Tina Casey
September 14, 2010
Researchers at the University of California have cobbled genes from a common fungus together with yeast, to create a powerful new critter that can chew its way through wood and other tough plants. The development is significant because it could lead to a cost effective means of producing biofuel without relying on food crops such as corn and soy.
A New Path for Biofuels
One driving force behind U. Cal Berkeley’s research is the need to find alternatives to food crops for renewable biofuels. In conventional biofuel production, yeast breaks down plant sugars (in the form of glucose or sucrose) into alcohols. The challenge is to get the yeast to digest woody plants and waste material that can’t be used as human food. The U. Cal team is on to a solution by adding genes from the much-studied fungus Neurospora crassa, a form of bread mold. This fungus can digest cellulose (the hard stuff in plants) but can’t produce alcohol, so when you put it together with yeast you could make biofuel magic out of everything from corn stalks and weeds to waste paper and orange peels (and yes, biofuel could even grow on trees).
More and Cheaper Biofuels
The other challenge is finding a cost-effective way to process woody plant matter into biofuel. Currently, so called cellulosic biofuels are made by deploying enzymes to convert cellulose into a form of plant sugar, which then must go through additional processing to yield the glucose that yeast can digest. By using the N. crassa/yeast combo, the U. Cal researchers believe that they can condense the process into a “one-pot” operation. As for the biofuel market, aside from ground vehicles the U.S. Navy and U. S. Air Force have already begun experimenting with jet biofuel, so the sky’s the limit.
Tuesday, 14 September 2010
Cogenra Unstealths: Khosla’s Photovoltaic and Solar Hot Water Startup
Producing electricity as well as hot water reduces payback time, improves GHG impact
.
Cogenra (formerly known as Skywatch Energy), a Khosla Ventures-funded solar startup, is slowly coming out of stealth, urged on by their recent win of a $1.5 million California Solar Initiative (CSI) RD&D grant. (RD&D, oddly, stands for Research, Development, Deployment and Demonstration.)
Here is some of the text of the Cogenra grant:
Cogenra Solar has developed, prototyped and validated the technical performance of an innovative concentrating photovoltaic/thermal co-generation technology and will conduct an 80-kW demonstration at the Sonoma Wine Company. For this project, the field performance of the system will be measured and used to refine economic and financing models and optimization over multiple tariff structures. This project will also look at modifying the co-generation system so that it can support tri-generation of electricity, heating and cooling, expanding the market to include commercial sites that require cooling and lower amounts of hot water. Additionally, Cogenra Solar will modify the system to provide energy storage for use during peak demand and coordination with Pacific Gas and Electric on grid integration.
The startup has received $10.5 million from Khosla Ventures.
***
About 190 gigawatts of solar water heating is installed globally, according to Gilad Almogy, the CEO of Cogenra. Compare that to the 20 gigawatts of solar photovoltaics installed on the ground (about 10 gigwatts of which was installed this year).
But you tend to hear a lot more about photovoltaics (PV) in the press and, admittedly, in this publication. PV is a bit sexier -- there's a semiconductor aspect and a magical conversion of sun to electricity. Hot water is kind of dull. More importantly, as Michael Kanellos points out, tax credits for PV systems are more pervasive. See Brett Prior's article for more details on solar thermal.
"But solar water heating is five times more efficient than PV," according to the CEO, and therefore has a much faster payback. It's also an accepted way of doing things in China, the Mideast, Germany, and in Austria, of all places, according to Almogy, the CEO. The math shows that solar heat is cheaper than solar electricity, so the much higher efficiency of solar water heating by itself translates to a only a minor commercial advantage over PV. Cogeneration, however, takes the best of both worlds by generating as much electricity as standard PV and adding four times as much heat -- the extra four units of solar heat is monetarily equivalent to the solar-produced electricity. It essentially doubles the value of a PV system.
"Payback times for hybrid solutions are dramatically shorter than PV alone," according to the CEO."
In addition to having higher rates of return than other PV-only or heat-only solar solutions, Cogenra's system also delivers three times' more of a reduction in green-house gas emissions. Scrubbing some heat away from the PV cells can also improve performance and lengthen the lifetime of the cells.
Cogenra is focused on medium sized applications -- not single-family homes, nor hundred-megawatt solar farms. In Almogy's view, "PV has paved the way." The same PPA-type financial tools and renewable energy incentives once used to get the photovoltaic market off the ground are now primed for hot water applications. The CEO cited H & PPAs -- Heat and Power Purchase Agreements. Metrus Energy and Skyline Innovations have begun to market solar thermal water heaters and other non-PV equipment as a service.
Applications for hot water are ubiquitous; some are obvious and others maybe not-so-obvious. They include food processing, hotels, restaurants, schools, corporate offices, laundries, boiler pre-heat for power generation, and jails.
Almogy did not reveal the actual form factor or nuts and bolts of the system, but promised we'll see it in action before the end of the year.
Policy usually trumps technology, and in this case, policy seems to be on the side of solar hot water. California Assembly Bill AB 1470 is The California Hot Water Heating and Efficiency Act authored by California Assemblyman Jared Huffman -- a $250 million incentive program for solar hot water heating.
Cogenra's board of directors includes Pierre Lamond and Dan Maydan, both Silicon Valley heavy-hitters. Maydan was a force at Applied Materials for years. Almogy came from Applied and ran a couple of crucial divisions. The Cogenra CEO is also on the board of reverse-osmosis membrane firm NanoH2O, another Khosla portfolio company.
Other early-stage companies looking to generate more than just electricity from the sun include Absolicon, Chromasun, PVT Solar, Sundrum, Turkey's Solimpeks, Thrive Power, and Entech, which counts David Gelbaum as CEO.
***
Other CSI grant winners included:
Focus Area I: Improved PV production technologies
1. PV and Advanced Energy Storage for Demand Reduction by SunPower Corporation. The overall goal of this project is to demonstrate that the integration of PV and energy storage will be of higher value than either technology alone. The project will receive $1,875,000 in CSI RD&D grant funding with a matching fund of $937,000.
2. Improved Cost, Reliability, and Grid Integration of High Concentration Photovoltaic Systems by Amonix will monitor the performance of nine 53 kW High Concentration Photovoltaic (HCPV) units and associated circuits on the UC Irvine electric infrastructure to evaluate and compare grid interconnection and energy management strategies. The project will receive $2,139,384 in CSI RD&D grant funding with a matching fund of $3,157,000.
3. Proving Performance of the Lowest Cost PV System by the Solaria Corporation seeks to overcome the primary obstacle to wide-scale deployment of their PV technology in that the financial community will only invest in projects that use solar technology with a history of proven performance. The project will receive $1,217,500 in CSI RD&D grant funding with a matching fund of $1,217,500.
Focus Area II: Innovative business models
4. Innovative Business Models, Rates and Incentives that Promote Integration of High Penetration PV with Real-Time Management of Customer Sited Distributed Energy Resources by Viridity Energy. This project builds upon high-penetration PV research funded from the first CSI RD&D solicitation and also leverages prior University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and San Diego Gas and Electric Company (SDG&E) related work. The Viridity team will identify business models for integration of up to 1,000 megawatts of high penetration PV with distributed energy resource (DER) management at UCSD. The project will receive $1,660,000 in CSI RD&D grant funding with a matching fund of $840,000.
5. Low-Cost, Smart-Grid Ready Solar Re-Roof Product Enables Residential Solar Energy Efficiency Results by ConSol will demonstrate a low cost "plug and play" roof mounting PV system directed to the asphalt-shingle re-roofing market. The project will receive $1,000,000 in CSI RD&D grant funding with a matching fund of $1,160,697.
Projects that address both Focus Area I and Focus Area II:
6. West Village Energy Initiative by Regents of the University of California will focus on both improving PV technology and demonstrating innovative business models in solar community settings. The University of California, Davis team will test and demonstrate existing and new energy storage technologies that are able to work with smaller scale systems in community wide installations. The project will receive $2,500,000 in CSI RD&D grant funding with a matching fund of $1,245,000.
7. Advanced Grid-Interactive Distributed PV and Storage by Solar City. The goal of this project is to create a firm, dispatchable, grid-interactive product that combines PV and storage that can be installed in distributed, small increments in a utility-wide network. The product will combine Tesla Motors vehicle battery system with Solar City's SolarGuard dispatch and monitoring platform. The project will receive $1,774,780 in CSI RD&D grant funding with a matching fund of $1,057,187.
8. Reducing California PV Balance of System Costs by Automating Array Design, Engineering and Component Delivery by SunLink. SunLink will build on past research to enable automation of structural and array electrical design as well as automated preparation of documentation of project approval and installation. The project will receive $996,269 in CSI RD&D grant funding with a matching fund of $927,031.
.
Cogenra (formerly known as Skywatch Energy), a Khosla Ventures-funded solar startup, is slowly coming out of stealth, urged on by their recent win of a $1.5 million California Solar Initiative (CSI) RD&D grant. (RD&D, oddly, stands for Research, Development, Deployment and Demonstration.)
Here is some of the text of the Cogenra grant:
Cogenra Solar has developed, prototyped and validated the technical performance of an innovative concentrating photovoltaic/thermal co-generation technology and will conduct an 80-kW demonstration at the Sonoma Wine Company. For this project, the field performance of the system will be measured and used to refine economic and financing models and optimization over multiple tariff structures. This project will also look at modifying the co-generation system so that it can support tri-generation of electricity, heating and cooling, expanding the market to include commercial sites that require cooling and lower amounts of hot water. Additionally, Cogenra Solar will modify the system to provide energy storage for use during peak demand and coordination with Pacific Gas and Electric on grid integration.
The startup has received $10.5 million from Khosla Ventures.
***
About 190 gigawatts of solar water heating is installed globally, according to Gilad Almogy, the CEO of Cogenra. Compare that to the 20 gigawatts of solar photovoltaics installed on the ground (about 10 gigwatts of which was installed this year).
But you tend to hear a lot more about photovoltaics (PV) in the press and, admittedly, in this publication. PV is a bit sexier -- there's a semiconductor aspect and a magical conversion of sun to electricity. Hot water is kind of dull. More importantly, as Michael Kanellos points out, tax credits for PV systems are more pervasive. See Brett Prior's article for more details on solar thermal.
"But solar water heating is five times more efficient than PV," according to the CEO, and therefore has a much faster payback. It's also an accepted way of doing things in China, the Mideast, Germany, and in Austria, of all places, according to Almogy, the CEO. The math shows that solar heat is cheaper than solar electricity, so the much higher efficiency of solar water heating by itself translates to a only a minor commercial advantage over PV. Cogeneration, however, takes the best of both worlds by generating as much electricity as standard PV and adding four times as much heat -- the extra four units of solar heat is monetarily equivalent to the solar-produced electricity. It essentially doubles the value of a PV system.
"Payback times for hybrid solutions are dramatically shorter than PV alone," according to the CEO."
In addition to having higher rates of return than other PV-only or heat-only solar solutions, Cogenra's system also delivers three times' more of a reduction in green-house gas emissions. Scrubbing some heat away from the PV cells can also improve performance and lengthen the lifetime of the cells.
Cogenra is focused on medium sized applications -- not single-family homes, nor hundred-megawatt solar farms. In Almogy's view, "PV has paved the way." The same PPA-type financial tools and renewable energy incentives once used to get the photovoltaic market off the ground are now primed for hot water applications. The CEO cited H & PPAs -- Heat and Power Purchase Agreements. Metrus Energy and Skyline Innovations have begun to market solar thermal water heaters and other non-PV equipment as a service.
Applications for hot water are ubiquitous; some are obvious and others maybe not-so-obvious. They include food processing, hotels, restaurants, schools, corporate offices, laundries, boiler pre-heat for power generation, and jails.
Almogy did not reveal the actual form factor or nuts and bolts of the system, but promised we'll see it in action before the end of the year.
Policy usually trumps technology, and in this case, policy seems to be on the side of solar hot water. California Assembly Bill AB 1470 is The California Hot Water Heating and Efficiency Act authored by California Assemblyman Jared Huffman -- a $250 million incentive program for solar hot water heating.
Cogenra's board of directors includes Pierre Lamond and Dan Maydan, both Silicon Valley heavy-hitters. Maydan was a force at Applied Materials for years. Almogy came from Applied and ran a couple of crucial divisions. The Cogenra CEO is also on the board of reverse-osmosis membrane firm NanoH2O, another Khosla portfolio company.
Other early-stage companies looking to generate more than just electricity from the sun include Absolicon, Chromasun, PVT Solar, Sundrum, Turkey's Solimpeks, Thrive Power, and Entech, which counts David Gelbaum as CEO.
***
Other CSI grant winners included:
Focus Area I: Improved PV production technologies
1. PV and Advanced Energy Storage for Demand Reduction by SunPower Corporation. The overall goal of this project is to demonstrate that the integration of PV and energy storage will be of higher value than either technology alone. The project will receive $1,875,000 in CSI RD&D grant funding with a matching fund of $937,000.
2. Improved Cost, Reliability, and Grid Integration of High Concentration Photovoltaic Systems by Amonix will monitor the performance of nine 53 kW High Concentration Photovoltaic (HCPV) units and associated circuits on the UC Irvine electric infrastructure to evaluate and compare grid interconnection and energy management strategies. The project will receive $2,139,384 in CSI RD&D grant funding with a matching fund of $3,157,000.
3. Proving Performance of the Lowest Cost PV System by the Solaria Corporation seeks to overcome the primary obstacle to wide-scale deployment of their PV technology in that the financial community will only invest in projects that use solar technology with a history of proven performance. The project will receive $1,217,500 in CSI RD&D grant funding with a matching fund of $1,217,500.
Focus Area II: Innovative business models
4. Innovative Business Models, Rates and Incentives that Promote Integration of High Penetration PV with Real-Time Management of Customer Sited Distributed Energy Resources by Viridity Energy. This project builds upon high-penetration PV research funded from the first CSI RD&D solicitation and also leverages prior University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and San Diego Gas and Electric Company (SDG&E) related work. The Viridity team will identify business models for integration of up to 1,000 megawatts of high penetration PV with distributed energy resource (DER) management at UCSD. The project will receive $1,660,000 in CSI RD&D grant funding with a matching fund of $840,000.
5. Low-Cost, Smart-Grid Ready Solar Re-Roof Product Enables Residential Solar Energy Efficiency Results by ConSol will demonstrate a low cost "plug and play" roof mounting PV system directed to the asphalt-shingle re-roofing market. The project will receive $1,000,000 in CSI RD&D grant funding with a matching fund of $1,160,697.
Projects that address both Focus Area I and Focus Area II:
6. West Village Energy Initiative by Regents of the University of California will focus on both improving PV technology and demonstrating innovative business models in solar community settings. The University of California, Davis team will test and demonstrate existing and new energy storage technologies that are able to work with smaller scale systems in community wide installations. The project will receive $2,500,000 in CSI RD&D grant funding with a matching fund of $1,245,000.
7. Advanced Grid-Interactive Distributed PV and Storage by Solar City. The goal of this project is to create a firm, dispatchable, grid-interactive product that combines PV and storage that can be installed in distributed, small increments in a utility-wide network. The product will combine Tesla Motors vehicle battery system with Solar City's SolarGuard dispatch and monitoring platform. The project will receive $1,774,780 in CSI RD&D grant funding with a matching fund of $1,057,187.
8. Reducing California PV Balance of System Costs by Automating Array Design, Engineering and Component Delivery by SunLink. SunLink will build on past research to enable automation of structural and array electrical design as well as automated preparation of documentation of project approval and installation. The project will receive $996,269 in CSI RD&D grant funding with a matching fund of $927,031.
Solar panels you can install with a clear conscience
Toxic pollution and links to the arms trade - not all solar panel suppliers are ethically sound. Simon Birch offers some consumer guidance
An investigation by Ethical Consumer magazine has identified solar panels that are ethically sound.
With the government offering to pay you – and some companies even offering to fit them for free – you may be considering installing solar photovoltaic panels on your roof. But if you are, would you really want to buy one from a company that's been responsible for one of the biggest recent environmental cock-ups on the planet or one that's up to its neck in the arms trade?
No of course you wouldn't. To help shoppers navigate this particular ethical-minefield in its latest buyers' guide, Ethical Consumer magazine has identified those solar-power panels that you can stick on your roof with a clean conscience and those that you may just want to leave on the shelf.
The best buys are GB-Sol, Solarcentury, SolarWorld and Yingli Solar.
We found that the industry is dominated by three key issues. The first of these are what we call controversial activities. For example, as well as redecorating the Gulf of Mexico with millions of tonnes of oil, BP also laughingly now makes solar-power panels. It will come as no great shock then that BP came bottom in our table.
It is perhaps less well known that a number of solar-power panel companies are heavily involved in the defence industry. Mitsubishi supplies everything from computers to satellites to the military around the world. While Romag supplies glass products to both the Israeli defence force and the Singapore army.
Since the manufacture of solar-power panels involves the use of hazardous materials, toxic pollution is another key issue.
In 2008 the Chinese company Luoyang Zhonggui High Technology, which makes polysilicon for solar-power panels, was accused of dumping toxic waste outside its factory. The same company was reported to be a supplier of one of the companies that we surveyed in our buyers' guide.
Finally given the toxic nature of the manufacturing process of solar-power panels, it's vital that the workers involved are adequately protected and aren't exposed to undue health risks. Disappointingly the vast majority of the companies that we surveyed failed to guarantee that such policies were in place. The result was that virtually every company we surveyed received a bottom rating for their supply chain policy.
The one notable exception was perhaps surprisingly, the Chinese company Yingli, which scored a middle rating because it is alone in adopting an internationally recognised management system for protecting workers' rights, the SA8000.
As consumers we have a vital role to play in helping to drive sustainable manufacturing within the solar-power panel industry by choosing the best-performing companies.
When it comes to to getting your solar-power panels fitted you won't be buying directly from any of the companies that we surveyed. Instead the system will be installed by a company approved by the microgeneration certification scheme.
These companies will probably offer you the choice of one or two different systems but if these are from dodgy companies and you don't want to use either of them, stick to your principles and insist on a more ethical option. The chances are that the company will ultimately agree and if not, don't worry as the market is now growing so rapidly that you'll easily find an approved installer who'll fit the solar-power panels of your choice.
The sun will indeed shine on the righteous – and the ethical.
• Simon Birch writes for Ethical Consumer Magazine.
An investigation by Ethical Consumer magazine has identified solar panels that are ethically sound.
With the government offering to pay you – and some companies even offering to fit them for free – you may be considering installing solar photovoltaic panels on your roof. But if you are, would you really want to buy one from a company that's been responsible for one of the biggest recent environmental cock-ups on the planet or one that's up to its neck in the arms trade?
No of course you wouldn't. To help shoppers navigate this particular ethical-minefield in its latest buyers' guide, Ethical Consumer magazine has identified those solar-power panels that you can stick on your roof with a clean conscience and those that you may just want to leave on the shelf.
The best buys are GB-Sol, Solarcentury, SolarWorld and Yingli Solar.
We found that the industry is dominated by three key issues. The first of these are what we call controversial activities. For example, as well as redecorating the Gulf of Mexico with millions of tonnes of oil, BP also laughingly now makes solar-power panels. It will come as no great shock then that BP came bottom in our table.
It is perhaps less well known that a number of solar-power panel companies are heavily involved in the defence industry. Mitsubishi supplies everything from computers to satellites to the military around the world. While Romag supplies glass products to both the Israeli defence force and the Singapore army.
Since the manufacture of solar-power panels involves the use of hazardous materials, toxic pollution is another key issue.
In 2008 the Chinese company Luoyang Zhonggui High Technology, which makes polysilicon for solar-power panels, was accused of dumping toxic waste outside its factory. The same company was reported to be a supplier of one of the companies that we surveyed in our buyers' guide.
Finally given the toxic nature of the manufacturing process of solar-power panels, it's vital that the workers involved are adequately protected and aren't exposed to undue health risks. Disappointingly the vast majority of the companies that we surveyed failed to guarantee that such policies were in place. The result was that virtually every company we surveyed received a bottom rating for their supply chain policy.
The one notable exception was perhaps surprisingly, the Chinese company Yingli, which scored a middle rating because it is alone in adopting an internationally recognised management system for protecting workers' rights, the SA8000.
As consumers we have a vital role to play in helping to drive sustainable manufacturing within the solar-power panel industry by choosing the best-performing companies.
When it comes to to getting your solar-power panels fitted you won't be buying directly from any of the companies that we surveyed. Instead the system will be installed by a company approved by the microgeneration certification scheme.
These companies will probably offer you the choice of one or two different systems but if these are from dodgy companies and you don't want to use either of them, stick to your principles and insist on a more ethical option. The chances are that the company will ultimately agree and if not, don't worry as the market is now growing so rapidly that you'll easily find an approved installer who'll fit the solar-power panels of your choice.
The sun will indeed shine on the righteous – and the ethical.
• Simon Birch writes for Ethical Consumer Magazine.
World's largest offshore windfarm set to open off Kent coast
Vattenfall's Thanet farm set to open as National Grid confirms wind-generated electricity has hit a new peak
• Wind power's growth is blowing Europe toward green goals
Terry Macalister guardian.co.uk, Sunday 12 September 2010 14.43 BST
The world's largest offshore windfarm, which cost over £750m to build, is poised to open off the coast of Kent, with 100 turbines producing enough electricity to supply heat and light for 200,000 homes.
The Thanet facility, which is going through final testing by Vattenfall, its Swedish power company operator, arrives as the National Grid revealed that at one stage last week 10% of the UK's electricity came from windfarms.
But industry experts claim that the wider green revolution needed to meet EU renewable and climate change targets imposed by the European Union is still in danger from proposed spending cuts.
Chris Huhne, the energy and climate change secretary, will open the facility, which is 12km off Foreness Point, on 23 September.
The Thanet farm, which will be able to produce 300MW of electricity, will be the biggest offshore facility of its kind until the even larger London Array, which has an eventual goal of 340 turbines, is completed. It will dwarf the nearby Kentish Flats facility off Whitstable, also run by Vattenfall and using similar Vestas turbines.
Excitement about the potential for wind was heightened last week when the grid put out a statement that over a 24-hour period up to 10% of electricity came from wind and 4% from hydro.
Maria McCaffery, chief executive of RenewableUK, said the figures underscored the contention that wind and renewables were no longer "alternative" but core parts of the power sector.
"We are expecting to see the contribution of electricity from wind gradually increase over the next decade, to around 30% of the UK's total consumption. This news confirms that not only are the windfarms we have built so far starting to deliver, but that UK windfarm yields are the best in Europe, and comparable with established technologies such as hydro," she said.
Richard Fearnall of wind energy developer West Coast Energy said it "put to bed the myth" that wind power is not a vital part of the mix in achieving energy security and meeting our renewable targets. "Let's hope that the landowners, potential neighbours of new schemes and, in particular, local planning authorities are the ones who are most encouraged by the news and that they will actively help the UK towards our legally- binding 2020 target of generating 15% of our energy from renewable resources, much of which will be wind-generated."
But the euphoria was dampened by Lord Turner, chairman of the government's committee on climate change, who has written to Huhne, warning that a "step change" is needed if Britain is to meet its target of generating 15% of energy – not just electricity – from renewable sources by 2020. The UK generates only 3% on an annual basis, although last week's figure from the Grid shows that – on a temporary basis at least – that figure can be much higher.
The government is considering whether to cut grants such as the £60m earmarked to help construct port infrastructure that would be needed to support further North Sea windfarms.
Turbine makers such as Siemens have indicated that a cut could influence their plans to build plants in the UK.
• Wind power's growth is blowing Europe toward green goals
Terry Macalister guardian.co.uk, Sunday 12 September 2010 14.43 BST
The world's largest offshore windfarm, which cost over £750m to build, is poised to open off the coast of Kent, with 100 turbines producing enough electricity to supply heat and light for 200,000 homes.
The Thanet facility, which is going through final testing by Vattenfall, its Swedish power company operator, arrives as the National Grid revealed that at one stage last week 10% of the UK's electricity came from windfarms.
But industry experts claim that the wider green revolution needed to meet EU renewable and climate change targets imposed by the European Union is still in danger from proposed spending cuts.
Chris Huhne, the energy and climate change secretary, will open the facility, which is 12km off Foreness Point, on 23 September.
The Thanet farm, which will be able to produce 300MW of electricity, will be the biggest offshore facility of its kind until the even larger London Array, which has an eventual goal of 340 turbines, is completed. It will dwarf the nearby Kentish Flats facility off Whitstable, also run by Vattenfall and using similar Vestas turbines.
Excitement about the potential for wind was heightened last week when the grid put out a statement that over a 24-hour period up to 10% of electricity came from wind and 4% from hydro.
Maria McCaffery, chief executive of RenewableUK, said the figures underscored the contention that wind and renewables were no longer "alternative" but core parts of the power sector.
"We are expecting to see the contribution of electricity from wind gradually increase over the next decade, to around 30% of the UK's total consumption. This news confirms that not only are the windfarms we have built so far starting to deliver, but that UK windfarm yields are the best in Europe, and comparable with established technologies such as hydro," she said.
Richard Fearnall of wind energy developer West Coast Energy said it "put to bed the myth" that wind power is not a vital part of the mix in achieving energy security and meeting our renewable targets. "Let's hope that the landowners, potential neighbours of new schemes and, in particular, local planning authorities are the ones who are most encouraged by the news and that they will actively help the UK towards our legally- binding 2020 target of generating 15% of our energy from renewable resources, much of which will be wind-generated."
But the euphoria was dampened by Lord Turner, chairman of the government's committee on climate change, who has written to Huhne, warning that a "step change" is needed if Britain is to meet its target of generating 15% of energy – not just electricity – from renewable sources by 2020. The UK generates only 3% on an annual basis, although last week's figure from the Grid shows that – on a temporary basis at least – that figure can be much higher.
The government is considering whether to cut grants such as the £60m earmarked to help construct port infrastructure that would be needed to support further North Sea windfarms.
Turbine makers such as Siemens have indicated that a cut could influence their plans to build plants in the UK.