As PV installations double, everyone is urged to install LEDs

“It’s important for mac birmingham to be as sustainable as possible,” says Simon Creed (left), head of technical resources at mac birmingham, here seen with Paul Hutchens, managing director of Eco2Energy in the art gallery.

There was a huge increase in installations of feed-in tariff-linked solar PV systems in Britain during June 2013. 64.4MW of PV were installed over a four-week period from June 3 to June 30, according to figures supplied by DECC.

That is over double the 30.7 MW installed over the previous four-week period.

As prices have come down, the number of installations has increased throughout 2013, with 215MW installed in the first six months of the year.

Even so, there is no denying that the upfront investment is high. For those in charge of commercial and domestic environments, there is a wide choice of much easier ways to reduce a carbon footprint and see drastic reductions in energy bills.

According to Steven Ellwood, Managing Director of lighting provider BLT Direct, switching conventional lights for LEDs can provide a quicker, more reliable and higher return on investment than installing PV solar, since it is so easy and prices of these units are also tumbling.

They fell by 1% on the global market in the same month, June.

“Energy-saving lighting solutions are a much faster and more convenient way to give a home or business an eco-friendly twist," says Ellwood. "They are easy to install, they start making savings immediately, and there is not a huge initial outlay to add them to a home or commercial environment.”

The vast majority of the energy-saving LED lighting solutions that are on the market nowadays have bases which are compatible with existing fittings in many buildings.

Often it is just a case of simply replacing the old bulbs or strip lights. However, it is recommended that reputable installers and brands are used, since some products now available are of poor quality.

Even ‘feature lighting’, such as those commonly reserved for high energy-using halogens, are available in LED fittings, reducing energy usage by around four-fifths or 80%.

Although more expensive, LEDs can pay for themselves through the energy saved within six to nine months.

These bulbs also have much longer lifespans, meaning that once installed, they immediately begin to save money and contribute towards helping the environment for many years at any time of the day or night, says Ellwood.

Moreover, he adds that they also make a good companion to solar panels, since they reduce overall electricity requirements, meaning that the electricity from the panels will go further.

Birmingham's arts centre lights the way for sustainability

For instance, Birmingham’s popular arts centre, mac birmingham, is set make significant energy savings and reduce its light pollution, thanks to advanced LED lighting installed by energy efficiency specialist Eco2Energy.

The £7,000 investment is expected to save mac over £3,000 per annum on energy running costs and reduce CO2 usage by approximately 5,918kg each year.

Attracting over 850,000 visitors per year, centre is planning to make even more energy savings by replacing a further 250 lights.

“By making a relatively small investment, we’re able to further reduce our carbon footprint and save on energy costs,” commented Simon Creed, head of technical resources at mac birmingham. “It wins on every level and with payback on our investment expected in less than three years, we couldn’t be happier."
It is not the first investment in green technology at mac birmingham.

The complex kick started its ‘green initiative’ in 2012 with a 9.9-kilowatt solar PV system installed by Eco2Energy’s sister company Eco2Solar.

It now generates over 9,000 units of green energy per annum, equivalent to making 214,000 cups of tea.

“It’s important for mac birmingham to be as sustainable as possible; our aim is to be as energy efficient as we can and share this with our visitors by creating a ‘green zone’," said Simon Creed.

Midlands based Eco2Energy, part of Eco2 Solutions Group, was appointed as project installer to replace 100 track lights with high energy efficient LED lighting in the complex’s public galleries and main gallery.

Paul Hutchens, managing director of Eco2Energy said: “mac birmingham is a prime example of how businesses can invest in smart energy technologies and see immediate savings.”

“It’s excellent to see such a prominent complex in the regional arts community be so passionate about becoming totally energy efficient.”

Eco2Energy has developed its own ‘business friendly’ smart energy assessment designed to make energy efficiency simple for businesses.

Eco2Energy’s low carbon consultants work with businesses to review current energy usage, identify where savings can be made and make recommendations on the best efficiency measures to reduce carbon omissions and energy bills.

With a comprehensive range of smart energy technologies including LED and Low Energy Lighting, Voltage Optimisation and Building Energy Management. Other energy-saving solutions include Energy Efficient Cooling and Insulation.

How do you communicate action on climate change?

It's values that count in getting people on your side.

Anyone trying to get the public or interested parties on board for a project in the energy and environmental industries, or any campaigner working in the area of climate change, at some point has to find a way to 'sell' their project and the reasons for it; in other words, to 'sell' the relevance of renewable energy, energy efficiency, or climate change to particular groups of people.

This is not as easy as it sounds, and this week it was my pleasure to organise and participate in a workshop led by George Marshall, of the Climate Outreach and Information Network (COIN) on the subject of communicating climate change, which was based on his considerable research into the topic.

A classic mistaken piece of publicity, I suppose, is the TV advert prepared by Defra, and related press advertisements, for its Act on CO2 campaign. You can't actually see it at that link, although you can read about it.

Two of the press advertisements were withdrawn following numerous complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority.

Astonishingly, Defra never tested this advert before airing it on national TV. All they did was show it to other people in the Department, thus wasting about £18 million of public money, George Marshall told us.

The danger of this type of advertising (another example is the disastrous TV ad by 10:10) is that it alienates more people than agree with it. It's no good producing a piece of work that addresses the values of one group of people, if everyone is going to see it.

Conversely, George gave a 'thumbs up' to a series of adverts by British Gas in which they showed people from various different backgrounds just talking about how they felt about climate change.

A workshop exercise encouraged us to talk about our feelings around climate change and what we ourselves do about it, rather than referencing science or reports. The difference was dramatic.

The lesson is: emotions are what chiefly connect most people to other people, especially if they feel that their values are shared.

George is working on a book which involves talking to people in the Republican right (Tea Party) in America about their feelings about climate change.

It's in America where opinions about climate change have become the most polarised on ideological grounds, with four out of five Democrats supporting action on climate change, and the corresponding proportion of Republicans having the opposing viewpoint. It's produced stalemate in Congress on climate change action.

If ever anyone is to bridge the gap between those constituencies, it would have to be done by finding what values they share with each other, perhaps segmented subgroup by segmented subgroup (for example working class black Texans, or middle-class white New Englanders).

There are plenty of things which George recommends we avoid: visual cliches (polar bears, cracked mud, floods) and verbal ones (words like green, eco, save the planet), not just because they are overused, but because they don't address the values the audience cares about.

Not even talking about money that can be made from a particular action (carbon trading for example) is necessarily the right approach, since doing this alone ignores the social reward which might be gained by undertaking the required action, which, in the end, can be far more important than making money.

"Don't assume that any existing campaign works," he says. "What are the values of your target audience? Speak to them. Ask them. Note down what words they use, then employ them back if relevant".

The second rule is to generate an aspirational social norm. He cites as a really successful campaign, one that has been used for 30 years in Texas to stop people littering. It doesn't even mention litter, just has a series of country music celebrities, whom the target audience will recognise, each saying "I don't do it', followed by the punchline slogan: 'Don't mess with Texas'. It's tough, it's macho, it's Texan, it's effective.

Just look at the other slogans on that link: "Be patriotic: respect and love the land you live on".

Another campaign rooted in good market research, not yet launched, which he shared with us, is one aimed at the Welsh people. The research showed that people in Wales value above all their landscape and their sense of community.

Part of the reason why the campaign against wind farms in Wales has been so successful is because it possesses all of the attributes of a good campaign: it is viral, community-based and speaks to common values.

It also plays upon people's fear of change.

The campaign to counter this would appeal to the same values, but point out that the landscape has always been "shaped by the hard work of the people".

It will point out that climate change is not something in the future, which people can push away and pretend is not happening now and so therefore does not justify action today. It will say that climate change has been happening since the start of the Industrial Revolution, its effects are being felt now, and they will only get worse in the future.

It will celebrate that Wales is blessed with natural resources that we value and can utilise: they may once have been coal, but are also, and always have been: water, wind, forests, sunshine and sea.

And it will point out that there is a long tradition of renewable energy in Wales: people have been using hydroelectric power for over 100 years. They have been using wood for fuel for much longer.

The uplands of Wales were not always how they are now, with a consequent need to preserve them in this state, but were once covered in mixed forest and teeming with wildlife. Many of these hillsides have been denuded by sheep farming and conifer plantations planted in rigid rows.

The landscape is not ‘natural’ and has always been in flux.

Wind farms, in other words, are part of the Welsh tradition, and can bring many benefits to the communities that host them.

A successful campaign must also recognise that the environment is also the streets outside our front doors, the air we breathe, and is affected by how we dispose of our rubbish.

A further point made by George is that many people (but not all) value belonging to a community.

If, therefore, a member of their peer group can be persuaded to advocate the action that we are looking for, then they will listen, and change.

Connected with this, an enhancement that George would have recommended to the feed-in tariffs programme would have been that each person implementing FiTs would, firstly, display in their window a small notice explaining what they have done, and secondly be financially rewarded for each person they recommend to join the scheme in their community.

These features could be applied to any of the renewable energy support schemes the Government is currently promoting and greatly boost their success.

To take an example from a parallel field, I happened to be part of the communications team for childhood immunisation in the NHS at the time of the first MMR controversy in 2001-02. My response was to publish friendly, factual material so parents could understand the importance of immunisation.

But people don't base their decisions only on facts and reason.

Having listened to George, if I was doing it again I would get mothers who have immunised their own children to simply say why in their own words.

Because these mothers talking from their own feelings are so much more likely to be trusted than the government.

A testimony of this sort carries the message: "I am one of you. I care for my children so I immunised them. I think everybody should do so, for the common good."

Similarly, for climate change, you yourself should say to your audience: "I am one of you. I care about climate change because it is already affecting me," and then advocate the action that you are trying to achieve.

British Prime Minister opens world's largest wind farm

David Cameron called the London Array  "a big win for is renewable energy" because it shows that we can "have renewable energy projects at scale... right here in Britain".

Yesterday saw the launch by Prime Minister David Cameron of the world’s largest offshore wind power plant, the London Array, located in the Thames estuary, approximately 20 kilometres off the Kent and Essex coast.

Owned, developed and built by a consortium consisting of Dong Energy, E.ON and Masdar (Abu Dhabi’s state backed renewable energy company), it has a total capacity of 630 megawatts (MW) and will generate enough power to supply 500,000 British households with clean electricity.

It is estimated to reduce annual CO2 emissions by approximately 900,000 tons, equivalent to the emissions of 300,000 passenger cars. Construction involved over 75 organisations and 6,700 people.

The London Array consists of 175 wind turbines supplied by Siemens, who also made the grid connection. Dong Energy and Siemens will be responsible for the service of the wind turbines through a long-term agreement.

DECC said that companies from all over the UK had benefited, "with construction supplies ranging from cable manufacturing in Yorkshire to boats from Brightlingsea to wind towers from Scotland".

Speaking at the launch, the Prime Minister used the occasion to back wind power and overseas investment in Britain, calling it "a triple win".

“First of all it’s a huge win for Kent. This project has been built by some of the bravest seaman, some of the most talented engineers, some of the hardest workers, and it’s going to continue to bring benefits to people in Kent for many, many years to come," he said.

He added that it's certainly "a big win for is renewable energy" because it shows that we can "have renewable energy projects at scale... right here in Britain".

Thirdly, he said it proved that Britain can "do big projects", citing also "a superb Olympics", Crossrail, "the biggest construction project in Europe", London Gateway, "the biggest port construction taking place in Europe", and "here you have the biggest offshore construction anywhere in the world. I think this demonstrates Britain is a great place to invest,” he concluded.

Energy Secretary Ed Davey called it “a bulk generator of power feeding into the diverse mix on our grid. It’s attracted billions of inward investment into our economy".

He added that the reforms outlined in the Energy Bill are intended to make sure that more projects like this come about.

Other massive projects (a total of 15 GW) are already in the pipeline, such as Teesside, Gwynt y Mor off the coast of North Wales and West Of Duddon Sands off the north west coast of England.

At Gunfleet Sands, off the Essex coast, the next generation of even more powerful offshore turbines is being tested in the water for the first time anywhere in the world.

At the end of March, the 75th and final turbine was installed at Lincolnshire's windfarm off the coast of Skegness, which has the capacity to power more than 200,000 homes.

Speaking at the opening, RenewableUK’s Chief Executive, Maria McCaffery, said: “The Prime Minister’s ringing endorsement of Britain’s offshore wind industry is a real boost for the entire renewable energy sector, which is a key growth area for the British economy.

“We’re about to witness a massive expansion in the number of people we employ in the wind industry onshore and offshore, from about 12,000 now to 76,000 by the dawn of the next decade, as long as Government remains supportive – today Mr Cameron has assured us that it will”.

The UK is expecting that offshore wind farms will help it reach its legally-binding targets to cut carbon emissions, with an aim of developing 18 gigawatts by 2020.

Larger community renewable energy schemes to receive extra support

Energy and Climate Change Minister Greg Barker said: "The expansion of our reformed Feed-in Tariff will encourage even more communities to get on board.”

New proposals to benefit community energy schemes have been unveiled by the Government.

In its response to feedback from community groups on the type of financial incentive that works best for them, the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) has said it will increase the generation threshold under which community projects are eligible for feed-in tariffs (FITs) to enable larger projects to benefit.

Support for community renewable projects over 5MW is currently available under the Renewables Obligation (RO). But this pays a lower amount per kilowatt-hour than that available under FITs.

The reforms, to be written into the Energy Bill and underpinned by secondary legislation, will permit community schemes up to 10MW in size to continue to benefit from the levels of support available to those below 5MW.

Projects such as solar PV on school roofs or panels on libraries, community owned wind turbines and hydro power from local streams could all benefit under the proposed new rules.

There is also money on offer to pay for excess power exported back to the grid.

Energy and Climate Change Minister Greg Barker said: "The Coalition is determined to drive a step change in the deployment of community energy.

"We want to help consumers, businesses and communities generate more of their own clean, green electricity locally, becoming less reliant on centralised power generation. The expansion of our reformed Feed-in Tariff will encourage even more communities to get on board.”

The announcement comes on top of the launch last week of a £15 million Renewable Community Energy Fund to help community groups with the cost of feasibility studies and seeking planning permission.

DECC is also keen to explore what needs to be done to kickstart even more projects across the UK, with a call for evidence currently underway and the UK’s first community energy strategy to be launched in the Autumn.

The call for evidence wants to hear about the potential benefits of community energy, the barriers to community energy, and what might be innovative and new approaches.

The proposed changes to the FITs rules will be made as part of the Energy Bill process. Once this Bill comes into force, the Government will consult on what it will mean in practice for community schemes.

The Solar Trade Association welcomed the proposals. Its chief executive, Paul Barwell, said: “Community solar farms on lower grade agricultural land help farmers diversify their risk away from increased weather risks to their land, while at the same time fostering dual purpose land use and biodiversity. Community ownership will help secure better community acceptance for more ambitious solar farms over the existing 5MW threshold.”

However, the STA  believes that there is still an issue which needs clarifying that is preventing many community schemes from getting off the ground.

Currently all solar schemes over 50kW (the size of e.g. a school scheme) are subject to very stringent capacity constraints. For example, in any quarter, if more than 200MW of capacity of 50kW+schemes is installed, this will result in a 28% cut in all the tariffs from 50kW through to 5MW.

Furthermore, for schemes over 250kW (larger commercial or community schemes), the FIT is too low to work, leading to just a handful of projects at this size since last July. This is despite schemes over 250kW being more cost effective than many large-scale renewables supported under the Renewables Obligation (RO).

STA Head of External Affairs, Leonie Greene, said: “Solar is being unfairly constrained. It is this 'normal' mid-size of solar, dominant in markets overseas, that needs urgent attention.”

The STA is currently finalising its best practice guidance for high standards in solar farm construction, which recommend avoiding prime grade agricultural land, and provide a set of criteria which developers, builders and land tenants can use to ensure best practice.

Carbon price rises following European backloading vote

Although the bill may not become law, multinationals such as Shell, and energy secretary Ed Davey, are calling for further structural reform of the EU-ETS.

Prices of carbon on the market rose 12% following the European Parliament's vote yesterday in favour of EU Emissions Trading Scheme back-loading proposals.

The bill could determine the amount that industry in Europe will pay for its energy over the next 40 years by increasing the price of carbon allowances in the EU emissions trading scheme (EU-ETS) through a temporary withdrawal of emission permits from the market.

Today, EUAs are trading €.35 higher at €4.68, a rise of around 12%.

Edward Davey, Secretary of State for Energy & Climate Change, welcomed the vote, saying: “This is a good decision by the European Parliament and is an important step forward for climate change policy. We need a stable carbon market so we get a more certainty for investors so emissions reductions can be achieved at the lowest cost possible."

He said that the next challenge was to "focus on securing agreement to the proposals in Council in order to facilitate a deal", referring to the next stage in the passage of the bill, which will see discussions between the European Parliament, the Commission and the Council of Ministers, where most countries support the plan.

However, Poland is opposed, while Germany and Spain are undecided. It therefore remains unclear whether the bill will gain enough support to become law.

“Alongside this," Davey continued, "there should be a parallel focus on the urgent need for structural reform of the European Emissions Trading Scheme, in order to promote growth in low carbon industry in the longer term. We are calling on the European Commission to bring forward legislative proposals by the end of this year, along with 11 other EU Member States”.

The bill is intended to make it cheaper for companies to invest in clean technology such as renewable energy.

Opponents charge that it will make the price of fossil fuel-derived energy more expensive for high energy users such as the paper and steel industries.

Royal Dutch Shell and other multinationals have welcomed the vote, agreeing with Davey's call for structural reform.

Shell’s chief climate change adviser, David Hone, said that: “Backloading sends a political signal about the importance of the EU ETS, but does not address the structural problems. We urge the Commission to come forward as soon as possible with proposals for structural reforms,” he said.

What this lobby group would like to see is permanent cancellation of allowances that have been distributed too liberally, causing a glut on the market and prices to fall to a level that cannot support the amount of investment in low carbon technology required to tackle climate change.

The Renewable Energy Association's Head of Policy, Paul Thompson, while welcoming the vote, also agreed with this point: "Although the UK has already introduced its own ‘Carbon Price Floor’ designed to top up the carbon price, it is clearly preferable for carbon prices to be stable across the EU. Today’s vote goes some way to achieving this, and will reduce the risk of UK energy intensive industries being put at a competitive disadvantage. However, we remain of the view that wider scale reform of the EU ETS is needed to fix the longer term problems with the market.”

Analyst Thomson Reuters Point Carbon issued a statement saying that, should the measure become law, the price of carbon could rise to €8.80 by 2015, but cancellation of issued allowances will be required to let it rise higher.

Disagreements over policy within opponents of the move gave the swing votes to a small number of Green Party MEPs, allowing the passage of the draft law that had only been rejected by the Parliament two months previously, on the grounds of market interference.

The process leading up to the vote was subsequently highly criticised by all parties.

Bas Eickhout, a member of the Green Party, said that "Within the European People's Party it was so politicized, it was a fight between different strands in the party. For a lot of people, they had no idea what they were voting about. The longer the process went on, the more politicized it got and the more complicated it got for MEPs".

New trial will determine if the future of rail is wind powered

X-Wind's 6kW vertical axis wind turbine, the model for the one which could be seen alongside rail tracks throughout the country.

Britain's electrified railways could be up to 70% powered by wind turbines placed alongside the tracks, if a trial getting underway is successful.

A new project, part-funded by the Department for Energy and Climate Change, aims at reducing the carbon footprint of electrified railways using a specially designed wind turbine developed by British manufacturer X-Wind Power.

The product is billed as the world's most advanced vertical axis wind turbine. Called the XW-80, it has been designed for extreme reliability and exceptional performance on sites with restricted access and limited space.

The XW-80 can be installed at a density of 1MW per kilometre on long linear sites such as sea defences, road and rail corridors, or in small numbers to suit communities or businesses.

The technology, with its exceptional efficiency, low cost of energy, and near-silent operation, has been described as "potentially game changing" by major wind player Dong Energy.

Vertical axis wind turbines are not bothered by turbulent changes in direction of the wind, or blustery weather. They are therefore more suited to urban situations. Most wind turbines using windfarms have a horizontal axis.

In May, DECC awarded a total of £16 million in the first phase of its £35 million Energy Entrepreneurs Fund (EEF), part of which went to X-Wind Power. The programme has been set up to develop low carbon technologies for buildings and power generation and energy storage.

X-Wind’s EFP project will now take advantage of Network Rail’s unique land ownership to validate its vertical axis wind turbine technology in terms of performance, economics and safety, specifically when operating in narrow corridors and in proximity to trains.

The two-year trial consists of the design and development of an 80kW wind turbine based on X-Wind recently validated 6kW small scale generator (pictured above).

It will lead to several regional tests along Network Rail’s tracks before moving to a comprehensive rollout and the potential generation of 2,200 GWh of carbon-free electricity annually.

Michael Blaize, CEO at X-Wind Power, said: “We have made exceptional progress over the last two years, from an innovative concept to a demonstration project with the UK’s largest energy user.

"The support we have received from funding bodies such as the Technology Strategy Board and The Department of Energy and Climate Change is a clear endorsement of our technology and business strategies.”

The company believes that a distributed energy system coupled with storage technology is the only long-term energy solution for the future and that its technology could play a leading role in the supply of energy solutions globally.

Its market research has highlighted strong growth potential for the medium scale wind market. X-Wind intends to combine innovative design with robust manufacturing processes from automotive and large-scale wind industries to offer efficient and reliable products.

Greg Barker touts UK cleantech as success model for India

Minister for climate change, Greg Barker, made the case that investment in a low carbon future was good for everyone.

The mean damage caused by delay on acting on climate change is greater than the cost of taking action, according to new research published in Nature, meaning that governments and businesses cannot use the economic slump as a reason not to invest in tackling climate change.

This argument was used by Greg Barker, Minister for Energy & Climate Change, yesterday, speaking to an audience of government and business representatives while on a trade mission to Hyderabad, India.

He said that "policies that tackle climate change, while serving a noble cause, and given the tiny emissions per head of the Indian population, can seem like a long-term luxury that developing economies can ill-afford".

But he said this attitude was wrong, adding that it was a "myth that low-carbon means a break on economic growth, that caring for the environment means leaving millions in poverty, that resource-efficiency means a break on aspiration for hundreds of millions of young people, and that a green economy is a brake on competitiveness for India as a whole".

His speech was dedicated to making the case for an alternative future, and was peppered with examples of success stories in the British economy.

These included Artemis, a university spin-off which invented a new hydraulic system for use in wind turbines that was later bought by Mitsubishi, and Romag, which is producing self-cleaning solar panels which Barker thought would be of great value in India.

The minister also cited another British company, Highview, which is developing an energy storage solution that uses excess energy to chill air, which, when warmed, drives a wind turbine.

Research backing Barker's economic argument is found in an article published today in the academic Nature Climate Change journal.

It concludes that the cost of emitting an additional tonne of carbon dioxide today is $107 per tonne, based on economic growth in developed countries being around 2% per year. Conversely, if these countries continue to be in a state of economic stagnation, then this figure rises to $138 per tonne.

The authors, Dr Chris Hope (Reader in Policy Modelling, Cambridge Judge Business School) and Mat Hope (School of Sociology, Politics, and International Studies, University of Bristol) argue that the main reason for the greater damage in a low growth world is that people will have less money than expected when the worst impacts of climate change hit, and so each dollar of damage will be felt more keenly.

The researchers used an integrated assessment model called PAGE09 to estimate the mean social cost of CO2 for a wide range of economic growth scenarios. It measures the net present value of the extra damage caused by the emission of one more tonne of CO2 today.

The results show that in a world with sustained lower economic growth the mean social cost of CO2 increases, because the climate impacts occur in a relatively poor world, suggesting that, if anything, mitigating climate change should be a higher priority for policymakers in a low-growth world.

However, rapid economic growth (over 3% per year) also increases the damage from emitting carbon dioxide, because the greater resulting emissions are more likely to give rise to a greater degree of climate change.

The authors point out that the tension between pursuing policies to revive the major economies of the world and those to reduce emissions was put into stark focus by the Chancellor, George Osborne, when he argued at the 2011 Conservative party conference that "we are not going to save the planet by putting our country out of business".

According to the World Bank, economic stagnation is expected to continue into the foreseeable future.

Investment in low carbon growth, the authors say, is therefore both desirable for climate protection reasons, but also as a stimulus to the economy.

New prize to stimulate dynamic demand innovation

Stewart Reid, Future Networks Project Manager for SSE’s NINES project, says dynamic demand response will make wind power more effective and efficient.

A Dynamic Demand Challenge Prize has been launched to help meet the challenge of satisfying ever-increasing demands on the UK’s power grid, as highlighted by last week’s Ofgem report on tightening electricity margins.

The prize is the initiative of Nesta, the UK’s innovation foundation, and hopes to find new ways of managing demand to shift electricity consumption from peak to off-peak times, reducing carbon emissions and better responding to demands on UK energy supplies.

Solutions will depend upon the smart grid: new data-driven, demand side response-enabled products, technologies or services, that reduce carbon emissions by shifting energy use to off peak times or towards renewable generation.

Dynamic demand, or demand side response (DSR), is the exchange of information between electronic devices, responding to signals from the grid directly or indirectly.

It will be built into the capacity market, being created by the new Energy Bill, to can help shift electricity consumption away from peak hours where electricity consumption is high, or enable greater usage of excess electricity generation from renewables, as well as help maximise the use of the smart grid.

A number of trials are taking place at the moment through initiatives such as Low Carbon London, DECC/Ofgem’s Smart Grid Forum and the Low Carbon Network Fund.

Currently the UK’s biggest smart grid initiative is a £54 million scheme called the Customer-led network revolution in which 14,000 homes and businesses are finding ways to reduce both their energy spend and carbon emissions.

The project includes decentralised generation and demand reduction through efficient smart appliances and is trialling demand response through the combination of generation and flexibly operated appliances. It is supported by Low Carbon Network Fund, with partners UK Power Networks, Northern PowerGrid, British Gas, Durham University and EA Technology.

A new project called Smart Hooky is now trialling a range of new technologies to create a community–scale smart grid that will help Western Power Distribution understand how a rural community uses electricity at different times of the day in order to manage peak demands and let electricity networks accommodate more renewable energy.

The Dynamic Demand Challenge Prize will offer incentives, financial support and expert guidance for shortlisted projects, with a prize of £50,000 for the solution that demonstrates the most significant impact.

Constance Agyeman, development manager, Nesta’s Centre for Challenge Prizes, commented: “The Dynamic Demand Challenge Prize will support innovations that create a measurable shift in energy use. This is important because there is increasing demand on the UK’s electricity supplies and we therefore need to find new ways to manage this.”

Partners in the challenge include the Centre for Carbon Measurement, the Department for Business Innovation and Skills and National Grid. Neil Hughes, NG's head of technology, explains, “Balancing the grid will become more complex as more renewable generation comes onto the system and our goal is to help new service providers understand those challenges and develop technologies to meet that growing need”.

Jane Burston, head of the Centre for Carbon Measurement at the National Physical Laboratory notes, “Climate change and a secure, clean energy supply are two of the biggest challenges of our time. Demand side response is a critical step in supporting the shift in supply towards renewable generation. This will only be successful with engaging tools and technologies we want to use in our homes and offices.”

The challenge is open to entries from anyone across the European Union, but the solution must be applied within a UK context.

Northern Isles New Energy Solutions (NINES)

NINES is another important dynamic demand response solution that is being developed by SSE in Scotland. It aims to support Shetland’s sustainable energy future by developing and managing the electricity distribution network more effectively.

Measures used here include replacing old inefficient storage and water heaters with modern 'smart' storage heaters, and adding a new electric boiler to the existing district heating system, both of which help to balance the electricity network.

This is crucial, says Tim Rotheray of the Combined Heat and Power Association, because currently wind turbines generating electricity that is not needed at that point in time are paid constraint payments per megawatt not to feed their power into the grid.

To combat this waste, often seized upon by opponents of wind power as a reason to oppose wind farms, the power can instead be stored in the form of hot water using the systems being installed here, even diverting the power for a few seconds, as when there are spikes of generation during blustery weather.

NINES is also deploying new technology that will allow more small-scale renewable generators to connect to the network and introducing new commercial arrangements to encourage businesses to change the times at which they use most energy, similar to ones that will be in the new capacity market.

Finally, it is also installing a 1MW battery, part-funded by the Department for Energy and Climate Change, at Lerwick Power Station.

The project will help SSE plan for the replacement of its existing Lerwick Power Station, which is nearing the end of its useful life, with a smaller station than would otherwise be required.

This type of demand side response solution is already used in Denmark, for example in the Skagen District Heating system, which utilises electric as well as gas-fired CHP boilers.

Silver Springs

Silver Springs is a company which already has 10 years' experience in this area in north America and Asia Pacific. With a customer-focussed attitude to smart meters, it works directly with end users and communities and has recently established an office in the UK.

Their Oklahoma Smart Hours Programme is a demand response initiative to encourage customers to shift their energy use to off-peak hours that works by establishing local communications infrastructure and installing programmable communicating thermostats to control air conditioning units at times of peak demand.

The programme has helped 44,000 users save an average of $191 each, and delivered more than 67 megawatts of load reduction in 2012.

In the UK, another pioneer is The Ouse Valley Energy Services Company Ltd, formed by members of the Transition Town Lewes Energy Group, which includes decentralised generation and demand reduction and is currently investigating local electricity and heat distribution networks for villages and towns within the District.

The community-owned MOZES (Meadows Ozone Energy Services Company) is also delivering decentralised generation and demand reduction, with the aim of helping the community to become self-sufficient in energy use, and then to become an energy generating community.

All of these initiatives are exploring and developing models that fit with the new paradigm of using available low carbon energy in real time more efficiently, one of the chief challenges of moving to a low carbon future, that is being supported by the NESTA challenge.

UK power "will be 85% more expensive" without energy storage

Without large-scale energy storage, the UK government won't meet its renewable energy ambitions, says Edwin Koot, CEO of SolarPlaza.

The price of power in the UK will be 85% more expensive than in Germany (Europe’s biggest energy market) by May 2015, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

U.K. power will cost £53.06 per megawatt-hour in May 2015, compared with €33.30 in Germany, according to fair value calculations on Bloomberg as of 8:40 a.m. in London.

They attribute the stark difference to Germany’s advanced renewable energy programme, which accounts for 30% of power generation, compared to the UK’s, currently standing at 11.3%.

The 2015 picture compares with an average premium of 17% over the past five years and 80% today, according to data from Marex Spectron Group Ltd., a London broker.

While Germany is seeking to consolidate its status as Europe’s biggest producer of wind and solar power by boosting its share of renewables-sourced energy to 35% in 2015 from 22% last year, the UK is targeting 15% from 11% over the same period, and is predicted to fail to meet the 20% 2020 EU-wide target.

Statkraft AS is closing money-losing gas-fed plants in Germany, while Macquarie Group Ltd. (MQG) and Vitol SA are buying British power stations, betting on gains of as much as 19% in U.K. prices by 2016, according to Societe Generale SA.

“The U.K. has built significantly less renewables to date,” Ilesh Patel, a partner at Baringa Partners LLP, a consulting firm that counts EON SE and Electricite de France SA (EDF) among its clients, said. “Germany has been on a fast-track wind and solar plan.”

Many critics of investment in renewable energy in the UK point to the fact that Germany, which is investing heavily in renewable technologies in its push to abandon its reliance upon nuclear power, currently has higher power prices than the UK.

However, Ed Davey, Energy Secretary, has consistently said that Britain's programme of supporting renewable energy will eventually lead to lower prices.

The key to this development may be investment in energy storage.

Germany is offering incentives worth €25 million to help subsidise the installation of batteries alongside solar PV systems to store electricity for use at night time. Simon Daniel, Founder of energy storage company Moixa Technology, says this "is helping our European neighbour to realise the full potential of renewable technology".

The UK Minister for Energy and Climate Change, Gregory Barker, is to deliver the keynote speech during the upcoming Solar Future UK ’13 event on July 16 at which he is expected to enlarge on his announcement, made at the recent Intersolar conference, that Britain hopes to deploy 20 GW of PV by 2020, in relation to how this affects Britain's energy storage capacity.

At the Intersolar event, Barker said that "the UK Government is totally committed to building a world-class renewables industry” and quoted Prime Minister David Cameron as saying that he wants to "make Britain a global showcase for green innovation and energy efficiency".

At the following day's Energy Storage UK '13 conference, leading industry spokespeople and cleantech businesses from the UK’s energy storage sector will discuss how the latest energy storage systems (ESS) will advance the integration of renewable energy, such as solar PV and wind.

"Deployment potential of solar PV is greater than the UK’s grid storage capacity," comments the CEO of SolarPlaza, Edwin Koot. "Without large-scale energy storage solutions, the UK Government’s ambition to reach this figure presents a significant challenge for National Grid, which has already warned that building more than 10GW will make it difficult to manage the network in its current form."

Director of the Electricity Storage Network, Anthony Price, is warning that "if the Government does not support the use of storage as part of the solution to meet our power shortfall, we will lose this opportunity, and live to regret it.

"What is low cost now will take us down power’s one-way street. It will be difficult and costly to reverse. Our plans for the Smart Grid show we need storage and we must seize this opportunity now.”

The intermittency of solar PV and wind requires utilities to maintain additional spinning reserve from polluting power stations to pick up loads, or, in the future, use demand-side reduction techniques in the capacity market, in the event of peak demand spikes.

If the potential of intermittent renewables is to be fully realised, the National Grid will require fast-acting energy storage systems that can dispatch power and respond quickly to network imbalances, says Price.

That the power industry and policy makers are not paying sufficient attention to the challenges arising from integrating intermittent power generation into the system was felt by 60% of attendees polled at the recent POWER-GEN Europe and its co-located conference, Renewable Energy World Europe, between 4-6 June at the Messe Wien, Vienna.

£15 million for community-owned renewable energy in England

A new £15 million government fund has been launched to support community-owned renewable energy projects in England.

The Rural Community Energy Fund (RCEF), which is now open to applications, is targeted at helping rural communities pay for the cost of feasibility studies into renewable energy projects, and fund the costs associated with applying for planning permission.

But the fund stops short of paying for the actual installation of the renewable technologies. Instead, the hope is that projects will then be able to attract private finance to get projects up and running.

Crowd-funding is proving to be a popular way of attracting such finance. The most recent project to be funded this way is a community-run hydro-electric scheme on the outskirts of Edinburgh, Scotland. Harlaw Hydro raised £313,000 through a ‘community share’ offer to fund the installation.

Additionally, the Co-operative Bank’s loan fund, the Co-operative Enterprise Hub are offering support for renewable energy with their campaign for a Clean Energy Revolution in communities across the UK.

Within their £1 billion commitment to fund energy efficiency and renewables is a £100 million fund for small-scale community renewables and tackling reductions in fuel poverty.

The RCEF funding can be used to support most renewable or low carbon technologies, including: wind, solar, biomass, heat pumps, anaerobic digestion, gas Combined Heat and Power and hydro.

Energy and Climate Change Minister Greg Barker said that he hoped the funding would "help kick start hundreds of clean green energy projects in rural areas across England. Not only can local generation bring people together, boost local economies and drive forward green growth, it can help save money on energy bills too.”

Environment and Rural Affairs Minister Richard Benyon added: “As well as boosting renewable energy production, the Fund will ensure that communities have the funding they need for local projects and priorities in future.”

The RCEF offers funding in two stages: a grant of up to £20,000 for feasibility studies into renewable energy projects in local areas; and, upon successful completion of this, a loan of up to around £130,000 to help with project costs, such as seeking planning permission and relevant environmental permits.

The loan is repayable to the government once projects have been commissioned, with an additional premium of 45%. This cash is expected to be derived from the income generated by their projects. The government will reinvest it back into the fund to help support further projects.

The funding is a successor to the Local Energy Assessment Fund (LEAF) that was launched in December 2011. This has led to 236 community energy generation and management projects across England.

WRAP is, perhaps surprisingly, the delivery agency for the RCEF funding, with the application forms available on their website.

Applications will only be considered from rural communities with less than 10,000 residents and larger communities located in local authority areas defined as ‘predominantly rural’.

Applications will be reviewed on a monthly basis by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and Defra with advice from WRAP, but there is no set deadline for submission of bids.

Demand side response: a revolution in British energy policy

It's highly significant that demand side response is to be included in auctions for the future British electricity capacity market, as announced by DECC last Thursday, because it marks once and for all a move away from the principle that has dominated energy policy since the national grid began: of satisfying peak demand at any price.

Capacity market auctions will commence in 2014, subject to European state aide approval, and will embrace new and existing generation capacity including combined heat and power (CHP), embedded generation, energy storage, and permanent reductions in electricity demand.

Demand side response (DSR) means that small, decentralised generators and owners of stand-by generators experiencing reduced demand, or a combination of both, will be able to gain an income by selling the energy they don't need.

The UK‟s electricity system is currently sized to meet peak demands that only occur infrequently, which leads to generating plant and transmission and distribution networks being under-utilised for much of the time.

This is expensive and wasteful.

DSR will open up a huge new market, which will grow even more as the 'smart grid' spreads, by letting energy consumers become active participants in a more local and efficient energy system.

It will embrace many different kinds of energy consumers, such as businesses, farms, hospitals, hotels, universities, local authorities and commercial buildings.

As a result of this policy such enterprises will have greater confidence to invest in their own generation plant, and will have the ability to create income for themselves on a sustainable, predictable basis.

Any facility that collects real-time consumption data and is sometimes on standby to reduce energy use, or that runs standby generation that can start up upon a signal from the electricity system, will be able to participate.

Participants will be able to bid both one and four years ahead in the auctions, giving them flexibility and confidence to invest in the future.

It's also good news for combined heat and power, since much small-scale generation is CHP, producing heat and power for local networks.

The other benefits of demand side response include:

• addressing the threat to electricity supply caused by the imminent closure of coal-fired power stations;


• reducing the need to build new power stations and transmission lines;


• reducing greenhouse gas emissions by allowing power stations to operate closer to the maximum efficiency;


• avoiding transmission losses by using electricity locally;


• and reducing the need to keep power stations warm as a spinning contingency reserve.

If we compare the consumption pattern of electricity from the commercial and public sector to the demand profile for all sectors, we see that the peak demands for non-domestic buildings occur at around 11am on weekdays, whereas the total peak is between 4 and 6pm.

This is where the potential for spreading out supply and demand lies.

The potential for DSR to reduce peak demands depends on the flexibility of electricity capacity and the uses to which it is put.

The greatest flexibility is related to load with storage or inbuilt inertia, such as hot water, heating and air conditioning. Some loads, such as computing, exhibit limited flexibility, unless they are in data centres operating unused standby.

Assessments by Element Energy and the Montford University for Ofgem a year ago of the technical potential suggest that DSR measures could reduce winter peak demands in Britain due to non-domestic buildings from 1–4.5GW, but the eventual potential is likely to be much more.

There is work to be done to develop detailed policy implementation that will work well for smaller operators and ensure that the cost effectiveness of DSR is harnessed for the benefit of consumers and the wider UK economy.

A consultation by Ofgem on the subject finished on 28 June. It's probable that the results of the consultation will feed into the practical arrangements under which the capacity mechanism will operate.

Sensibly, there will be a transition period for demand side reduction and small-scale storage within the capacity market.

To this end, Ofgem and the National Grid have just launched a new consultation on transitional products aimed at paving the way for DSR.

The first potential product, Demand Side Balancing Reserve, offers a new opportunity for the demand side to participate in the provision of demand and supply balancing services.

The second, Supplemental Balancing Reserve, is aimed at generators and large users.

Of the first, National Grid is suggesting that it could buy a quantity of demand reduction capability at peak times on non-holiday weekdays during the winter for a set-up payment of between £5-10/kW per year, and utilisation payments for delivery ranging from £500/MWh to £15,000/MWh.

It's also consulting on a second product that would be the same but without the setup payment.

The idea is that this will promote significant growth in the provision of demand-side services ahead of DSR participation in the capacity market.

No one should underestimate the significance of this development: it marks the first time that Britain has moved away from an energy policy of having to supply peak demand whatever it is.

This policy has proved inefficient, insecure, expensive and impractical; the more so as energy and plant construction prices rise and we are constrained by the need to reduce carbon emissions.

It's a fabulous opportunity, and the more organisations and businesses wake up to its potential benefits for them, as well as to the effect on reducing prices for all energy consumers, the better it will be for the whole country.

Strike prices for renewable energy revealed

Viridor's waste-to-energy plant in Cardiff, to be completed next year: it will receive a £90 per megawatt hour strike price.

The prices to be paid over and above the estimated market price for energy from waste, offshore and onshore wind, PV and other renewables were laid out yesterday as part of the government's electricity market reforms, designed to let renewable supply 30% of Britain's electricity by 2020.

The figures cover each year from 2014 until 2019. Some technologies will receive the same price for the whole period, while others will see the price reduce, as their costs are expected to fall.

For projects with a potential deployment capacity over 1 GW:

• Offshore wind will receive £155/MWh, falling to £135 in 2019
• Onshore wind will receive £100, dropping to £95 in 2019
• Large solar PV will receive £125, falling to £110 in 2019
• Hydro will receive £95 throughout
• Biomass conversion will receive £105 throughout.

There are also prices for:

• gasification and pyrolysis (£155-£135)
• anaerobic digestion (£145-£135)
• waste to energy (£90)
• dedicated biomass with CHP (£120)
• geothermal (£125-£120)
• landfill gas (£65)
• sewage gas (£85), and 
• marine energy technologies (£305).

These prices are broadly comparable to the support levels available under the Renewables Obligation, with a number of adjustments to account for the benefits of Contracts-for-Difference (CfDs).

Under the Levy Control Framework there will be a cap, starting in 2015/16 at £4.3 billion in real terms, to limit the costs passed on to consumers.

The application process is now open for developers of renewable electricity projects to apply for Investment Contracts ahead of when the long-term EMR contracts (CfDs) are finalised.

DECC also confirmed that the Government will allow renewable electricity to be imported and exported from the UK to elsewhere to help meet renewable energy targets, boost energy security and investment.

Renewable energy projects on the Scottish islands will receive additional support to connect them to the mainland.

Energy Secretary Ed Davey said the strike prices would “make the UK market one of the most attractive for developers of wind, wave, tidal, solar and other renewables technologies. This will help boost home-grown sources of clean secure energy and enable us to decarbonise the power sector."

He predicted that renewables would contribute "more than 30% to our mix by the end of this decade".

The Government also revealed details of the capacity market, which will be launched next year, in which participants will include existing generators and investors in new plant. They will bid at auctions to offer to provide the total amount of electricity that the UK is expected to need for 2018-2019.

Bidders who are successful will receive a steady price from the year in which they agree to make the capacity available. In return they must deliver electricity as required, or face financial penalties.

The announcements coincided with a report from watchdog Ofgem warning that “without action" electricity margins could tighten in 2015-2016 to 2%-5% depending on demand.

Ofgem’s chief executive Andrew Wright said this “highlights the need for reform to encourage investment in generation”.

£75 million of capital for investment in innovative energy projects was also announced, with the aim of lowering the cost of deployment of offshore wind, renewable heat, carbon capture and storage.

Reactions to the strike prices have been mixed.

Gaynor Hartnell, chief executive of the UK’s Renewable Energy Association, said she was struck by what was left out. “The notable omission is dedicated biomass. We will be pushing for clarification of these as soon as possible.”

She observed that there are “hundreds of megawatts of biomass projects looking to commission under the new support regime and their contribution of clean, baseload electricity will help keep the lights on when the capacity crunch comes”.

The Solar Trade Association's Head of External Affairs, Leonie Greene, criticised the contracts for difference model for mitigating against independent renewable energy suppliers because it depends on generators securing a market 'reference' price for their power, which is then topped up by Government to meet the 'strike price'.

She said that there is then a relatively high risk for independent generators of failing to meet this price, meaning that purchasers of renewable power are likely to offer less attractive terms to independent generators in their long-term Power Purchase Agreements for their output.

“Because of the additional risk the CfD model presents to independent generators like solar power, we would expect to see the additional cost of risk factored into the strike price," she said.

Maria McCaffery, CEO of RenewableUK, representing marine and wind energy sectors, was more enthusiastic: "The levels of the strike prices are challenging but possible considering the reduced time periods that renewables will be supported for under the contract for difference system compared to the Renewable Obligation”.

She did call for more details to be set out for the sake of investors’ confidence. "The secret is consistent, long-term support and investors seeing that Government is behind renewables and low carbon generation for the long term.”

Utility firm RWE's CEO Paul Massara also called for more detail. “This, along with the overall complexity of the proposals and the need to gain EU state aid approval, means significant uncertainty remains. Only once the final detail on contract terms and conditions is clear will a full understanding of the impact these proposals will have on potential investment into the UK and on Britain’s energy consumers be possible,” he said.

The CBI's chief policy director, Katja Hall also welcomed the figures but added: “The Energy Bill’s passage has dragged on long enough — the big task now is to get it on the statute book as soon as possible.”

She added: "giving the Green Investment Bank borrowing powers will give it real teeth to support investments in low-carbon technologies”.

The Government also announced plans to support nuclear power and shale gas.

This includes £100,000 for communities situated near each exploratory (hydraulically fracked) well, and 1% of revenues from every production site.

The Treasury will pre-qualify EDF’s Hinkley Point C new nuclear power project for a Government Infrastructure Loan Guarantee, which is available to any large infrastructure project. Negotiations remain ongoing between Government and NNB Genco (a subsidiary of EDF) on the potential terms.

This support was lamented as being bad for Scotland by Lang Banks, director of WWF Scotland, who commented that: "the negative impacts of the UK Government's obsession with supporting nuclear and fossil fuels appear to outweigh the positive moves made on renewables.

“It would be a great shame indeed if Scotland's sensible ambition to create jobs and cut climate emissions through increased use of renewable energy was undermined by these measures," she continued.

"In environmental terms, plans to offer tax breaks and compensation for communities for shale gas extraction, and billions of pounds to underwrite new nuclear power is just plain foolish," she added. "Worse still, every pound wasted on polluting gas or nuclear means a pound less on encouraging energy saving and supporting more clean renewables."

Will Straw, the IPPR’s associate director, warned that shale gas "won’t do anything to keep energy bills down in the short term. We must ramp up our ambition on energy efficiency through innovative funding mechanisms like the UK guarantee scheme and the Green Investment Bank".

Caroline Lucas, Green MP for Brighton and Hove, said in Parliament yesterday that ministers should be "spending more time working out how to keep fossil fuels in the ground and less time squandering taxpayers’ money on tax breaks for shale gas that scientists say we simply cannot afford to burn if the Government are to keep to their commitment to limit global warming to below 2°".

This was a reference to a report from watchdog the Committee on Climate Change published this week which warned that the country risked missing its carbon emission reduction targets.

David Kennedy, Chief Executive of the CCC, cautioned: “There remains a very significant challenge delivering the 3% annual emissions reduction required to meet the third and fourth carbon budgets, particularly as the economy returns to growth.

"Government action is required over the next two years to develop and implement new policies. A failure to do this would raise the costs and risks associated with moving to a low-carbon economy,” he said.

It’s not Utopian: 100% renewable electricity is here

Two questions for you: how many countries in the world source their electricity 100% from renewable sources? And which major European nation that is well-endowed with renewable energy resources, is the worst at exploiting them?

The answers can be gleaned from the recently updated International Energy Statistics of Electricity Generation from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) of the US Department of Energy.

The sources of the statistics are many, from most countries in the world, and not necessarily directly comparable, but have been homogenised as far as possible to make them so. The figures are up to date to 2011, and in some cases 2012.

It's often said by opponents of renewable energy that too much of it is a bad thing: it results in unreliable supplies of electricity. How come, then, several countries source most of their electricity from renewable energy, and two rely on it 100%?

These two countries are Norway and Iceland. Iceland has been at it since 1980. Admittedly it's a tiny country, and is well-blessed with hydropower and geothermal, which provide 74% and 26% of the electricity respectively.

Norway, with a larger population of 5 million, has also been running almost exclusively on renewable hydroelectricity since 1980. However it also has recently added other renewables, wind and biomass (1.5%).

Another country to rely, perhaps bizarrely, on hydroelectricity is Portugal. Because of periodic droughts, the proportion of its contribution to overall electricity supply varies from year to year from between 38% and 58%. As a result, it has invested massively in wind power and now nearly one fifth the Portuguese electricity is from this source. Surprisingly solar contributed in 2012 under 1%, but biomass generated 5%.

Other countries also rely heavily on renewables. Denmark uses renewable sources for 45% of its energy: wind (30%) and biomass (15%). Spain provided its 47 million people with 31% renewable electricity in 2011. Italy, with 60 million inhabitants, now sources 17% of its electricity renewably. Germany is on 19%. France, 16%. Even the United States is higher than you-know-who at 12.7% (unfortunately, down from 1983 when it was 14.1%).

You-know-who is, of course, the UK, whose total renewable contribution is just 10%.

Britain has been developing wind energy and wave energy longer than France. Yet it has a pitiful proportion of renewables compared to other European countries.

The fault has been the unwieldy architecture of the Non-Fossil Fuel Obligation and its successor, the Renewables Obligation system, which kept small players out of the market and ensured the dominance of big companies and sluggish progress, coupled, more recently, with political dithering.

The Energy Bill offers a great chance to alter this, yet it, too, has been widely condemned as being far too complicated and under-ambitious, especially now that a decarbonisation target is not included.

The EIA figures also show that the United Kingdom ranks 10th in the world for emission of greenhouse gases, being responsible for 1.6% of global emissions from primary fossil fuel consumption for electricity generation.

Britain can, clearly, do far better, never mind all the party political wrangling over support for green technologies. If other countries can do it, so can we.

As author and commentator Paul Gipe says: "the challenge has never been technical. The problem has always been a political desire for a high percentage of renewable energy in a nation's generating mix, and the consistent implementation of policies that work".

Some form of feed-in tariff, the evidence shows from international comparisons, with targeted and consistent support for selected technologies, clearly works to the benefit of those countries implementing it.

Britain is blessed with a huge amount of wind, tidal and marine current energy. There is also a plentiful source of organic material for anaerobic digestion, and solar thermal has always been popular on a small scale. Meanwhile, there is plenty of potential for demand reduction.

Could Britain achieve 100% renewable energy?

A 2011 PriceWaterhouseCooperscenario for 100% renewable electricity recommended that Europe work together to most cost-effectively achieve the magic 100% figure, by setting up a pan-Continental high voltage direct current grid, linked to north Africa, where large solar farms could make up the difference between what countries can generate on their own and their total needs, which would, by then, have been reduced using demand management and energy efficiency.

Another scenario leading up to 2050, produced by WWF/Ecofys, foresees demand reduction, the smart grid, heat pumps, wind, solar, marine, hydro, geothermal and biomass energy as all part of a shared mix.

Zero CarbonBritain is to launch on June 17 at the Houses of Parliament a third version of its roadmap to 100% renewable electricity for the UK by 2030. Its angle includes additional land-use and lifestyle changes.

There have been several other scenarios for achieving the same target from other organisations such as Greenpeace, the European Renewable Energy Foundation and the University of Oxford.

But despite this excellent advice, British energy policy seems to be lurching in the opposite direction. The Government's current enthusiasm, demonstrated by Energy Minister Michael Fallon last week, for shale gas, is another diversion from what should be a complete decarbonisation commitment.

As Greenpeace energy campaigner Lawrence Carter said: "The Government is pandering to climate sceptic backbenchers like Peter Lilley. With everyone from Ofgem to Deutsche Bank to the Secretary of State for Energy agreeing UK shale gas won’t bring down bills, fracking could end up being a lot of pain."

The appointment of George Eustice as David Cameron's new energy and climate change advisor to the Conservative Parliamentary Advisory Board (CPAB) is also seemingly a step in the wrong direction to appease certain Tory backbenchers. He has talked of the "blight" of onshore windfarms, although he is a supporter of marine energy. At least Peter Lilley was not appointed, as was first touted: he has interests in Tethys Petroleum oil exploration company.

Nor was Lilley appointed to be chair of the Energy and Climate Change Committee following Yeo's resignation: it is Sir Robert Smith, who, (where Yeo had investments in green energy) has investments in Shell, the oil company with the worst environmental record, and Rio Tinto Zinc.

With the latest news on climate change being utterly depressing, all the stops need to come out to decarbonise our energy supply.

Denmark, Norway, Portugal, Italy, Spain and all these other European countries show that it is possible to do so. They are all out-classing Britain.

A bright future, full of jobs and export potential, with far less global upheaval caused by climate chaos awaits us, if only the political will was there.