unit to undertake a comprehensive study into the future of renewable energy, with a view to increasing substantially our long term investment.’ So we may yet see some funding for PV solar, wave and tidal stream.

DTI paper: www.dti.gov.uk/renew/ropc.pdf

Blairs speech www.number-10.gov.uk