At the Green European Foundation Seminar in Brussels this weekend I had a detailed look at how European energy policy was developing and a 'heads up' some of the issues that will be facing the European Parliament over the next couple of years.
One
speaker had a slide that caught my attention. It showed a map of Europe
indicating progress towards the EU 2020 Renewable Energy Target and the
UK standing out as one country that was looking unlikely to achieve due
to slow progress. The target is legally binding for each member state
so each can play their part in achieving an overall 20% of total energy
to be derived from renewable sources by 2020. This target does not just
cover electricity but also embraces heat energy and transport fuels and
the UK proportion of the 2020 renewables target is 15%. This lower than
20% target reflected the UK's poor starting point when the directive was
signed. At the time only Malta and Luxembourg had a lower proportion of
their energy coming from renewables. Other countries which had made
more progress had higher targets such as Sweden and Germany to help make
up for those countries that had been historically backwards in
promoting wind, wave and solar technologies like the UK. It was a bit
humiliating, I felt, that we had such a low target but even this was
regarded by many in the last Labour Government as a tall order. The
story goes, apocryphal or not, that we thought we were signing a
Renewable Electricity only target and didn't realise that we would also
have to make significant progress on renewable heat and transport fuels.
True or not, it has all the characteristics of the sort of cock up we
might expect from a Blair Government which never really grasped or
understood the potential of the renewables sector.
So
what of the 'greenest government ever' and their action towards
achieving the target? A couple of years ago as the cuts to the feed in
tariff for solar was being introduced I shared a platform at an event in
Westminster with Climate Change Minister Greg Barker MP and I made the
point that the drastic cut in the level of feed in tariff would
massively slow down the deployment of solar photovoltaic panels and put
at risk the likelyhood of us hitting our EU target. Minister and
officials insisted I was wrong and they were confident that the target
would be achieved. I left suitably chastened. Well maybe not!
So
why are we where we are? Why are we behind the curve compared with
other countries on renewables? Onshore wind has been slow to deploy due
to many applications being held up in the planning process. Offshore
wind has made significant progress, is less controversial for some (not
Donald Trump) but is expensive to install with long lead in times. Solar
is quick to deploy but the FIT cuts massively slowed down this mass
market and popular technology. Co firing of coal fired power stations
with wood, with its dubious environmental credentials, also hilt the
buffers with Drax shelving plans to go 100% biomass. A lack off
assurances from Government on funding made them drop this one. Renewable
Heat has been slow to get off the ground. The last Labour Government
first consulted on a Renewable Heat Incentive RHI (a sort of feed in
tariff for heat) in 2009 and now the domestic element of this will be
introduced next year, nearly 5 years after I installed my panels on the
back of the announcement. To be fair though the RHI looks like a good
scheme and will be popular with those industries that install solar
thermal, heat pumps and biomass boilers. The transport element of the
target is dictated by the biofuel content of petrol and diesel. This has
been an area of conflict between the renewable energy sector and
environmental NGOs both of who often seem to take absolutist positions
on what has unhelpfully being characterised simplistically as a 'food v
fuel' issue. So the pressure to achieve the target has been heaped onto
the electricity element of the target and wind in particular.
Of
course there is another approach to this whole issue. Rather than
simply seeking to accommodate demand we should be seeking to reduce
energy demand through energy conservation measures but we lack
effective, fit for purpose policies and mechanisms to deliver energy
efficiency measures at the level we would need to make a difference.
Reducing the total amount of energy we use would make a percentage
target easier and cheaper to achieve. Predictably The Green Deal is not
turning out to be as popular as the Coalition hoped and the Minister has
talked of a long term 20 year timeframe for it to come up to speed.
'Green Deal' is now being reframed to refer to action taken as a result
of Green Deal assessments and installations under the Energy Company
Obligation. We have now entered the 'throwing money at it' phase with an
initial £20million being offered by Government to Councils who can come
up with plans to promote Green Deal finance in their areas. When that
fails , as it inevitably will, we will then enter the 'who's to blame'
cycle and hopefully the development of an energy efficiency mechanism
that will actually work.
Here
ends my first Blogpost typed while travelling on the Eurostar hopefully
more to come over the next few years should all go well next May.
No comments:
Post a Comment