Topic: Renewables

I was contacted recently by someone who was studying the renewable heat sector. They asked: We read your blog on Picking Losers and I guess the question is, given that DUKES Table 7.6 gives the existing renewable heat total for 2009 as 96…

Imagine you are a politician, elevated after the recent election from shadow to head of a department. You have quite a bit of experience shadowing your department, but to be fair, you haven't had access to all the information and resources…

One thing leads to another. The APPGOPO report covered in the previous post refers to the first report by the UK Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil & Energy Security (ITPOES) on "The Oil Crunch: Securing the UK's Energy Future", which has been…

The Government and the opposition parties believe that climate-change and energy policy should revolve around identifying the technical solutions and their potential, calculating what each of them needs to encourage their deployment, and…

One way that politicians and civil servants have tried to drive the uptake of renewables is through the application of what became known as the Merton Rule (after one of the first councils to introduce the measure) to planning policy. The…

Here's a graph from the Renewable Energy Strategy, of a type that the Government has been growing increasingly fond, as it steps up the complexity of its efforts to calculate outcomes and costs of support policies:   The first and most…

It was a miserable budget. Lots of people got screwed. The main ones will be picked up by the commentariat. Let me add to that list a group who many might imagine had done quite well: renewable developers. But didn't Darling throw lots of…

SUMMARY: Ken Livingstone's solar panels for City Hall are nearly ready to switch on. They cost something over half a million pounds, and could reasonably be expected to deliver around 75 MWh a year (not enough for 20 typical houses). For…

Two government bodies - Ofgem (the electricity and gas regulator) and the Energy Savings Trust (EST) - are consulting simultaneously on what to do about green electricity tariffs, those electricity-supply deals, like NPower Juice or…

Time was that the first questions that -The Economist-, confronted by a proposal, would pose were: "is it a good idea?" and "is it economic?" No longer, under the regime that has ruled there for the past eighteen months or so. They really…

The excellent Bishop Hill has spotted an announcement by ScottishPower that they are looking to contract farmers to grow energy crops for their Cockenzie and Longannet coal-fired power stations. I can shed (I hope) a little more light on…

Lord Jones of Birmingham (try not to laugh) made his maiden speech in the House of Lords today, on the subject of the Energy White Paper. In a largely unremarkable spiel, most of which simply restated government position, the only comments…

One of the things that America does better than us Europeans is its inclination to give (at least in business) another chance to those who at first don't succeed. Whilst bankruptcy is seen in Europe as evidence that someone is not to be…

The production of ethanol from corn as a replacement/supplement for petrol is coming under increased attack from environmentalists. This month's Ecologist and today's Independent both led with a destructive assessment of its merits. I do…

It is a commonplace of economics that competition drives down prices. Economies of scale drive down costs. The combination of the two may achieve the lowest prices. But normally one would not expect cartels to deliver low prices, however…

I am no fan of wind energy. It is hugely over-rated. But, like most energy sources, it has its place. To dismiss it or condemn it out-of-hand is as distorted a view as to hail it as the solution to all our energy problems. The Times today…

Renewable electricity in the UK is supported primarily by the Renewables Obligation (RO), an obligation on licenced electricity suppliers to purchase a proportion of their electricity from renewable sources. Most types of renewable…