Wind Energy Planning

How green really are the blues?

Conservative party leader David Cameron portrays a green image by biking to work and installing a wind turbine on his roof – however is the Conservative party up for tackling the effects of climate change and what are their plans for taking us into a greener future?

In January the Conservatives announced their vision of a low carbon economy. David Cameron unveiled the party’s green paper which he said would help guarantee energy security and protect our environment for future generations.

Cameron said that Conservative change would be “similar in scale to the advent of the internet and the revolution in computing power that took place in the 1980’s and 1990’s“. An energy revolution could – according to Cameron create hundreds of thousands of new green collar jobs in the UK by 2020.

The changes include smart grid meters, feed in tariffs (or fixed electricity prices) for micro-renewables, a national recharging network for electric cars, the development of biogas for heating, low carbon buildings, transport and commerce.

Most of these changes are however already being pushed forward – so we are left asking – yes but what about the revolution? What are the Conservative’s going to do that is going to speed up and further change?

The Tories say they can meet the UK target of reducing emissions by 80% over 1990 levels by 2050. To demonstrate their commitment to this and in particular more immediate targets – they will need to put some meat on the bones of their renewable energy policy in the run up to next year’s general election.

So what is the Conservative renewable energy policy likely to look like. We know that they support offshore wind energy and marine power – and say that they will expand these technologies by 1) giving the National Grid the incentive to construct a new network of undersea electricity cables and 2) by banding the Renewables Obligation to support these technologies. Offshore wind has already been recently re-banded so that it receives more income – however the foreign wind turbine manufacturers have raised turbine prices in response – taking the spare ‘fat’ and leaving developers again struggling to finance offshore wind energy projects.

The existing government wants new electricity grid infrastructure to be built under the sea – but the big question is how these massive projects are financed. The Conservatives have historically not liked large scale infrastructure public spending so is the party to change its spots in the case of facilitating renewable energy?

Few references have yet been made to other renewable energy technologies namely biomass and onshore wind energy. Those in the renewable energy industry keenly await the Conservative policy for these technologies.

In 2007 Conservatives proposals were rumoured to imply an end of support for onshore wind turbines – due to the ‘profit’ being made from onshore wind energy. The British Wind Energy Association at the time warned that such a move would make a mockery of David Cameron’s commitment to renewable energy.

David Cameron may however take on the challenge of changing his party’s sceptical views on climate change and onshore wind. A year ago the Guardian reported that a third of Tory MPs who responded to a climate change survey questioned the existence of climate change and its link to human activity. Two-thirds said tackling climate change should not be a priority for local councils.

Tony Juniper, head of Friends of the Earth at the time, said the survey results were “disturbing”. He said: “That a fifth of MPs say they either don’t know or reject the science of climate change is a serious cause for alarm and suggests that many of them are seriously out of touch, because the science is very clear“.

“For them to be making policy without a proper grasp of the science is a major oversight.”

We eagerly await the detail of the new Conservative policy on renewable energy in the hope that they will realise all renewable energy technologies are going to be needed if a revolution is genuinely to take place.