Renewable Energy Foundation

In response to an increasing number of press inquiries about the sums of money paid to wind farms to reduce output (the so-called ‘constraint payments’) Renewable Energy Foundation (REF[1]) is today publishing a new online database giving analysed details of all wind farms constrained off the system through the Balancing Mechanism, which is operated by National Grid[2].

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REF on Constraints Database

Renewable Energy Foundation (REF)¹ today issued the following interim statement on the Climate Change Committee’s study, Household Energy Bills: Impacts of Meeting Carbon Budgets.²

The Climate Change Committee (CCC) believes that green policies will put about £100 a year on the average domestic electricity bill in 2020 (p. 5), which is equivalent to about £2.6 billion (assuming that there are about 26m households in 2020, as there are today).

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CCC confirms Green Costs

At a central London event on Thursday 1 December 2011,  the Renewable Energy Foundation[1] launched  Energy Policy and Consumer Hardship, a new study of the likely impact of climate change policies on the affordability of energy.[2] 

Amongst its conclusions the study finds that:

1.  Current renewable electricity policies intended to meet the EU Renewables Directive in 2020, will impose extra consumer costs of approximately £15bn per annum, which is roughly equivalent to 1% of current GDP. This annual total is comprised of approximately £8bn in subsidy, £5bn in grid integration, and a further £2bn in VAT charged on these extra costs.[3]

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Energy Policy and Consumer Hardship

Responding to today’s speech by the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, the Rt Hon Chris Huhne, Renewable Energy Foundation observed that government was failing to come clean with the public on the cost and fundamental economics of contemporary renewables.

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Huhne Unrealistic about Green Economy

The winners of REF's 'Energy Busters' competition, sponsored by uSwitch.com, were announced at a special ceremony at the Royal Bath and West Show on 4th June.

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Energy Busters Winners

The Renewable Energy Foundation (REF) today announces the publication of its on-line searchable database of the small renewable energy generators subsidised under the Feed-in-Tariff (FiT) scheme, available at www.ref.org.uk/fits.  Analysis of that data and related Ofgem renewables data show that small hydro is the best performer in the FiTs stable.

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PR FiTs 18 05 11

The Sunday Times has today published a story based on research by the Renewable Energy Foundation (REF) into the scale of constraint payments currently being made to wind farms in Scotland*. Constraint payments are made to a contracted power station that agrees to stop generating in order to stabilize the network, so these Scottish windfarms are in effect being paid to throw electricity away.

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Constraint Press Release

The Renewable Energy Foundation (REF) today published an Information Note on the performance of the UK renewables sector in 2010 based on analysis of new DECC and Ofgem data (see www.ref.org.uk). The work shows that the 2010 target for renewable electricity has been missed by a large margin, and confirms longstanding doubts as to the feasibility of this target, and the still more ambitious target for 2020.

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2010 Target Missed

The Renewable Energy Foundation (REF) today welcomed the new Pöyry study on the effects of wind intermittency on European power markets.

The report by the global consultancy Pöyry places special emphasis on the implications for the proposed European super-grid, and for investment in and operation of conventional generation, which must be retained for reasons of security of supply.

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REF welcomes Poyry Intermittency Study

The Renewable Energy Foundation (REF) supports the announcement by DECC today of a proposed increase in support for small scale farm Anaerobic Digestion (AD) to produce gas for onsite electricity generation under the feed-in-tariff scheme (FITs).

However, we are surprised that the level of support for AD under this scheme is apparently still less than that provided for the same technology under the Renewables Obligation (RO), which is notionally intended for larger schemes.

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Proposed revision to AD FIT level