Renewable Energy Technologies - Too Little - Too Slow
U.K. Public Accounts Committee slams lack of progress indeployment of renewable energy technologies
London, UK - A British House of
Commons Committee has released a report highly critical of the slow
pace in the development and deployment of renewable energy
technologies.
Margaret Hodge, Chair of the
target=”_blank”>Public Accounts Committee, said “Given the
urgency and importance of the issue, progress in meeting renewable
energy targets has been unacceptably slow over the last
decade.”
She noted ten years ago the proportion of the UK’s electricity
supplied from renewable sources stood at 2.7 per cent. By 2009 it
was just 6.7 per cent, well short of the government’s target to
generate 10 per cent by the end of 2010.
The Committee was particularly concerned that the U.K. has
agreed to a legally binding EU-target to supply 15 per cent of the
UK’s energy from renewable sources by 2020, but lacks clear plans
for each renewable energy technology. Nor is the government clear
on how much funding will be required.
As for meeting the longer-term 2050 target to reduce greenhouse
gas emissions by 80 per cent, the Department of Energy and Climate
Change has yet to set out the timescale against which innovations
in renewable energy technology will be required, states the
report.
Speaking as the Committee’s Report was being released, Ms Hodge
noted that developing renewable energy technologies is vitally
important if the UK is to help tackle climate change and maintain
secure national energy supplies.
However, the U.K. is going to miss its target to supply 10% of
electricity from renewable sources by the end of 2010 largely
because not enough has been done to address the slow progress in
increasing the supply of renewable energy.
“Between 2000 and 2009, the Department and its predecessors
failed to use nearly half of the resources available to it to
encourage innovation in renewable energy. This is a wasted
opportunity for providing investment that could have helped
increase the supply of renewable energy,” she noted.
The current Energy Secretary, Chris Huhne, said his department
was determined to remedy the situation. “It will be a huge
challenge but the coalition is determined to move beyond promises
and actually deliver on the low-carbon economy,” he said during a
BBC interview.
“The last 10 years have been a lost decade for renewables.
Labour’s tragic legacy is that we are 25th out of 27 EU member
states on renewables. We have been playing as amateurs when we
should have been in the Premiership,” said Huhne.
U.K. Committee of Public Accounts report slams government
progress in deployment of renewable energy technologies.
target=”_blank”>The full Report - Funding the development of
renewable energy technologies is available here
Source: www.parliament.uk
