Renew On Line (UK) 30

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

Energy Crops and the RO

The consultation on the DTI proposals for the Renewables Obligation (RO) has thrown up some interesting points on energy crops.

The RO, with its 3p/kWh buy out price, favours projects which can get near to the buy-out price and discriminates against renewables which are further from market convergence- like energy crops. The capital grants scheme is meant to compensate, but so far there is not much detail on the energy crops side- it’s mainly focussed on offshore wind. The main discrepancy between the two resources is that offshore-wind is capital intensive, but biocrops expenditure is split between capital, fuel and operation. This clearly needs to be addressed by the DTI.

In addition there are tactical issues. The obligation consultation document excluded energy from municipal solid waste (MSW) and from mixed streams of industrial & commercial waste (ICW). However, the emerging biocrops industry seems to be declaring itself in favour of including MSW and ICW in the obligation. They argue that new biomass technologies will not get a fair wind if MSW and ICW are excluded. In effect they have been obliged to fly on the coat-tails of energy from waste because they may need to use some less than ideal wastes in their own projects.

Certainly, the emerging biocrops industry will not wish to see agricultural & forestry residues excluded from the capital grants system. For example, since there is not enough SRC at present, ARBRE, the flagship energy crops plant, relies on forest residues. From there it is a short step to asking for MSW and ICW to be put inside the obligation. Maybe the biomass interests want to ensure that the option of co-firing with a wide ranging of materials is kept open. But most environmentalists would not welcome the use of MSW like this, in effect by the backdoor.