'Huge challenge' to meet renewable energy targets in Europe
The new targets proposed by the EU for the level of renewable energy the member states must reach by 2020 will require a massive increase in the use of alternatives to fossil fuels such as wind and tidal power in the UK.
In 2005, about 8.5% of the EU’s energy came from renewable sources – a figure that will rise to about 10% by 2020 under current policies.
The UK lags behind most other countries with just 2% of total energy generated by renewables, rising to a projected 5% by 2020 under current policies.
The figures for renewable electricity are a little healthier, standing at 4.7% of overall electricity generation, but the targets published today are for total energy, including other sectors such as heating and transport.
With limitations on the level of renewables heating can deliver, and the Commission’s admission it was rethinking the 10% biofuels by 2020 target, electricity will have to deliver the lion’s share of renewables.
A massive increase in research and development into technology is needed, as part of a package of measures which should also include priority access to the grid for renewables and reform of regulator Ofgem to prioritise carbon reductions, she said.
Feed-in tariffs to pay households, businesses and communities a guaranteed price for excess energy that is generated on-site and is sold to the grid would encourage small-scale renewables, she said.
“The UK has positioned itself as an international leader on climate change. Now it has got to put its money where its mouth is to get to a low-carbon economy,” she said.
The wind industry body the British Wind Energy Association (BWEA) said delivery of somewhere between 30% and 40% of electricity from renewables was “doable” by 2020, with more than a quarter supplied by wind power.
But reaching 40% electricity from renewables might be “pushing the boat out”, the BWEA’s director of economics and markets Gordon Edge said.
“We really have to see the Government stepping up to the plate in a big way. We have seen a lot of that in the last few months following Gordon Brown’s speech, but we still need more delivery on the ground,” he said.
Philip Wolfe, executive director of the Renewable Energy Association, said there must be contributions from heat production and transport as well as electricity, and said there would be high growth in biofuels for transport and on-site renewables.
