UK Lagging on Renewable Energy - Industry
Date: 24-Oct-07
Country: UK
Author: Gerard Wynn
European Union leaders signed up in March to a mandatory target to get a fifth of all energy from renewable sources by 2020, to help fight climate change, but didn't decide how the target would be split between the 27 EU member states.
Tough talk is expected ahead of a decision due in January, and the renewable energy industry fears Britain is aiming low.
"There's an exceptionally defeatist attitude on renewables in the UK," said Leonie Greene, spokeswoman for Britain's Renewable Energy Association (REA).
Renewable energy contributes less to global warming but is more expensive than conventional fossil fuels like oil and coal, and so needs support both in research and development and installation to drive investment and bring costs down.
Greene cited EU data showing Britain obtained 1.8 percent of all its energy, including heat, transport and electricity, from renewable sources in 2005, versus an EU-27 average of 6.7 percent.
"We have signed up to the EU 20 percent target... we haven't changed our position," a UK government spokesman said on Tuesday. "We're going through the process of deciding how that's going to be met."
Britain said in May that present policies would enable the country to get 5 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020, and described the EU target as "an ambitious goal."
According to documents leaked to the Guardian newspaper in August and again on Tuesday, British government officials estimate it would cost up to 4.4 billion pounds (US$8.99 billion) annually by 2020 to double that share to 10 percent.
The documents suggested Britain wanted as flexible an approach as possible, for example achieving targets using a similar mechanism to carbon offsetting, where you pay someone else to install renewable energy on your behalf.
EU Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs said two weeks ago he supported such a trading approach, where richer EU governments invested in renewable energy in the newer, mostly ex-communist members of the bloc.
He got a mixed reception from renewable energy companies.
Anton Milner, chief executive of the world's second-biggest solar cell manufacturer Germany-based Q-Cells told Reuters last week he didn't support the idea, while the chief executive of Oslo-based Renewable Energy Corp. said most important was the ambition of the target.