The UK Chancellor – Alistair Darling announced today the budget report for 2009.
The Chancellor – claimed “there will be help now to get people back into work quickly, and support businesses and homeowners facing problems.
Secondly, there will be measures to support investment in the growth and green industries of the future – while, as the recovery takes hold, ensure our public finances are sustainable.”
Moving onto offshore wind energy – “We must build on Britain’s status as the world leader in offshore wind power generation.
The credit squeeze is holding back major offshore wind projects.
I want to lift the barriers – through £525m ($760 US) of new financial support over the next two years for off-shore wind, funded through the renewables obligation.
The potential is enormous. I am confident that this will lead to major projects getting the go-ahead quickly, providing enough electricity to meet the needs of up to 3m households.
We need to support all forms of renewable energy”.
Unfortunately there appears to be some use of “smoke and mirrors” behind the figure of £525m. The Chancellor proposes to raise the renewable obligation certificates (ROCs) for offshore wind energy from 1.5 to 2. There is no direct government funding for offshore wind energy. The additional ROCs for offshore wind energy threaten the viability of more commercially successful renewable technology such as onshore wind energy due to the transfer of value from on-shore to offshore wind technology.
More expensive offshore wind energy needs to paid for and by using a change to the ROC the government can ensure that this is paid for by us consumers through electricity bills rather than delving into its own pockets.
On the upside – £45m was earmarked to support decentralised small-scale and community low-carbon electricity
Overall, however this budget appears to be a missed opportunity to really go for green.
