The UK’s wind, wave and tidal industry endorsed the Government’s Renewable Energy Strategy (RES) as a clear, detailed roadmap on how the country will reach its target of generating 15% of energy consumption from renewables.
The RES recommits the Government to a massive increase in renewables generation going up from 5% today to 30% by 2020. Based on the figures in last year’s draft strategy this implies 22% of all electricity will come from offshore and onshore wind and another 2% from marine technologies. However, today’s strategy does not contain a detailed breakdown of the expected contribution from different technologies. Overall, although the strategy places a strong emphasis on wind to deliver the bulk of the targets, BWEA is surprised that the Government has not taken the opportunity to give confidence to investors by clearly stating its ambition for the size of the sector, especially offshore. The RES is set to deliver a host of other incentives encouraging deployment of small wind systems and setting clear expectations at local level on progress towards targets. It will also launch a proposal for Feed-in Tariff rates, while reiterating commitment to the Renewable Obligation until 2037. While welcoming the RES BWEA also argued that the Government needs to take stronger measures to encourage local authority planners to approve wind energy schemes and to deliver the strategic grid network expansion vital to developing our renewables resources.