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CHRIS HUHNE ANNOUNCES PLANS FOR AN INCREASE IN THE NUMBER OF ONSHORE AND OFFSHORE WIND TURBINES

Chris Huhne, the Energy Secretary has promised to support an increase in the number of onshore and offshore windfarms in an attempt to protect Great Britain from a looming energy crisis.

In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph, the Lib Dem minister backed wind power over nuclear stressing that there was ‘no money’ for state subsidies for a new generation of nuclear power plants.

Mr Huhne also reaffirmed the UK’s need to become more independant in energy production to allow it to withstand shocks from the outside world and said that it was feasible for Britain to become totally self sufficient thanks to renewable energy sources such as wind and wave power as well as harnessing tidal streams.

There are currently 253 onshore and 12 offshore windfarms in operation in the UK providing a total generating capacity of 4,580 megawatts of electricity which is enough to power over 2.5 million homes. A further 27 onshore and 5 offshore windfarms are currently under construction and another 458 windfarms are planned.

Speaking ahead of a key policy statement to the Commons on Tuesday Mr. Huhne identified Dogger Bank in the North Sea as a prime are for further offshore development as well as highlighting that ‘It is becoming substantially cheaper to generate electricity from renewable energy sources’ and that ‘it is beautifully windy so it does actually produce a lot of electricity’  further reinforcing that wind power is a really important natural resource for the UK.

Mr. Huhne who will present an Energy Bill to Parliament by the end of the year also said that the way forward was to get more households and businesses to save energy through the use of more ‘smart’ lighting systems, which switch themselves off when rooms are unoccupied and greater uptake of cavity wall and loft insulation.      

UK FALLING BEHIND IN GREEN TECHNOLOGY

With all the recent hype in the news of the BP oil spill, and the workings of our brand new coalition government, it is easy to see how environmental matters may be pushed aside. However, the recent political agenda is no reason for the UK to fall behind in carbon emission cuts. In a recent article it seems that this is the case.

It appears there are two options. To take the simple route would be to look at all the evidence against climate change supported by so-called climate sceptics, and adopt the ‘go on as normal’ approach, where climate change is a myth.

But is there another side to this story, where disregarding the environment as something of less concern would be a disastrous decision? The problem is, life depends on the environment and its quality, so to ignore the issue of climate change may seem like an inviting short term option, but in the long term could turn out to cost us more than we would like.

To cut spending in the environment sector would be "a move in the wrong direction" says the Chief Executive for the Committee on Climate Change, David Kennedy. If the UK takes much longer to move towards green energy, we risk falling behind the likes of China and the US. China have been busy developing new green technology, electric cars and improving energy efficiency of households, but the impression from the UK is that there is good incentive to move to a greener Britain, but not the action to get us there. Spending in the environment sector will have to increase to keep us up to speed with international standards.

Some critics say there is too much caution to adopt and develop new green technology, such as wind power; but surely for locals, the swish of a wind turbine would be preferred over the industrial noise of a nuclear or coal power stat ion? The difficulty is getting people on board to see that the majority of benefits of renewables are long term, while most costs are incurred initially, in the short term. For example a wind farm may look unsightly when being constructed and have high initial costs, but in the long term will provide 25-30 years of clean green renewable energy.

In the pamphlet ‘Green Gold’, published by the Tory reform Group, MP Mr Yeo pushes for road pricing schemes and motorway privatisation, as a means of encouraging people to adopt low carbon transport. Tradeable personal carbon permits are another potential way to build an incentive for people to ‘go green’. The country is yet to majorly develop any of these methods however, leaving the UK vulnerable to rapidly falling behind other countries in their carbon reduction standards. Time will tell as to whether the UK can become the leader of a low carbon economy, or the country will lie dormant in activity, and find in some 10 years that countries have moved far past developing a few offshore windfarms.

ONSHORE WIND SUCCESS

According to the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) onshore wind is the "least cost zero carbon" technology for the near to medium future.  The UK Electricity Generation Costs Update, produced by Mott Macdonald, the UK engineering consultancy, and commissioned by the DECC in early June, assesses forward power generation costs for the main large scale energy technologies in the UK.  The report is based on work undertaken between October 2009 and March 2010, with costing being considered as generation assets and transmission interconnection to the nearest land based substation.

Renewable generation technologies investigated in the report include wind, hydro and various biomass / bio-methane and waste options. Solar, wave and tidal technologies are not included however. Mott Macdonald stress that their findings should be handled with care, as only costs borne by the owner in relation to the operation of a project have been considered, with additional subsidies such as the Renewables Obligations Certificates (ROCs) not taken into account. Furthermore, they point out that the findings are based on a complex set of factors which may change in the future.

Mott Macdonald when using their assessment summarise that onshore wind is the cheapest renewable energy technology option in the near to medium future with a cost estimate of £94/MWh, some £5/MWh less than nuclear on a first of a kind basis. Offshore wind is found to be considerably more expensive, with a range of £157 to £186/MWh, it is however envisaged, as noted in the report, that costs will reduce to approximately £110 to £125/MWh for projects commissioned from 2020, when compared to onshore wind. These costs compare favourably to a report produced by Parsons Brinckerhoff in March of this year, where they found onshore wind and nuclear to be the cheapest technologies for electricity generation in the UK.

In the near future it is expected that with the emergence of new players in the wind sector, delivery times and prices are likely to reduce whilst seeing an increase in demand. In the long term, the report finds that biomass plants could become even cheaper than onshore wind projects as carbon prices increase over time. Even so wind technology beyond 2020 is expected to see "real cost reductions" as suppliers scale up facilities and improve production costs.

Feed-in Tariffs for the Future

From the 1^st April this year small scale renewable projects have been readily encouraged through the introduction of the new Feed-in Tariff (FIT), with the rewards of trying to live a greener life never being better.  The new FIT scheme is essentially a rate of money paid by the government to homeowners, business and organisations such as schools and local community groups for their own electricity generation through small scale renewable energy installations.

Most types of renewable energy are encouraged through the scheme including anaerobic digestion, hydro, solar PV and wind, with varying tariff rates for the size and type of installation up to a maximum generation capacity of 5MW.  However, wave, tidal and geothermal are amongst the systems not currently eligible for the scheme. By allowing all types of business including care homes, supermarkets, farms, hospitals and so on to utilise the tariff, virtually every property throughout the UK is eligible, so long as the qualifying renewable electricity system has been installed after July 15^th 2009. Equivalent systems prior to this date will receive a cheaper tariff.

So how does it work?  Financial support from the scheme is twofold, in that feed-in tariffs are received for both the generation of electricity (generation tariff) and for giving unused electricity back to the National Grid (an export tariff). The export tariff is currently fixed at 3p/kilowatt hour (kWh), while the generation tariff varies depending on the size and type of system being used. The level of payment also depends on whether the system is being fitted to an existing building or installed as part of a new build. Tariff rates can be found at www.fitarrifs.co.uk, along with some more useful information on the scheme. Furthermore, future payments are guaranteed for the next 25 years for solar and 20 years for wind and are index-linked for inflation.

What benefits are there to installing a system? Firstly, for every kWh hour generated from your system a varying price (between 4.5 and 41.3 pence, dependent on size and type of system installed) will be paid to you and secondly, every kWh exported to the national grid i.e. the electricity not consumed by the property will earn 3 pence on top of the money given in the first place for generation. This income is tax-free and supports the schemes intention of providing a 5-8% tax free return. With future payments guaranteed for a fixed period such a low risk investment is beginning to look like a better bet than traditional banking approaches. Further benefits include less reliance on your supplier, a more sustainable way of living and a greater awareness of electricity needs

Developers in the past have generally not been that interested in schemes less than 5MW, however the new FIT scheme has made systems ranging in capacity from 100 to 500 kW likely to be optimal investment opportunities. With fewer development constraints and planning difficulties, achieving planning consent for these will likely be easier than their larger counterparts. This should make the whole process quicker and easier and therefore accessible to many more households and businesses. With evolving legislation favouring small scale and sustainable energy systems, ever more people stand to personally contribute to reducing emissions and combating climate change 

So what are you waiting for? If you would like to take advantage of this new, exciting and attractive scheme further information can be found on the Department of Energy and Climate Change website at http://www.decc.gov.uk/ and at http://www.energysavingtrust.org.uk/. If you are a land owner and you have land that you would interested in developing using the FIT scheme, visit our new website http://www.fitwindpower.co.uk/ to progress an enquiry.

Solar Farming!

Across the South of England, the sight of solar farms is anticipated to become a regular occurrence due to the new Feed-in Tariff which has been introduced. Despite worries about a lack of sunshine to run the new solar farms, which would generate a third less than their counterparts the same size in Spain, solar farms are guaranteed a profit due to the new feed in tariff. Dale Vince of Ecotricity, plans to announce the first 25 acre, 5 megawatt solar farm within the next few weeks and hopes by 2020 there will be enough solar farms to generate 500 megawatts, enough energy to run around 100,000 homes.

Solar panels are argued to be more aesthetically pleasing than wind turbines however in the future it is likely that wind and solar farms will combine due to the differing energy amounts produced in the seasons. As solar panels generate more energy in the summer and wind turbines generate generally more in the winter, combining the two allows consistent amount of energy to be generated throughout the year.

The Campaign to Protect Rural Britain (CPRE) believe that solar energy is a good idea but think the panels should be located upon car parks and on the top of factories or in areas of low quality countryside therefore protecting Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty where many proposed sites would be located.

Solar panels are expensive but with continued investment and an increase in the installation of solar then the cost would reduce making it more economically viable.

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