Despite its name, the Renewable Energy Foundation stands accused of operating as “an anti-wind lobbying organisation

You might expect an organisation known as the Renewable Energy Foundationto be consistently in favour of renewable energy projects. But according to its many critics, nothing could be further from the truth for an organisation that stands accused of misleading the public by consistently campaigning against wind farms.

The Renewable Energy Foundation was set up in 2004 and according to its website is supported by “generous private donations”. Speaking to BusinessGreen, Dr John Constable, director of policy and research at the Foundation, provided few details about the organisation’s backers but did reveal it has received funding in the past from Consensus Business Group, a company founded by property magnate Vincent Tchenguiz.

The group operates as a registered charity and in recent years has emerged as a leading commentator on energy issues, with representatives appearing on Channel 4 News and frequently contributing to renewable energy stories in the press.

But despite the group’s purportedly pro-renewables name, the organisation makes no mention of renewable energy in its mission statement and rarely has a good word to say about renewable energy projects. The body does claim to be broadly in favour of tidal energy, some solar projects and an experimental programme of offshore wind farms. But it is best known within the renewables industry for campaigning against onshore wind farms and renewable energy subsidies.

In fact, it is now regarded by those working within the renewable energy industry as the dominant voice in the UK campaigning against wind farms and some other forms of low carbon energy.

Maria McCaffery, chief executive of trade body RenewableUK, which represents more than 600 wind and marine energy firms, reckons the Renewable Energy Foundation’s true purpose is diametrically opposed to the interests of the wind energy industry. “It is an anti-wind lobbying organisation,” she told BusinessGreen. “I’d like to know where the renewable energy part of their remit is… They just try to undermine the case for wind energy.”

Others are equally forthright in their condemnation of the group, accusing the charity of using a name likely to mislead the media and the public about its anti-wind farm agenda.

Juliet Davenport, chief executive of green energy provider Good Energy, is highly critical of the group’s choice of name. “The problem with the REF is that their name is misleading,” she said. “Although they claim to support small-scale renewable generation, what they are really about is trying to block larger-scale wind farms. But if the UK is going to hit our renewables targets, we need both microgeneration and large-scale development as well.”

It is a concern shared by Dale Vince, founder of Ecotricity, who similarly accuses the organisation of using a deliberately “misleading” name. “They are not a Foundation for Renewable Energy, as their name says and as any reasonable person would conclude from their name – they actually exist to undermine Renewable Energy,” he said. “It’s made for the anti-wind newspapers of course, like the Daily Mail and the Telegraph, who can quote from this organisation that appears, from their very name, to be all about supporting Renewable energy – adding weight to their anti-wind stance in print.”

Much of the criticism of the Renewable Energy Foundation centres on its ongoing campaign against the subsidies provided to clean energy firms through the government’s Renewables Obligation (RO) subsidy scheme, which it accuses of encouraging “underperforming” turbines at the expense of “less experimental” forms of energy generation such as nuclear and fossil fuel power stations.

Moreover, the group is accused of using contested evidence to support its campaign against renewable energy subsidies. For example, claims by the Renewable Energy Foundation contributed to a Telegraph article blaming wind farm subsidies for pushing up Danish electricity prices to a level where they are now among the highest in Europe. The story prompted a response from the pro-wind farm Embrace My Planet website, which is run by RenewableUK, noting that Denmark’s notoriously high tax rate was largely behind the hike in energy prices and arguing that producing 20 per cent of their electricity from wind turbines ensured the Dane’s pre-tax electricity prices were around 14 per cent lower than the UK.

The Foundation has also asserted in the past that the RO has encouraged developers to build wind farms in areas with low wind speeds. However, the Embrace My Planet website again points out that companies only receive saleable Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROCs) for electricity they produce – no wind, no electricity, no ROCs, no profits.

Dr Constable completely rejects the criticism levelled at the organisation, arguing that despite its track record of criticising wind farms the group is in favour of renewable energy that is generated without recourse to subsidies.

“It’s quite offensive that people say I’m not in favour of renewables,” he told BusinessGreen, insisting there is nothing contradictory about the group’s name and that its role is to act as a “critical friend” to the industry.

Despite this purported support for renewables, Constable admitted there is not one of the UK’s 800 built, consented or planned onshore wind farms that the group would support, dismissed the proposed Round 3 offshore wind farm developments as a “fantasy”, and remained insistent most subsidies for renewable energy should be scrapped.

He also accused the renewables industry of underplaying the challenge it will face connecting increasing levels of wind energy to the grid. “I find the industry very odd,” he said. “They’re like people who don’t open their bank statements as they don’t want to see what’s in there. It’s no good saying there’s no problem with integration when everyone knows there is.” Everyone, that is, except National Grid, the company that will have to manage the connection of renewable energy to the grid, which reported last year that it is in a position to integrate the renewable energy capacity planned for the next decade without a major overhaul of the grid.

Constable admits to being pessimistic that the UK’s energy mix can shift away from fossil fuel and hangs hopes of a low-carbon economy on a thus far unrealised technological breakthrough.

“We need tremendous innovation as current technology is not up to the task which politicians have assigned it,” he said, but insists politicians should play no role in rectifying this situation through subsidies, arguing that financial incentives create “weak companies and poor products”.

“For all I know, renewables have a large amount to offer, but until we stop subsidising them we don’t know how much,” he said. “Subsidies suppress innovation and result in the infantilisation of the industry.”

However, renewable energy firms consistently argue the fossil fuel and nuclear industries have benefited from decades of subsidies and that government support is necessary to help the sector expand to a level where economies of scale allow it to compete on an even playing field with other energy sources.

Nick Medic, spokesman for RenewableUK, insists the industry is more than happy to debate the merit of subsidies and energy policy with its critics, but objects to the manner in which the Renewable Energy Foundation presents itself as being in favour of renewable energy when it has consistently opposed renewable energy incentives.

“We would not call ourselves NuclearUK and then campaign that wind energy is much better than nuclear,” he said. “It is just a case of being open and honest about what you are trying to achieve.”