Yes Minister!
Published : October 2007
Richard Anderson asks Malcolm Wicks, Minister for Energy, about the government’s renewable energy policy and what his department is doing to encourage UK businesses to be more environmentally responsible
Why does the UK produce less renewable energy as a percentage of its overall mix than every country in the EU apart from Malta and Luxembourg, especially considering the UK's abundant resources in terms of wind and tidal power? And what specifically is the government doing to rectify this?
Traditionally the UK has been self-sufficient in oil and natural gas, so in terms of renewables we are starting from quite a low base.
But we’re working to rectify that. You’re right – the UK has great renewable potential. In fact we have the best wind profile in Europe and we’re taking advantage of that to build competitive renewables market. The UK is now the world’s number one location for investment in offshore wind and this year we’ll overtake Denmark as the country with the most offshore wind capacity.
Renewable energy is crucial in our effort to meet the twin challenges of climate change and security of energy supply. The government has a number of measures in place to increase the UK’s production.
The Renewables Obligation (RO) is the main mechanism for encouraging new renewable generating capacity. Electricity suppliers must obtain an increasing proportion of their electricity from renewable sources through the RO. Today that target stands at around 9 per cent and will incrementally rise to 15.4 per cent by 2015. Companies that fail to meet the target pay a buy-out price for any shortfall. Through this and other measures we expect to triple the amount of electricity we get from renewables by 2015.
The government has proposed changes to the RO, to introduce a more diverse range of renewable technology and to increase the initiative’s effectiveness by 40 per cent between 2010 and 2015.
In the summer we will launch a full consultation on what needs to be done to meet our share of the EU 2020 renewables target – which provisionally stands at 15 per cent. Once the EU directive is agreed and the UK’s contribution is finalised, we will publish our full UK Renewable Energy Strategy in 2009.
This is all very well, but the major power supply companies in the UK produce, on average, just four per cent of their energy mix from renewable resources when the RO says they must produce almost double this amount?
There’s no doubt the RO is stimulating growth in renewable energy development, particularly the most economic technology such as onshore wind. Since its introduction in 2002, renewable generation has more than doubled from 1.8 per cent to around 4.4 per cent in 2006. This has risen again over the past year and we should have figures for 2007 very soon.
Energy companies are starting to make huge investments in new renewable projects – the UK now has seven offshore wind farms, 168 onshore wind farms and new tidal and wave projects have been approved.
The RO target between 1 April 2006 and 31 March 2007 was 6.7 per cent. Although we would ideally like to see that amount of renewable energy generation, the government deliberately sets the target higher than the level we expect energy suppliers to be able to meet – to create an incentive for additional investment in renewables generation.
To read the rest of the interview, please click on the link below.