Extracts from NATTA's journal
Renew, issue 147 Jan-Feb 2004

2. UK still at bottom of the EU league..

The table below shows renewable energy contributions as a share of total primary energy supply in 2001 in the United Kingdom and in each of the other EU member states. We have ranked them by % of renewables.

Renewable energy as a share of total primary energy supply, 2001       

Source: International Energy Agency

[source: Hansard 15 Oct 2003 : Columns 242-3W ]

As can be seen, the UK is at the bottom of the league, only just beating Belgium. Remember that this is for primary energy- including heat supplied, so traditional biomass accounts for a lot of the high percentages for countries like Sweden, Austria and Finland. And as a whole new set of biomass rich countries join the enlarged EU over the next few years, they could also  come in at a higher ranking than the UK.

… but new post-2010 RO target may help

But some help may be at hand. The DTI has announced a post-2010 target for the Renewables Obligation - 15% by 2015. That should certainly help build investor confidence. Even so, in a report looking to the future of renewables in the UK, the Carbon Trust is fairly gloomy. Although energy prospects look good ( we have a large resource) , commercially they say we’ve mostly missed the boat on wind and solar, but could do well on wave and tidal.. Meanwhile, the governments new Energy Bill published in Dec, provides the legislative underpinnings to some of the commitments  made in last years White Paper, including BETTA, offshore wind zoning and the Nuclear Decommissioning Agency. More on all these developments in Renew 148

RO (Scotland) after 2010? Scots to take high road?

The Scottish Executive seems to be considering a high long term target for the Scottish Renewable Obligation. The absence of something beyond the DTI’s ‘10% of electricity’ national target (until 2027!), was widely held to be undermining business confidence in the future of renewables.   The DTI had said it wanted to wait until 2005, when the EU emission trading system should be in place, before deciding about the RO post-2010. Logically it ought to be raised to ‘20% by 2020’, in line with UK energy policy, although Scotland might want to aim higher in line with its more ambitious unilateral energy target- with an ‘RO Scotland’  requirement of maybe 30% or even 40%. In this context, the DTI’s new 15% by 2015 national RO target, although welcome, looks quite timid.