diverse technologies
Right: Greg Barker MP, Shadow Climate As Mr Barker noted, “We remain to be
Change Minister- within the Conservative convinced that the Government has done
DECC front bench team. the best job regarding Renewable Obli-
gations, and we will look very carefully
Opposite: A serious commitment to research on whether there is sufficient differentia-
climate change found Greg Barker in the Artic tion between them.
with Conservative Leader David Cameron, in “That is necessary if technologies
April 2006. such as wave and tidal power, which are
further from deployment than offshore
“There have been far too many disparate initiatives and policies
wind, are to be fully represented in a re-
which have been well meaning but too ambitious. They were born
newable energy mix.”
The Conservative Party is keen to es-
out of Labour’s constant obsession with re-announcing schemes
tablish financial incentives and a lib-
and initiatives rather than getting down to the really hard work of
eral regulatory regime that encourages
transforming our economy. This is consistent with the Government’s
a closer relationship between customer
and suppliers and the planners.
approach right across the board.”
“There are many technologies that we
want to encourage, and community-sized
the Renewables Obligation scheme tar- varying between different technologies. organisations are a good place to start. The
gets energy producers with generating a “While it is right that there should be Netherlands has already taken this route,
pre-defined percentage of their output support for the newer technologies, the focussed on business and industry, and
from qualifying renewable resources; the process should reflect the different made very dramatic progress indeed.
proportion increasing in steps to a figure amounts of investment needed for each “What we need is an over-arching,
of 10.4% by the year 2010-11 and then at of them.” attractive financial framework for renew-
1% per year for the following five years. able and smaller scale generation tech-
For each megawatt-hour achieved to-
wards their ‘obligation’, producers are
Better way to encourage take-up
nology. And if we implement a Feed-In
Tariff system that encourages decentral-
assigned an RO Certificate (ROC). Fail- The Feed-In Tariffs (FITs) to which the ised generation, it will be attractive to
ing to meet the quota set for a given year Conservative spokesman referred are a all institutions and serve to pull through
sees those producers paying for their mechanism that guarantees a higher rate the new generating technologies.”
shortfall into a fund which is distributed for the generator or seller of green en-
pro rata to the number of ROCs secured. ergy than is payable for fossil fuel gen-
Selected types of renewable energy erated energy.
Locally sourced renewables
are assigned a weighting so that each While revenue-neutral for the Treas- Later in this edition, we assess the po-
megawatt-hour generated is ‘worth’ ury, FITs are widely accepted as a better tential for locally-sourced renewable
more than one ROC. way of encouraging the take up of energy in public sector institutions such
Greg Barker again: “We are sceptical renewables by individuals and organi- as the NHS and schools.
about the way in which Government has sations. “FITs ensure that community How is the government to encourage
banded quite narrowly a very disparate groups, schools, hospitals, businesses those organisations to operate their own
range of technologies. Ten are assigned and families can have certainty that renewable production when many of the
2 ROCs as an incentive, but I do not be- they will be rewarded by switching to carbon-reducing investments that need
lieve that they all have the same capital green power. to be taken fall outside the scope of in-
cost profile which is what that single fig- “The system has been operating suc- vesting institutions?
ure would imply. cessfully in Germany for a number of The publicly-funded Salix Finance, for
“On the Continent, the incentives are years, and we contend that rejecting the example (page 24 of this edition) was
based on Feed-In Tariffs, which are as- system does not sit well with the Govern- set up specifically to lend money for
sessed on a different set of metrics, ment’s stated aim of encouraging the adop- carbon reduction projects in the public
which leads to the amount of support tion of renewables and microgeneration.” sector. But it is unable to assist with
12
12
The Informed Executive
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