Report says up to 90% of electricity could come from wind, solar, tidal and other sustainable sources - without the need for nuclear
Damian Carrington
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 25 October 2011 07.00 BST
The UK could be primarily powered by a secure and inexhaustible supply of renewable energy by 2030 without the need for new nuclear power plants, according to a report commissioned by WWF. Between 60% and 90% of the nation's electricity could come from wind, solar, tidal and other sustainable sources, with the rest supplied via an international supergrid and gas power stations.
"This report is inspiring, but also entirely realistic. It shows that a clean, renewable energy future really is within our grasp," said David Nussbaum, chief executive of WWF-UK. "Failure to commit to a high-renewables future would leave us facing the prospect of dangerous levels of climate change and high energy prices."
The soaring cost of energy bills has become a major political issue, with the prime minister, David Cameron, recently convening a meeting of industry energy leaders. The new report notes that meeting an existing 2020 renewable energy target will increase household bills by 4%, but that this could be more than offset by cuts in usage through better energy efficiency.
"Developing a low carbon and sustainable power sector in the UK is first and foremost a question of political will," concludes the report, which comes at a time when the Conservative party's commitment to be the "greenest government ever" is being seriously questioned.
The report states backing renewables would create hundreds of thousands of jobs and new economic growth. "Investing in clean energy offers us a means to tackle the two most crucial market failures that now confront the world: the financial crisis and climate change," said Nussbaum. "The only question that remains is, are we bold enough to take it?"
The report was welcomed by a host of businesses, including one the UK's "big six" energy suppliers, SSE. "It's a useful addition to the debate," said Keith MacLean, SSE's policy and research director. "Sufficient certainty that renewables will be a long term part of the energy system, well beyond the current 2020 cliff edge, is needed in order to allow the industry to mature and put renewables on a path of cost reduction that will steadily reduce and eliminate the need for support."
WWF's Positive Energy report differs from previous analyses by including a continuation of renewable energy building after 2020, as well as big increases in energy efficiency. The energy scenarios at the core of the report were developed by GL Garrad Hassan, the world's largest renewable energy consultancy and part of the GL Group, which also works in the oil and gas industries. In the highest renewables scenarios (90% of capacity), ambitious action on energy efficiency reduces the capital costs of renewables, gas and supergrid interconnectors from £216bn to £170bn. The report calls for a firm renewable target for 2030, to give long-term and stable financial support for the renewable industry.
The WWF report sets out a far more ambitious role for renewable electricity than the 45% predicted by the government's official advisers, the Committee on Climate Change, in its renewable energy review in May. But WWF points out that the build rates in its scenarios are actually lower than the government's own forecasts in its national renewable energy action plan and significantly below industry projections on realistic build rates. The difference is that in WWF's scenarios, rather than build rates falling rapidly after 2020, growth is maintained.
The electricity not generated from renewables in the report's scenarios comes instead from gas power. In the most ambitious 90% scenarios, the carbon emissions from those gas plants do not need to be captured and stored underground in order to meet the UK's climate change targets, but in the less ambitious 60% scenarios, about one-third of the gas plants would require carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology to be fitted. There are no coal plants of any sort in the scenarios, or nuclear plants.
The report warns of the danger in the less ambitious scenarios of being "locked-in" to high carbon emissions, because once unabated gas plants are built, operators will want to run them as much as possible to make a return. In the 60% scenarios, without significant supergrid interconnectors, the gas plants would run just 33% of the time.
The warning that a new "dash for gas" could lock in high carbon emissions is echoed in another report published on Tuesday, from MPs on the Commons select committee on energy and climate change. The MPs state the current proposals for electricity market reform put too much emphasis on building new gas plants to fill the gap left by the closure of about 19GW of nuclear, oil-fired and coal-fired plants by 2020, and not enough on decarbonising the power sector over the course of the 2020s in which gas without CCS will have "only a very limited role". The climate and energy secretary, Chris Huhne, told the Guardian last month that the government "will not consent so much gas plant so as to endanger our carbon dioxide goals".
The MPs' report also echoes WWF's call for more action on energy efficiency. "The government could be doing a lot more to reduce unnecessary energy wastage," said Tim Yeo MP, the Conservative chairman of the committee. "It needs to look at how it can use building regulations and energy efficiency standards for electrical appliances to cut waste and save cash on people's energy bills."
The committee's report additionally calls for much more gas storage capacity in the UK, to minimise the damage from supply interruptions or price spikes. The UK's current storage capacity is just 14 days' worth of gas, states the report, "a dangerously low level compared with France which has 87 days' worth of gas storage, Germany 69 and Italy 59."
Energy minister Charles Hendry said: "Energy security is right at the heart of the coalition's energy policy. We are reforming the electricity market to encourage investment in new power stations. We have also legislated for a mass roll-out of energy efficiency measures across Britain's housing stock through the green deal."
Thursday, 27 October 2011
Greece in talks to repay debts with solar power
Debt-stricken Greece is in talks to see if it could repay debts to EU member states by providing them with solar energy
Arthur Neslen for EurActiv, part of the Guardian Environment Network
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 25 October 2011 12.30 BST
EU's energy commissioner Gunther Oettinger, the director general for energy Philip Lowe, and the head of the EU's Athens task force Horst Reichenbach have discussed the idea of enabling Greece to repay some of its debts to EU member states, such as Germany, by providing them with solar energy.
EurActiv has learned that the EU's energy directorate general has been asked to investigate the idea's potential, which is so far hampered by a lack of enthusiasm from EU nations.
"Several German companies have expressed interest in the idea but it would clearly be more interesting if several member states were involved," a senior source told EurActiv.
Marlene Holzner, a spokesperson for the energy commissioner Gunther Oettinger, confirmed that talks were ongoing.
"There is a task force in the European Commission where we have energy experts looking into the question of how energy could help Greece to grow economically," she told EurActiv. "Solar is one topic, and energy efficiency is another."
Greece enjoys 50% more solar radiation than Germany and yet its solar energy output is about 80 times smaller, according to the Greek energy ministry.
Speaking at a Brussels policy meeting last week, a top EU official told EurActiv that there was "no reason" why Greece could not benefit from investment in solar energy on its own territory – or cooperate in its export to other countries.
But "it depends whether the country or countries concerned are willing to allow Greek promoters to take advantages of their national schemes," he said.
"There is a great need in Germany, and maybe with some other countries [involvement] it could get off the ground. It's certainly something which we're talking about with the Athens task force people, and they're quite interested in it," the EU official added.
Earlier this month, the German chancellor Angela Merkel called for her country's solar energy subsidies to be reduced and clean energy to be imported from countries such as Greece instead.
Such a move could smooth over Germany's transition from nuclear power in the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster.
The German economy minister Philipp Rösler subsequently visited Athens with 60 business leaders on an mission to explore investment opportunities.
"In the spirit of solidarity, it is the task of all Europeans to help Greece get back on its feet economically," he reportedly told the German broadcaster ZDF. "And we want to take German firms to Greece," he added.
The Greek economy has been in crisis since 2010, with a succession of multi-billion euro bailout packages and austerity measures failing to satisfy the international banking sector.
In September, Athens announced Project Helios, an optimistic plan for a quantum expansion of Greece's solar power production from 206MW to 2.2GW by 2020, and then 10GW by 2050.
The scheme is intended to attract up to €20 billion and create between 30,000 and 60,000 jobs, but it will first need to overcome what the Greek newspaper Ekathimerini rcalled "bureaucratic and legal obstacles".
According to Paul Van Son, the president of the Desertec Foundation, Project Helios could face other problems too.
"Greece is very hilly, the infrastructure is very expensive and there's less solar irradiation than in southern Spain," he told EurActiv.
Greek locations still had to be found "where the conditions are favourable enough to create a feasible business case, connect the electricity grids and move power from A to B," he added.
Van Son declined to say whether Desertec was currently talking to the Greek government about investments. But a Greek company, Turner Energy, recently bought a stake in the company, which is mostly active in North Africa.
Another leading US solar PV firm, First Solar, says it is looking at investment in Greece, partly "because Helios is coming around the corner," Christopher Burghardt, the firm's Vice President confirmed to EurActiv.
"The problem is that Greece has a real constraint on financing so my appeal to European governments is to provide financing guarantees to project investors, because that's what we need," he said.
Arthur Neslen for EurActiv, part of the Guardian Environment Network
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 25 October 2011 12.30 BST
EU's energy commissioner Gunther Oettinger, the director general for energy Philip Lowe, and the head of the EU's Athens task force Horst Reichenbach have discussed the idea of enabling Greece to repay some of its debts to EU member states, such as Germany, by providing them with solar energy.
EurActiv has learned that the EU's energy directorate general has been asked to investigate the idea's potential, which is so far hampered by a lack of enthusiasm from EU nations.
"Several German companies have expressed interest in the idea but it would clearly be more interesting if several member states were involved," a senior source told EurActiv.
Marlene Holzner, a spokesperson for the energy commissioner Gunther Oettinger, confirmed that talks were ongoing.
"There is a task force in the European Commission where we have energy experts looking into the question of how energy could help Greece to grow economically," she told EurActiv. "Solar is one topic, and energy efficiency is another."
Greece enjoys 50% more solar radiation than Germany and yet its solar energy output is about 80 times smaller, according to the Greek energy ministry.
Speaking at a Brussels policy meeting last week, a top EU official told EurActiv that there was "no reason" why Greece could not benefit from investment in solar energy on its own territory – or cooperate in its export to other countries.
But "it depends whether the country or countries concerned are willing to allow Greek promoters to take advantages of their national schemes," he said.
"There is a great need in Germany, and maybe with some other countries [involvement] it could get off the ground. It's certainly something which we're talking about with the Athens task force people, and they're quite interested in it," the EU official added.
Earlier this month, the German chancellor Angela Merkel called for her country's solar energy subsidies to be reduced and clean energy to be imported from countries such as Greece instead.
Such a move could smooth over Germany's transition from nuclear power in the aftermath of the Fukushima disaster.
The German economy minister Philipp Rösler subsequently visited Athens with 60 business leaders on an mission to explore investment opportunities.
"In the spirit of solidarity, it is the task of all Europeans to help Greece get back on its feet economically," he reportedly told the German broadcaster ZDF. "And we want to take German firms to Greece," he added.
The Greek economy has been in crisis since 2010, with a succession of multi-billion euro bailout packages and austerity measures failing to satisfy the international banking sector.
In September, Athens announced Project Helios, an optimistic plan for a quantum expansion of Greece's solar power production from 206MW to 2.2GW by 2020, and then 10GW by 2050.
The scheme is intended to attract up to €20 billion and create between 30,000 and 60,000 jobs, but it will first need to overcome what the Greek newspaper Ekathimerini rcalled "bureaucratic and legal obstacles".
According to Paul Van Son, the president of the Desertec Foundation, Project Helios could face other problems too.
"Greece is very hilly, the infrastructure is very expensive and there's less solar irradiation than in southern Spain," he told EurActiv.
Greek locations still had to be found "where the conditions are favourable enough to create a feasible business case, connect the electricity grids and move power from A to B," he added.
Van Son declined to say whether Desertec was currently talking to the Greek government about investments. But a Greek company, Turner Energy, recently bought a stake in the company, which is mostly active in North Africa.
Another leading US solar PV firm, First Solar, says it is looking at investment in Greece, partly "because Helios is coming around the corner," Christopher Burghardt, the firm's Vice President confirmed to EurActiv.
"The problem is that Greece has a real constraint on financing so my appeal to European governments is to provide financing guarantees to project investors, because that's what we need," he said.
Chris Huhne attacks renewable energy critics
Climate secretary to tell conference that 'climate sceptics and armchair engineers' are selling the UK economy short
Press Association
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 26 October 2011 06.30 BST
The climate and energy secretary, Chris Huhne, will attack "climate sceptics and armchair engineers" for criticising renewables, in a speech on Wednesday on the economic benefits of green energy.
Huhne will insist the government is backing renewable energy and has resolved to make the UK the largest market in Europe for offshore wind.
His speech to the annual renewable industry conference comes in the wake of the publication of government proposals to reduce subsidies for green technologies including onshore wind, although the plans contained better news on support for offshore wind, wave and tidal power.
And the solar industry is bracing itself for an announcement on the review of feed-in tariffs that pay people for the electricity they generate from small-scale renewables, which is expected to slash payments for solar electricity.
The industry claims the expected move will hit jobs and growth in the sector.
But Huhne will say today that renewable energy technologies will deliver a new industrial revolution, creating jobs and bringing investment into the UK.
And he will accuse an "unholy alliance" of short-termists, armchair engineers, climate sceptics and vested interests of selling the UK economy short by their refusals to acknowledge the benefits that renewables will bring.
Critics claim renewable energy is expensive and unreliable and that support for it adds to consumer bills, but proponents say shifting to green power reduces the reliance on fossil fuels which have driven recent large rises in household bills.
Huhne will tell the RenewableUK conference: "Across the length and breadth of Britain, new companies are creating new jobs and delivering the technologies that will power our future.
"At a time when closures and cuts dominate the news cycle, next-generation industries are providing jobs and sinking capital into Britain.
"I want to take aim at the curmudgeons and faultfinders who hold forth on the impossibility of renewables, the climate sceptics and armchair engineers who are selling Britain's ingenuity short.
"Yes, climate change is a man-made disaster. Yes, the UK is only 2% of global carbon emissions. But if we grasp the opportunity now our businesses and economy can be much more than 2% of the solution."
He will tell the conference that "we are not going to save our economy by turning our back on renewable energy".
"It is this three-party consensus that makes the UK such a a good place to invest. So I can today assure you that this government has resolved that we will be the largest market in Europe for offshore wind."
Louise Hutchins of Greenpeace said: "It is increasingly clear that there's a green war at the heart of government.
"On the one hand Chris Huhne is making a strong case for the strategic role renewable energy can play in creating jobs and reducing CO2 emissions, while at the same time George Osborne seems to be in perpetual denial about the benefits of investing in green growth.
"The renewables industry urgently needs a clear and coherent policy from the government so that lost confidence is restored.
"We'll know the coalition's priorities are sound if in the coming weeks ministers support smallscale solar and wind power at a level that will protect the growth in jobs and manufacturing in that sector, rather than slashing support as is currently rumoured."
But Simon Less, head of environment and energy at thinktank Policy Exchange, said: "Huhne's words are unhelpful and deeply worrying.
"Conflating those who want to see cost-effective carbon emissions reduction - in other words policies that can be sustained and so will deliver our long-term carbon targets - with climate science deniers, is insulting.
"To be greener, we must be cheaper.
"Existing renewable technologies have a key role to play in emissions reduction, alongside a range of other actions including increased energy efficiency, switching coal to gas generation, nuclear and emerging new technologies.
"What cannot be defended is wasting tens of billions of pounds on excessive short-term deployment of hugely expensive technologies, such as offshore wind. This damages decarbonisation," he said.
A report published by WWF on Tuesday said between 60 and 90% of the UK's energy could come from wind, solar, tidal and other sustainable sources by 2030.
Press Association
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 26 October 2011 06.30 BST
The climate and energy secretary, Chris Huhne, will attack "climate sceptics and armchair engineers" for criticising renewables, in a speech on Wednesday on the economic benefits of green energy.
Huhne will insist the government is backing renewable energy and has resolved to make the UK the largest market in Europe for offshore wind.
His speech to the annual renewable industry conference comes in the wake of the publication of government proposals to reduce subsidies for green technologies including onshore wind, although the plans contained better news on support for offshore wind, wave and tidal power.
And the solar industry is bracing itself for an announcement on the review of feed-in tariffs that pay people for the electricity they generate from small-scale renewables, which is expected to slash payments for solar electricity.
The industry claims the expected move will hit jobs and growth in the sector.
But Huhne will say today that renewable energy technologies will deliver a new industrial revolution, creating jobs and bringing investment into the UK.
And he will accuse an "unholy alliance" of short-termists, armchair engineers, climate sceptics and vested interests of selling the UK economy short by their refusals to acknowledge the benefits that renewables will bring.
Critics claim renewable energy is expensive and unreliable and that support for it adds to consumer bills, but proponents say shifting to green power reduces the reliance on fossil fuels which have driven recent large rises in household bills.
Huhne will tell the RenewableUK conference: "Across the length and breadth of Britain, new companies are creating new jobs and delivering the technologies that will power our future.
"At a time when closures and cuts dominate the news cycle, next-generation industries are providing jobs and sinking capital into Britain.
"I want to take aim at the curmudgeons and faultfinders who hold forth on the impossibility of renewables, the climate sceptics and armchair engineers who are selling Britain's ingenuity short.
"Yes, climate change is a man-made disaster. Yes, the UK is only 2% of global carbon emissions. But if we grasp the opportunity now our businesses and economy can be much more than 2% of the solution."
He will tell the conference that "we are not going to save our economy by turning our back on renewable energy".
"It is this three-party consensus that makes the UK such a a good place to invest. So I can today assure you that this government has resolved that we will be the largest market in Europe for offshore wind."
Louise Hutchins of Greenpeace said: "It is increasingly clear that there's a green war at the heart of government.
"On the one hand Chris Huhne is making a strong case for the strategic role renewable energy can play in creating jobs and reducing CO2 emissions, while at the same time George Osborne seems to be in perpetual denial about the benefits of investing in green growth.
"The renewables industry urgently needs a clear and coherent policy from the government so that lost confidence is restored.
"We'll know the coalition's priorities are sound if in the coming weeks ministers support smallscale solar and wind power at a level that will protect the growth in jobs and manufacturing in that sector, rather than slashing support as is currently rumoured."
But Simon Less, head of environment and energy at thinktank Policy Exchange, said: "Huhne's words are unhelpful and deeply worrying.
"Conflating those who want to see cost-effective carbon emissions reduction - in other words policies that can be sustained and so will deliver our long-term carbon targets - with climate science deniers, is insulting.
"To be greener, we must be cheaper.
"Existing renewable technologies have a key role to play in emissions reduction, alongside a range of other actions including increased energy efficiency, switching coal to gas generation, nuclear and emerging new technologies.
"What cannot be defended is wasting tens of billions of pounds on excessive short-term deployment of hugely expensive technologies, such as offshore wind. This damages decarbonisation," he said.
A report published by WWF on Tuesday said between 60 and 90% of the UK's energy could come from wind, solar, tidal and other sustainable sources by 2030.
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