U.K. Shouldn't Raise Its Renewable Energy Target, Government Adviser Says
U.K. Shouldn’t Raise Renewable Energy Target, Adviser Says
Jason Alden/Bloomberg
Chairman of the Committee on Climate Change Adair Turner wrote, “Meeting the 2020 renewable energy target requires a step-change in the rate of progress.”
Chairman of the Committee on Climate Change Adair Turner wrote, “Meeting the 2020 renewable energy target requires a step-change in the rate of progress.” Photographer: Jason Alden/Bloomberg
The U.K. shouldn’t raise its target for generating 15 percent of its energy for heating, power and transportation from renewable sources by 2020 because it would be too costly, the government’s climate change adviser said.
Instead, Britain should focus on achieving the goal by reducing obstacles to wind farms and solar parks, upgrading the electricity grid, and ensuring that subsidies provide enough support for clean energy companies, Adair Turner, chairman of the Committee on Climate Change, said today in a letter to Energy and Climate Change Secretary Chris Huhne.
“Meeting the 2020 renewable energy target requires a step- change in the rate of progress,” Turner wrote in the letter, e- mailed to reporters. Government energy policy statements “should clearly highlight the need for early sector decarbonisation and the implications for investment. Investment in unabated gas should be very limited beyond 2020, with almost all investment flowing to renewable and other low-carbon forms of generation.”
The plan for 30 percent of electricity to come from renewable generation in 2020 is “appropriate,” and a target of getting 8 percent of transportation fuels from biofuels is “desirable,” Turner said.
A proposal to increase the amount of heat derived from renewable sources to 12 percent in 2020 from 1.6 percent last year may be “very expensive at the margin,” and a less- ambitious target may be appropriate, he said.
The Renewable Energy Association, an industry group, said that while it agreed with the committee’s recommendation of sticking to the 15 percent overall target, the 8 percent goal for biofuels undershoots a mandatory European Union target of getting 10 percent of energy for transport from renewable.
“It would be illegal too, unless electric transport fills the shortfall,” Gaynor Hartnell, chief executive officer of the association, said in an e-mailed statement.
To contact the reporter on this story: Alex Morales in London at amorales2@bloomberg.net.
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