Extracts from NATTA's journal
Renew, issue 145Sept-Oct 2003

1.Renewable Routemap

‘We will not prescribe the precise routemap, rather we want to create the market that delivers the result we want’. So said Patricia Hewitt, Trade and Industry Secretary, at the Conference organised by the UK Business Council For Sustainable Energy Conference, back in May. However, the Renewable Power Association (RPA), was clearly not content with this and on the same day launched a ‘Renewables Routemap’ to show the way it thought we should move forward to a sustainable energy future. Key points include:

* A new target for renewable sources to supply 30% of the UK’s electricity within 25 years.

* ‘Mending not ending’ the Renewables Obligation to maintain investor confidence and ensure that the Government’s targets can be met

* New measures to support well developed technologies that are close to commercial viability.

RPA Chief Executive Philip Wolfe commented: ‘The Government’s Energy White Paper set out a bold vision for this country’s energy future. But the Government was too timid on targets for renewables. And its policies are too thin and weak to deliver the result. This Routemap shows how the vision can be turned into reality.’ We will be covering the RPA’s new strategy in Renew 146.

As the RPA made clear, the future of the Renewables Obligation (RO) is a key issue for many people in the renewables industry. The government has said it will be reviewed in 2005/6, but some people want this brought forward so that potential renewables investors would have more confidence about the situation after 2010. However, Patricia Hewitt seemed not to be willing to take any radical action yet: she said she was ‘not planning to set a level for the renewables obligation after 2010 now. It would be absurd to try to guess now at what level renewables will be then, especially with the start of carbon trading.’ Evidently the government is looking to emission trading markets to resolve all manner of problems, but Hewitt said the UK needed to wait to see how its voluntary trading scheme, now in operation, linked in to the EU’s proposed scheme, scheduled to start in 2005 (see p.10), before tinkering too much with the RO.

PRASEG pushes: SEPN spins web

The Parliamentary Renewable and Sustainable Energy Group’s Annual Conference in July continued the RPA’s critical theme (see above) under the heading ‘A Sustainable Energy Future - Action on Aspirations!’. PRASEG published the results of its review of UK policy- calling for the Climate Change Levy to be replaced with something more effective and compatible with the new EU Emission Trading scheme. More in Renew 146.

Meanwhile the government has set up a new cross-Departmental Sustainable Energy Policy Network, linking together key people from the DTI, DEFRA and so on in the process of following up the commitments made in the Energy White paper. That idea got wide support. More details in Renew 146.