Despite record employment levels and high growth rates for 2015, Britain’s renewable energy sector looks set to suffer from repeated policy interventions that have “blindsided” the industry, a new report from the Renewable Energy Association (REA) has claimed. The REView 2016 report, released on Tuesday (7 June), reveals that impressive growth in the renewables industry – which saw its value increase by 4% more than the rest of the UK economy last year – will be slowed over the coming years by “sudden and severe” policy changes. Despite a record-breaking year both globally and nationally, the UK’s renewables sector has suffered from a “Jenga approach” to green policy that has seen Feed-in Tariffs (FiTs) slashed and government incentives scrapped. With the Government’s lack of direction threatening to cause a renewable “landslide”, the report also reveals the extent of the UK’s renewable heat and transport gap. Despite the 2009 EU Renewable Energy Directive establishing a 12% target for renewable heat generation and 10% target for renewable energy within the transport sector, these latest REA figures reveal that renewable heat generation is sitting at 4.6%, while renewable transport generation is just 3.2%. The transport and heat targets, which have a 2020 deadline, have received minimal incentivised encouragement from policy changes, with a reform of the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) potentially creating a 98% reduction in the deployment of non-domestic biomass boilers and an end to support for solar water heating systems in the future.
Edie 7th June 2016 read more »
The UK’s renewables sector is enjoying record levels of employment, delivering record levels of clean energy, and has today received a major boost to its project pipeline. But the high growth rates enjoyed by the industry in recent years are now under serious threat as a result of a wave of recent policy changes that will make it harder for the government to meet its legally binding renewable energy targets for 2020. That is the headline conclusion of a major new report from the Renewable Energy Association (REA), which today attempts to take the pulse of the UK’s renewable energy sector and provide up to date information on the scale of the market and its short to medium term prospects. The report came on the same day as the renewables industry received a further boost with the news nine projects boasting over 2.6GW of capacity have taken a major step forward, after the body tasked with managing the award of clean energy price support contracts confirmed they remained on track for delivery.
Business Green 7th June 2016 read more »