Meeting the UK's renewables target

The Sussex Energy Group have just published a new report commissioned by Friends of the Earth on the UK's renewable energy target - and whether the current policy framework is sufficient to push the share of renewables in our energy mix from the current level of 3% to 15% by 2020.

Our report co-incided with Chris Huhne's first annual energy statement to Parliament. Whilst there was the usual focus on large scale low carbon electricity technologies , he also said that 'we ... need incentives for small-scale and community action'. To make this concrete, he confirmed a regulatory measure had been implemented 'to allow local authorities to sell renewable electricity to the grid.'

In the report, we argue that while the Coalition Government has reaffirmed the UK’s commitment to the 15 per cent renewables target, there is a long way to go to meet it. Renewable energy's contribution in the UK has increased very slowly in the last 20 years. During this period there has been no shortage of policy initiatives and reviews to speed up progress. Renewables policy has been punctuated by periods of optimism that reforms would accelerate progress, only for this to seep away again as projects failed to get off the ground in sufficient numbers.

This report explains how the UK arrived at its current position. It draws particular attention to the ‘lock-in’ to a centralised, fossil fuel energy system which has been accompanied by weak support for renewable technologies and a lack of attention to systemic barriers to progress. While this places the UK at a particularly challenging starting point, this report also finds that many of the mechanisms of lock-in are beginning to weaken or to be addressed. It makes policy recommendations in five areas.

First, there is a clear case for bolder policy intervention to maximise the chances of hitting our 2020 target and to boost the renewables capacity beyond 2020. This does not mean the Government should micro-manage renewables. However, it does mean that stronger intervention is needed to overcome problems in several key areas as set out below.

Second, better financial incentives are needed to attract vital investment for developing renewable electricity. Shortcomings of the current incentive scheme – the Renewables Obligation (RO) – have contributed to the slow progress recorded to date. Recent reforms to the RO will help mitigate these, but it is not yet clear if they will have a significant impact on investor risks. A better approach would be to replace the RO with a feed-in tariff (FIT) that delivers a more certain return. We therefore support the new Government’s plan to expand the application of FITs - and argue that the related policy for heat (the Renewable Heat Incentive) should be implemented as planned in April 2011.

Third, it is crucial that we focus on what we have called ‘meso-scale’ renewables in the report (which many discussions classify as 'community scale'). This middle level of renewables falls between large scale investments such as offshore wind farms and small scale generation in homes. Unlike many other northern European countries, the UK has almost no recent tradition of energy generation at this meso scale. If the potential for investment in towns, cities and other communities across the UK is ignored, the 2020 target will be much harder to meet. Policy reforms are needed so Local Authorities can become more active players, such as by raising finance for local renewable energy projects.

Fourth, widespread changes in network infrastructures – the pipes and wires that enable our energy system to function – are needed to cope with a rapid growth of renewables. Investment is needed to extend high voltage electricity grids to new locations (e.g. to connect offshore wind farms), to build new heat grids in areas of high heat density, and to ensure the early demonstration of ‘smart’ electricity distribution grids. There is a key role for the Green Investment Bank in co-financing these networks.

Fifth, the return of industrial policy in the energy sector is welcome, as is the commitment of the coalition Government to couple the low carbon agenda with job creation in the UK. Within this, it is important that support for technologies that will help us meet the 2020 target is balanced against more nascent options that could make big contributions beyond 2020. However, a robust, independent programme of monitoring and evaluation of government support programmes is also required as a matter of urgency to prevent capture by industry lobbies – and to inform decisions to adjust or even withdraw funding in the light of experience.

A new microgeneration consultation: better this time around?

The Coalition government is continuing to send out signals that it regards decentralised and community energy as a priority - with a consultation announced yesterday on a new Microgeneration Strategy. This will update the original Strategy from 2006 which was published with great fanfare by the previous government.

For me, there will be two important tests for the success of this revised Strategy.

First, will it be more successful than its predecessor at delivering more microgeneration in homes, businesses and other buildings? Despite some nice high profile examples, the numbers of microgenerators has remained stubbornly around the 100,000 mark. Some technologies such as micro-wind have been over-hyped, whilst others such as micro-CHP have not yet led to commercial products. Nevertheless, one thing is clearly different this time: microgeneration of electricity now benefits from a substantial economic incentive from the feed-in tariff, which has led to an explosion of interest from community groups, local authorities and businesses. One unanswered question for the new government is whether the companion policy for renewable heat (the Renewable Heat Incentive) will be implemented as planned next year. Without an incentive like this, renewable heat is likely to remain the poor relation of the community energy portfolio.

The second test is whether this new Strategy will be part of broader action to unlock the potential for decentralised and community energy that has been neglected for so long. There are some promising signs here too. The link between microgeneration and the delivery of energy saving measures has been clearly made - and the 'whole house' approach that reduces demand first and then moves on to low carbon sources of supply has been endorsed. In a separate announcement a few days ago Chris Huhne announced that Local Authories would no longer be banned from selling green electricity. Such incentives for a range of actors including householders and Local Authorities to become more involved in the energy system are vital. These steps forward need to be built on further so that local solutions become a normal part of our energy landscape - and a complement the larger scale technologies that are still the primary comfort zone of most of the UK's energy debates and policies.

Growing Grassroots Innovations - Transition Towns

 

A new working paper sets out to analyse the Transition Town social movement as a Grassroots Innovation, bringing theories of sustainable innovations to bear on community activism for sustainable energy. This aims to glean new insights into the processes of movement growth diffusion of radical ideas and practices, and so inform the movement of potential areas where it might strengthen its effectiveness, to have wider impact.

Seyfang, G. and Haxeltine, A. (2010) Growing Grassroots Innovations: Exploring the role of community-based social movements in sustainable energy transitions CSERGE Working Paper EDM-2010-08

Abstract: The challenges of sustainable development (and climate change and peak oil in particular) demand system-wide transformations in socio-technical systems of provision. An academic literature around co-evolutionary innovation for sustainability has recently emerged to attempt to understand the dynamics and directions of such socio-technical transformations and social change, which are termed ‘sustainability transitions’. This literature has previously focused on market-based technological innovations. Here we apply it to a new context of social movements and social innovation, and examine the role of civil society-based social movements in a transition to a low-carbon sustainable economy in the UK. We present new empirical research from a study of the UK’s Transition Movement (a ‘grassroots innovation’) and assess its attempts to grow and diffuse beyond the niche. Applying strategic niche management theory to this civil society context delivers theoretically-informed practical recommendations for this social movement to diffuse beyond its niche: to foster deeper engagement with resourceful regime actors; to manage expectations more realistically by delivering tangible opportunities for action and participation; and to embrace a community-based, action-oriented model of social learning (in preference to a cognitive theory of behaviour change). Furthermore, our study indicates areas where theory can be refined to better explain the experience of grassroots innovations and social movements, namely through a fuller appreciation of internal niche processes, and integration with theories of social movements and social practices.