Green skills course on offer

Young people are being encouraged to learn more about sustainability while developing their own skills.

The Green Talent Programme has been launched in Exeter by EDF Energy in a bid to encourage students to examine environmental and business issues.

It is intended to offer insight into possible career paths, while helping students to see the practical uses of science, maths, technology and engineering.

Rob Clemens, head of humanities at West Exeter Technology Centre, commented: "The Green Talent Programme is well-structured and gives young people the opportunity to see for themselves not just how a business operates, but how it is facing up to key challenges that matter to us all – how we become more sustainable and help tackle climate change."

EDF Energy intends to run the course in London this month (July), before rolling it out on a nationwide scale next year.

The Woodlands Trust recently revealed that pupils from schools in Lancashire are top of its league when it comes to planting trees, reducing carbon dioxide emissions and encouraging recycling.

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UK takes bronze in green building league

The UK has climbed to third in a global league table of green buildings, according to a major new report from the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) that highlights Norway and Brazil as the two countries that have made the greatest progress towards developing a zero-carbon built environment.

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Climate change minister Greg Barker has highlighted the need to boost community ownership of renewable energy projects

Climate change minister Greg Barker has said the UK needs a "game change" in its culture and approach to community ownership of renewable energy projects, and indicated support for recognising this in the planning system.

Speaking in the House of Commons earlier this week (July 14) during a debate on renewable energy projects, Mr Barker claimed that the coalition government's programme was clear on empowering communities to become more self-sufficient in the way they use heat and power.

He said that, in order to see an increase in the number of renewable energy installations, there needed to be a ‘more equitable settlement' and a greater sense of community participation in deciding where to site projects and allowing them to benefit from the returns that come from them.

While he said that the coalition was already working on measures to ensure that communities can benefit from renewable energy, through the Feed-in Tariffs, he said it would go further and encourage more community ownership.

Suggesting that he is in support of introducing community ownership into the planning system, in response to opening comments on the issue made by Labour/Co-operative MP for Barrow and Furness, John Woodcock, Mr Barker said: "The hon. Member for Barrow and Furness made excellent points about the fact that where there is community ownership of energy installations, many of the objections in the planning system will simply fall away.

"I cannot comment directly, but I do hear the points that he makes about the need for that to be recognised in the planning system itself. There is a virtuous circle here. Part of the reason why there are so many delays to many local projects is that there are so many local objections. If there are fewer local objections, there will be fewer delays."

He added that, in an ideal world, the government would not have to "tinker greatly" with the planning system because it would be self-fulfilling, but claimed that it is examining ways in which it can work with the planning system to give communities more power to ‘shape the places that they inhabit'.

Resistance

Mr Barker then claimed that, historically, there has been resistance to renewable energy projects which was often based on misconceptions. However, he said that it is difficult to blame local communities for resisting renewable energy because "often they are asked to have something imposed on them that spoils their view or the amenity of the local land, and brings them no benefit whatsoever".
"If we are to see an increase in the number of such installations, we need a more equitable settlement. We need a greater sense of community participation both in decisions about where the installations are to be sited, and in the returns that flow from them", he said. "There are potentially remunerative streams of profit to be gained under those arrangements, and it is right for the communities that host renewable energy sources to benefit in that way."

The climate change minister then said that his officials will shortly be meeting with Energy4All - a not-for-profit organisation aiming to expand the number of renewable energy co-operatives in the UK - to discuss some ideas for community ownership, incorporating five different models, including:

• The community co-operative model, which enables 100% ownership of an entire project;
• Shared ownership model, where a co-operative owns one or more of the turbines on a wind farm, with the remainder being owned by a landowner, private developer or a community trust;
• The royalty instrument model, which is where a developer builds a wind farm in a region and the community purchases a stake in the future revenue of the project through a co-operative;
• The regional co-operative model, where finance is raised through a national or regional energy co-operative covering a wide geographic area and a range of different projects;
• The loan model, where the community project may approach an existing energy co-operative and get a simple loan to get a new project off the ground.

"Those are some of the innovative ideas that are springing up, and we need more of them," Mr Barker said.

Technologies

Mr Barker also spoke of the need to do more to advance "exciting" renewable technologies other than just wind, such as micro-hydropower, biomass, solar and combines heat and power (CHP).
"Ultimately, I would like to see the notion of local energy economies widely accepted.
"People have got used to the notion of a local food economy. We have seen local farmers markets spring up, and links between local schools and community projects, and local food producers, farmers and retailers. We must do more to encourage the notion of local energy economies, here people see a closer link between the energy that local communities consume, and the way it is produced."

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Everyone can benefit from renewable energy grants

Switching to a source of renewable energy could benefit everyone.

This is the view of Lisa Greenfield, energy analyst for Confused.com.

Ms Greenfield said: "I don't think anyone is going to not benefit from the various grants and things like that that are available."

However, she added that even with the support green energy is going to come with a premium that is 'probably being disproportionately carried by the consumer'.

The comments follow a report from the government's Fuel Poverty Advisory Group, which revealed that the fuel poor are being hit the hardest by the move towards renewable energy.

To tackle these costs Ms Greenfield said: "The only way costs on green energy are going to be reduced is if we stop importing gas and electricity from Europe, so we need to have a big initiative for renewable energy in the UK."

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Reports detail global investment and other trends in green energy

In 2009, for the second year in a row, both the US and Europe added more power capacity from renewable sources such as wind and solar than conventional sources like coal, gas and nuclear, according to twin reports launched today by the United Nations Environment Programme and the Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century.

Renewables accounted for 60 per cent of newly installed capacity in Europe and more than 50 per cent in the USA in 2009. This year or next, experts predict, the world as a whole will add more capacity to the electricity supply from renewable than non-renewable sources.

The reports detail trends in the global green energy sector, including which sources attracted the greatest attention from investors and governments in different world regions.

They say investment in core clean energy (new renewables, biofuels and energy efficiency) decreased by 7% in 2009, to $162 billion. Many sub-sectors declined significantly in money invested, including large (utility) scale solar power and biofuels. However, there was record investment in wind power. If spending on solar water heaters, as well as total installation costs for rooftop solar PV, were included, total investment in 2009 actually increased in 2009, bucking the economic trend.

New private and public sector investments in core clean energy leapt 53 per cent in China in 2009. China added 37 gigawatts (GW) of renewable power capacity, more than any other country.
Globally, nearly 80 GW of renewable power capacity was added, including 31 GW of hydro and 48 GW of non-hydro capacity.

China surpassed the US in 2009 as the country with the greatest investment in clean energy. China's wind farm development was the strongest investment feature of the year by far, although there were other areas of strength worldwide in 2009, notably North Sea offshore wind investment and the financing of power storage and electric vehicle technology companies.

Wind power and solar PV additions reached a record high of 38 GW and 7 GW, respectively. Investment totals in utility-scale solar PV declined relative to 2008, partly a result of large drops in the costs of solar PV. However, this decline was offset by record investment in small-scale (rooftop) solar PV projects.
The reports also show that countries with policies encouraging renewable energy have roughly doubled from 55 in 2005 to more than 100 today -- half of them in the developing world -- and have played a critically important role in the sector's rapid growth.

The sister reports, UNEP's Global Trends in Sustainable Energy Investment 2010 and the REN21's Renewables 2010 Global Status Report, were released by UN Under-Secretary-General Achim Steiner, UNEP's Executive Director, and Mohamed El-Ashry, Chair of REN21. The UNEP report was prepared by London-based Bloomberg New Energy Finance. The REN21 report was produced by a team of authors in collaboration with a global network of research partners.

The UNEP report focuses on the global trends in sustainable energy investment, covering both the renewable energy and energy efficiency sectors. The REN21 report offers a broad look at the status of renewable energy worldwide today, covering power regeneration, heating and cooling and transport fuels, and paints the landscape of policies and targets introduced around the world to promote renewable energy.
Says Mr. Steiner: "The sustainable energy investment story of 2009 was one of resilience, frustration and determination. Resilience to the financial downturn that was hitting all sectors of the global economy and frustration that, while the UN climate convention meeting in Copenhagen was not the big breakdown that might have occurred, neither was it the big breakthrough so many had hoped for. Yet there was determination on the part of many industry actors and governments, especially in rapidly developing economies, to transform the financial and economic crisis into an opportunity for greener growth.

"There remains however a serious gap between the ambition and the science in terms of where the world needs to be in 2020 to avoid dangerous climate change. But what this five years of research underlines is that this gap is not unbridgeable. Indeed, renewable energy is consistently and persistently bucking the trends and can play its part in realizing a low carbon, resource efficient Green Economy if government policy sends ever harder market signals to investors," he added.

Says Mr El-Ashry: "Favorable policies now in place in more than 100 countries have played a critical role in the strength of global renewable energy investments recently. For the upward trend of renewable energy growth to continue, policy efforts now need to be taken to the next level and encourage a massive scale up of renewable technologies."

Says Michael Liebreich, chief executive of Bloomberg New Energy Finance: "The relatively resilient performance of the sector during the current economic downturn shows that clean energy was not a bubble created by the late stages of the credit boom, but is instead an investment theme that will remain important for the years ahead."

In 2009 renewable sources represented:
25 per cent of global power (electricity) capacity (1,230 gigawatts (GW) out of 4,800 GW total all sources, including coal, gas, nuclear) 18 per cent of global power production 60 per cent of newly installed power capacity in Europe and more than 50 per cent in the US; the world as a whole should reach 50 per cent or more in newly-installed power capacity from renewables in 2010 or 2011.

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Savings by DECC on Low Carbon Technology Programmes

On 24 May 2010 the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced £6.2 billion of savings across Whitehall in order to reduce the public deficit. Of the £85 million DECC is contributing to the savings, £34 million will come from expenditure on low carbon technology.

We announced in May that £3 million would come from closing the Low Carbon Buildings Fund early. The remaining savings will come from:£6.1 million efficiency savings and under-spending on programme budgets within DECC. £4.7 million saved by cancelling the final funding rounds of the Bio-Energy Capital Grants Scheme and the Bio-Energy Infrastructure Scheme. These schemes have been responsible for nearly £60 million of public investment since 2002, and have supported around 400 individual projects. £5.3 million of grants for 2010/11 are not affected and will remain in place, closing as planned on 31 March 2011. The department will save £1 million on funding for development of Deep Geothermal energy generation, which will still receive £1 million this year. Saving £3 million by reducing the scope of the Offshore Wind Capital Grants Scheme. Early closing of the Energy Saving Trust technology trials, saving £700 thousand from the £3 million pound programme. Reducing the scope of the Central Government Low Carbon Technology Programme saving £2.9 million. The Carbon Trust will receive a £12.6 million reduction to this year’s grant for low carbon technology and business support funding from DECC.

This means that DECC will spend over £150 million on low carbon technology this year.

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