The government ignored 81% of respondents who disagreed with them during the fast-track review, and they can't afford to do that again
Huw Irranca-Davies
guardian.co.uk, Friday 23 September 2011 11.31 BST
Last week's committee debate on the fast-track review of large solar under the feed-in tariff (Fit) – payments for people generating their own green energy – is the end of a seven-month saga of government chaos, farce and false arguments. In place of the minister Greg Barker, who has led the fiasco, the Department for Energy and Climate Change (Decc) minister Charles Hendry was put up to front an impossible case defending the widely disparaged changes to the successful Fit scheme. His arguments were comprehensively defeated.
Labour members, SNP members, and even Liberal Democrat and the odd Conservative member on the committee rejected the arguments put forward by the minister.
But now we need to turn our attention to the comprehensive review of the feed-in tariff. For the companies in solar PV, micro-wind turbines, hydroelectric schemes, and combined heat and power installations, and for all other micro-generation technologies, the comprehensive review this autumn is perhaps the most important time for their industry since Labour first legislated for the Fit in the 2008 Energy Act.
Ministers need to act quickly to provide certainty to a fearful sector. The government announced the comprehensive review in February, but they are still yet to open the consultation, and campaigners fear that the review will take place and be implemented on 1 April 2012 over an extremely short timescale, without the support of industry, community groups and green NGOs.
I hope that isn't true, and that an announcement on the consultation will come from the government shortly. Hendry spoke in committee about how all the concerns everyone had expressed over the last seven months could be addressed in the comprehensive review; and we must hold the government to that. The government ignored 81% of respondents who disagreed with them during the fast-track review, and they can't afford to do that again.
The government will need to consider sliding tariff scales and caps on generation permitted in different bands. They will need to consider the case for microgeneration roof mounted, building-integrated, and uses brownfield and contaminated land
Giving "power to the people" has to stop being easy rhetoric, and become the reality for communities up and down the land.
For our part, Labour will seek to restore that cross-party consensus we had back in 2008 when first establishing the feed-in tariff. But ministers need to remember that consensus is a two-way process. I'll get the ball rolling this week when I will write to the secretary of state, Chris Huhne, requesting he meet with me and a delegation - or all - of the scores of groups who wrote to me and to all committee members with their justified concerns. We owe it to householders, communities, and British businesses to forge the way ahead, and to ensure that the sector can flourish again.
Ministers: you got the fast-track review wrong, but make sure you get the comprehensive review right.
• Huw Irranca-Davies MP is the shadow minister for energy
Tuesday, 27 September 2011
Thames Water turns to 'poo power' for renewable electricity generation
Company estimates that 16% of its electricity needs will be met in the current financial year by burning sewage flakes
Rebecca Smithers, consumer affairs correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Monday 26 September 2011 17.17 BST
The sludge incinerator at the Crossness sewage works, south-east London, where the electricity will be generated. Photograph: Nic Hamilton/Alamy
They look like instant coffee granules, but they are in fact sewage flakes – a highly combustible new renewable form of fuel that burns like woodchip and is being used for the first time to generate electricity for Britain's largest water and sewerage company.
Thames Water has begun producing the flakes by drying sludge – the solids found in sewage – in a purpose-built machine at sewage works in Slough, Berkshire. In a not-so-green move, the company then takes the flakes by lorry to Crossness sewage works in Bexley, south-east London, where they are burnt off to generate electricity.
The company estimates that 16% of its electricity needs will be covered in the current financial year by so-called poo power – enough to run about 40,000 average family homes – from a total energy requirement of 1,300 gigawatt hours.
Until now, the sludge dryer had been used to reduce waste simply to get rid of it more conveniently. The dryer promises to reduce the firm's carbon emissions by more than 500 tonnes a year, as well as bringing up to £300,000 a year of operational cost benefits.
Rupert Kruger, Thames Water's head of innovation, said: "This is the first time in Britain that a waste dryer has been used to create ready-to-burn fuel from sewage sludge, rather than simply being used as a waste-reducer. This innovative approach demonstrates our clear intent to help move Britain towards becoming a low-carbon economy by unlocking every ounce of renewable energy potential from waste."
Five tonnes a day of sewage sludge – 20% of the solids left over from the treatment process at the Slough works – are being put through the new dryer, which works by heating the sludge to around 180C and driving off the water using enclosed heated rotating paddles. Because the sludge cake at Crossness is only about 25% dry, the process relies on non-renewable gas from the grid to keep the fire going in the sludge-powered generator.
A further 20 sewage works, including Slough, generate electricity by burning biomethane gas from sewage, a process know as combined heat and power.
Delay to green subsidies puts renewable energy investment in doubt
Government puts back Renewables Obligation Certificate reforms, leaving investors unable to commit to green projects
Fiona Harvey
guardian.co.uk, Monday 26 September 2011 17.59 BST
Investment in the UK's renewable energy infrastructure has been thrown into doubt as an urgent review into the subsidy regime has been delayed.
Renewable energy companies are concerned that the delay of Renewables Obligation Certificate (ROC) reforms – promised this year by the government – will prompt a rethink of the investment plans. The review is crucial for investors as they are currently unable to make long-term business plans without knowing how much support they are likely to receive in future.
Chris Moore, director at biomass plant developer MGT Power, said the delay meant investors were not moving ahead with potential projects. He said: "This is a problem for renewable businesses, and it's very damaging for UK plc. All of renewable energy investment is effectively on hold until the government sorts out the review and its plans."
Gaynor Hartnell, chief executive of the Renewable Energy Association, said the trade body had been "inundated" with inquiries over when the review might take place.
Key to the review is how the subsidies will be "banded", whereby some forms of energy will receive greater support – which comes ultimately from consumer energy bills, rather than government coffers – than others. A new regime would also be expected to provide more targeted support for new technologies.
Last December, the government recognised the need for an urgent review when it brought forward the consultation by a year. Charles Hendry, energy minister, said then that a consultation on ROCs would be carried out over the summer, and that by autumn this year, new plans for the subsidies would be confirmed.
At the time, the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) acknowledged: "Under the previous timetable, investors would not have known for certain what support they could have expected to receive until autumn 2012 at the earliest. The government was concerned this might delay early investment in certain technologies and hinder the UK's ability to meet our European Union energy target for 15% of energy to come from renewable sources by 2020."
In accelerating the review, the government said it would "give investors and developers greater certainty, and the confidence to help bring forward the scale of renewable development needed to deliver the EU target, and other important energy and climate change objectives".
This timetable is now impossible to stick to. The consultation will take 12 weeks, as is standard. However, even if the review were to begin immediately, it could not be completed before the end of this parliamentary term. Investors are concerned that this could be the start of a longer delay.
Most at risk are biomass projects, generating electricity from wood and waste byproducts. Several of these are on hold because at current rates of subsidy, they would be uneconomic, and companies are calling on the government to correct this problem. This summer Dorothy Thompson, chief executive of Drax, which was planning to burn more biomass than coal in its massive power station, told the Guardian these plans were in jeopardy because of the government's failure to clarify the subsidies.
DECC said an announcement would be made "shortly" but could provide no further details.
Ministers are thought to be wary of attracting attention to the level of subsidies for green electricity, after a spate of reports in sections of the media and on the right of the Tory party criticising renewable subsidies as a component in energy prices. Chris Huhne, environment secretary, argues that consumers are more at risk of rising costs from the volatility of the gas price, and that investing in renewables is the best way to prevent future rises.
Labour leader Ed Miliband blamed energy companies for higher bills this week, promising to curtail their powers.
When the new bands are decided, they will come into effect from 1 April 2013, and from 1 April
2014 for offshore wind technologies.
Fiona Harvey
guardian.co.uk, Monday 26 September 2011 17.59 BST
Investment in the UK's renewable energy infrastructure has been thrown into doubt as an urgent review into the subsidy regime has been delayed.
Renewable energy companies are concerned that the delay of Renewables Obligation Certificate (ROC) reforms – promised this year by the government – will prompt a rethink of the investment plans. The review is crucial for investors as they are currently unable to make long-term business plans without knowing how much support they are likely to receive in future.
Chris Moore, director at biomass plant developer MGT Power, said the delay meant investors were not moving ahead with potential projects. He said: "This is a problem for renewable businesses, and it's very damaging for UK plc. All of renewable energy investment is effectively on hold until the government sorts out the review and its plans."
Gaynor Hartnell, chief executive of the Renewable Energy Association, said the trade body had been "inundated" with inquiries over when the review might take place.
Key to the review is how the subsidies will be "banded", whereby some forms of energy will receive greater support – which comes ultimately from consumer energy bills, rather than government coffers – than others. A new regime would also be expected to provide more targeted support for new technologies.
Last December, the government recognised the need for an urgent review when it brought forward the consultation by a year. Charles Hendry, energy minister, said then that a consultation on ROCs would be carried out over the summer, and that by autumn this year, new plans for the subsidies would be confirmed.
At the time, the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) acknowledged: "Under the previous timetable, investors would not have known for certain what support they could have expected to receive until autumn 2012 at the earliest. The government was concerned this might delay early investment in certain technologies and hinder the UK's ability to meet our European Union energy target for 15% of energy to come from renewable sources by 2020."
In accelerating the review, the government said it would "give investors and developers greater certainty, and the confidence to help bring forward the scale of renewable development needed to deliver the EU target, and other important energy and climate change objectives".
This timetable is now impossible to stick to. The consultation will take 12 weeks, as is standard. However, even if the review were to begin immediately, it could not be completed before the end of this parliamentary term. Investors are concerned that this could be the start of a longer delay.
Most at risk are biomass projects, generating electricity from wood and waste byproducts. Several of these are on hold because at current rates of subsidy, they would be uneconomic, and companies are calling on the government to correct this problem. This summer Dorothy Thompson, chief executive of Drax, which was planning to burn more biomass than coal in its massive power station, told the Guardian these plans were in jeopardy because of the government's failure to clarify the subsidies.
DECC said an announcement would be made "shortly" but could provide no further details.
Ministers are thought to be wary of attracting attention to the level of subsidies for green electricity, after a spate of reports in sections of the media and on the right of the Tory party criticising renewable subsidies as a component in energy prices. Chris Huhne, environment secretary, argues that consumers are more at risk of rising costs from the volatility of the gas price, and that investing in renewables is the best way to prevent future rises.
Labour leader Ed Miliband blamed energy companies for higher bills this week, promising to curtail their powers.
When the new bands are decided, they will come into effect from 1 April 2013, and from 1 April
2014 for offshore wind technologies.
Why do we need low-carbon energy – and how much is currently produced?
This Q&A is part of the Guardian's ultimate climate change FAQ
• See all questions and answers
• Read about the project
guardian.co.uk, Monday 26 September 2011 10.40 BST
The Gemasolar 15 MW solar power tower plant that uses molten salt technologies for receiving and storing energy. Its 16-hour molten salt storage system can deliver power around the clock. It runs the equivalent of 6570 full hours out of 8769 total. Gemasolar is owned by Torresol Energy and has been completed in May 2011. Photograph: Markel Redondo/Greenpeace
The majority of the world's man-made carbon emissions are released by the burning fossil fuels to create electricity, heat or motion. This means that it will almost certainly be impossible to reduce greenhouse gas concentrations to sustainable levels unless large quantities of low-carbon energy can be brought on-stream to substitute for fossil fuels.
The two main sources of low-carbon energy are renewables – which includes categories such as solar, wind, hydro, biomass and marine energy – and nuclear. In terms of total primary energy supply (i.e. raw energy created), data for 2008 suggest that fossil fuels provided around 85%, nuclear contributed around 2% and renewables provided around 13%. The renewables contribution breaks down by technology as follows:
Biomass (wood, etc): 10.2%
Wind: 0.2%
Hydropower: 2.3%
Marine: 0.0002%
Geothermal: 0.1%
Solar: 0.1%
In terms of final energy consumption (i.e. the energy consumed by end-users), the contribution of low-carbon sources is slightly higher.That's because a large proportion of the energy produced from fossil fuels is wasted as heat during the conversion to electricity. One estimate for the year 2009 put the contribution of renewables to final energy consumption at 19% and nuclear at 2.9%.
Some renewable energy technologies – including solar and wind – are growing in total capacity very quickly. However, the proportion of total energy that comes from low-carbon sources in the coming years and decades will depend not just on the roll-out of renewables and nuclear, but also on total energy consumption, which without regulation at the global level could continue to grow, cancelling out the emissions savings of low-carbon sources.
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