• Thursday 04 September 2008

Commenting on the Prime Minister’s speech to the CBI in Glasgow last night, the Renewable Energy Foundation (REF) remarked that the Government is now clearly out of touch with the realities of the emerging electricity crisis in the UK.

Speaking only a few hours after National Grid issued a “Notification of Inadequate System Margin”, the Prime Minister talked weakly of “reducing our dependence on oil, and by creating a low carbon economy achieving both greater security of energy supply and greater efficiency of energy use”.

The Prime Minister’s remarks appeared to be disconnected from the fundamentals of the current situation, and showed no apparent understanding that poorly designed emissions legislation and renewables support policies are in fact to blame for distorting the UK electricity sector, eroding system margins, and discouraging investment in any reliable capacity except gas (see note 3), the international availability of which is now in question and over which he is now expressing such concern.

Perhaps the Prime Minister should have been listening to BBC Radio 4’s “The Investigation” where he would have heard Professor Sir David King observe that the Government appeared not to grasp the magnitude and imprudence of its renewables targets, or their impact on fuel poverty, and Professor Dieter Helm (University of Oxford) issuing severe criticisms of the renewed “Dash for Gas” generation, which REF argues is a direct consequence of the failing renewables policy.

Campbell Dunford, a former international energy banker, now Chief Executive of the Renewable Energy Foundation, said: 

“There are two parallel debates here. On the one hand the energy experts tearing their hair out with anxiety, and on the other the bland Westminster discussion typified by the Prime Minister’s empty and trivial gestures. This must change. Only courageous leadership can prepare us for the gathering storm. Will Mr Cameron speak up and confront the realities, or will the realities get there first?”

END

For further information please contact Margareta Stanley on 020 7930 3636 or 07968 049 832 or email press@ref.org.uk.

Notes for Editors

1. The Renewable Energy Foundation is a UK registered charity supported by private donation. It has no corporate sponsorship and no political affiliation. REF publishes extensive data on the performance of the UK renewables fleet, including monthly load factors for all 900+ subsidised renewable generators. The Foundation has also sponsored prize-winning articles in peer-reviewed engineering journals, and has presented evidence in person to the House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs.

2. The Notification of Inadequate System Margin was issued for a shortfall of 700 MW which was resolved only at 15.00 in the afternoon. The UK grid is increasingly under pressure, as was clearly shown on the 28 May 2008, when the simultaneous failure of two major power stations was compounded by the consequent failure of a large body of embedded generation, mostly wind. This caused the worst system event for over a decade, and a loss of supplies to half a million consumers.

3. The EU Emissions Trading Scheme, but principally, the Large Combustion Plant Directive, the promised Industrial Emissions Directive, and the catastrophically wasteful and counterproductive Renewables Obligation which costs the UK economy a billion pounds a year but delivers little or no reliable electricity.

4. The UK will be importing 50% of its gas by 2010, and 80% by 2020. The UK is now in the early stages of intense competition with the major Asian economies for supplies of Liquefied Natural Gas, and is not winning; the Isle of Grain received no commercial cargoes in the first six months of this year due to high prices in Japan.

5. The radio remarks can be found at http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/theinvestigation/