Tag Archives: renewables
Ed Davey Dismisses Fracking With Pledge To ‘Expand Renewables’
Last updated on 2 August 2013, 9:28 am UK energy and climate chief says government committed to clean energy, promising more support in energy bill By Nilima Choudhury UK government plans to invest in renewable energy will not be pushed off course by supporters of shale gas exploration, also known as fracking, Ed Davey has told RTCC. Britain’s energy and climate chief was talking after announcing a £66 million package to boost offshore wind in the UK, which the government says could “unlock £7 billion in the economy by 2020”. In the past 10 days the Sun Newspaper, former BP chief Tony Hayward and influential conservative columnist Tim Montgomerie have all called for Davey to scrap support for renewables in favour of shale gas, but he told RTCC the opposite was likely to happen. “We’re not changing our strategy except to even augment it so there’ll be more pro renewables. We have got the most ambitious renewable and low carbon energy strategy the country’s ever had,” he said. “And coupled with the energy bill to create the world’s first ever low carbon electricity market we couldn’t be clearer about our determination to expand renewables and low carbon.” Last month Prime Minister David Cameron opened the world’s largest offshore power generation project off the Kent coast, but generation remains small compared to the UK’s overall capacity of 80GW . Yesterday’s opening of the Lincs Offshore Wind farm saw UK onshore and offshore wind capacity pass the 10GW mark, according to trade body RenewableUK . The UK currently has an installed offshore wind capacity of over 3.3GW, with a further 1.3GW under construction. Costs Davey reiterated his ambition for the UK to be a “world leader” in the development of offshore wind, but acknowledges that the costs of offshore – currently higher than onshore or nuclear – have to be addressed. “We’ve been working with the industry to map out the potential for cost reductions and when we published the stuff on the strike prices [subsidies] recently we showed that if we get the cost reductions that we believe we can we could see 16GW of offshore wind by the end of this decade,” said Davey. “The potential for our industry is huge and actually being the leader gives a potential for exports and potential to learn how to innovate and how to get the cost benefits from large scale deployment. “I think it’s right that we are leading – the problems we’ve seen in the past has been that Britain has been a follower and as a result we’ve had to actually end up paying more because we’re depending on other suppliers and we’ve not had the industrial base development with the jobs that come to that.” “I think it’s great that under the coalition government we are making sure that we are not just a leader but remain a leader in the years ahead.” – See more at: http://www.rtcc.org/…h.LpDc9xun.dpuf Continue reading
UK ‘Off Track’ For 2020 Renewables Target
31 July 2013 Official energy statistics published today by the UK government report that the UK has missed its indicative renewable energy target for 2011-12. As a result the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) will have to submit an amended national renewable energy action plan to the European Commission by 30th June 2014, setting out measures to get the country back ‘on track’. The means that the UK is the only Member State which has failed to meet both 2011 and 2013 indicative targets and which is expected not to reach its 2020 target. “This is a near miss. Had government interfered less with its existing policies for biomass power, stuck to its timetable on the Renewable Heat Incentive, or laid out a clear framework for biofuels, then it would almost certainly have met its indicative target,” commented Renewable Energy Association (REA) chief executive Gaynor Hartnell. The 2011-12 UK figure shows that 3.94% of energy comes from renewables, 0.1% short of the indicative target of 4.04%. Meanwhile, the majority of the EU-27 had already met their 2011-12 indicative targets by the end of 2011. According to the latest EUROSTAT data, the UK remains 25th out of the 27 EU Member States on the share of renewables in its heating system, power supply and transport fuels. The UK’s 2020 target is one of the lowest across the EU-27 (15%), and requires one of the highest annual growth rates (16.5% year-on-year to 2020). The REA is the UK partner for the EU-wide ‘ Keep on Track! ’ project, which assesses Member States’ progress towards their 2020 targets. The first ‘Keep on Track’ Tracking Roadmap report was published last month and revealed that the UK had missed its indicative 2011 NREAP target. The REA estimates that if the renewables industry expands sufficiently to meet the UK’s 2020 target, it will sustain 400,000 jobs across the supply chain. Continue reading
UN: Developing Nations Leading Renewables Investment
By Ed King Investment in renewable energy projects in developing countries increased in 2012, despite a small global decline in back for wind and solar projects, the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) has revealed. Today it released two reports on the state of the renewable sector, the REN21′s Renewables Global Status Report (GSR) and Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment 2013. They confirmed overall investment in renewables was $244 billion, a 12% drop on 2011, which the studies attribute to policy uncertainty in industrialised countries. Total power capacity increased by 8.5%, while the deployment of wind and solar installations broke new records, despite falls in overall funding. But while the US and Germany experienced significant dips in investment, there were sharp increases in China, South Africa, Mexico, Kenya and the Middle East. Installed wind capacity hit a new record of 48.4GW, up from 42.1GW in 2011, although investment fell 10% China consolidated its position as the world’s leading renewables market, with solar investment largely responsible for a 22% lead to $67 billion of investment. Small-scale solar in Japan also drove an astonishing 73% increase in investment, worth $16 billion. Despite the ongoing financial crisis, both reports highlight the strong position of the clean energy sector, which has seen $1.3 trillion injected since 2006, and now employs 5.7 million around the world. “This should be a source of inspiration for governments, cities, companies and citizens everywhere to raise their ambition towards climate action,” said UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon. “A global climate agreement by 2015 would provide dramatic spur in the direction we need to travel.” UN climate chief Christiana Figueres, who has endured a difficult second week of international negitiations in Bonn, said the figures provide a welcome boost. “Driven in part by the UNFCCC process and various provisions and mechanisms of the Kyoto Protocol, the increasing deployment of wind, solar, geothermal and other clean energy power sources serve as a powerful antidote to those who claim that a transition to a low-carbon, resource-efficient future is unobtainable,” she said. Critically, costs of renewables continue to fall. Solar PV systems are down 30-40% on 2011 prices, while onshore turbines have fallen “by a few percentage points”. “It is encouraging that renewable energy investment has exceeded $200 billion for the third successive year, that emerging economies are playing a larger and larger part, and that the cost-competitiveness of solar and wind power is improving all the time,” said Michael Liebreich, Chief Executive, Bloomberg New Energy Finance. “What remains daunting is that the world has hardly scratched the surface – CO2 emissions are still on a firm upward trend and there was still nearly $150 billion of net investment in new fossil-fuel generating assets in 2012.” Continue reading
