Thursday, 7 November 2013

Progress - What Progress?

With regards to renewable energy and geo-engineering little has been done in the way of progress - by that I mean the implementation of geo-engineering and renewable energy methods in order to address environmental change. For this reason I am going to have a look at the progress of both renewable energy and geo-engineering in my next two posts ... 

In the United Kingdom during August 2011 The Energy Bill was formulated with the purpose of addressing three main objectives: to tackle barriers to investments in energy efficiency, to improve energy security and to enable investment in low carbon energy supplies.




Regarding renewable energy there are five policies in the Act which are relevant - 
the Green Deal, a Feed-in Tariff (FIT), Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI), Renewables Obligation (RO) and an Electricity Market Reform (EMR).

Looking at these in a little more detail ...

The Green Deal is a new financing framework designed to enable the provision of fixed improvements to the energy efficiency of homes and businesses. It’s funded through an added charge on energy bills to avoid the need for upfront costs for consumers. Alongside double-glazing and insulation improvements, renewable energy generation is also proposed as an energy saving improvement. The Green Deal can be combined with other schemes such as the Energy Company Obligation, Feed-in Tariffs, Renewable Heat Incentive or the Renewable Heat Premium Payment to make improvements more affordable.

The Feed-in Tariffs (FITs) scheme was first introduced in 2010 with the aim of encouraging the use of small-scale renewable energy generation by offering financial incentives for each kWh generated.
The FITs cover technologies such as solar photovoltaics (PV), hydro, anaerobic digestion (AD) and wind and domestic scale microCHP and people using these will receive payments from an electricity supplier of their choice for the electricity they generate, use and also for any surplus electricity. 

The Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) is also a tariff scheme payable to energy users generating their own renewable heat. The scheme is targeted at businesses, the public sector and non-profit organizations – bigger users of energy – and aims to help them meet the costs of installing renewable heat technologies. The range of technologies the scheme supports include biomass, ground and water source heat pumps, geothermal heat, biomethane and biogas and solar thermal collectors. 

The Renewables Obligations (RO) is the main mechanism in supporting the generation of large-scale renewable electricity. It entails placing an obligation on licensed electricity suppliers to source a specified proportion of their electricity from renewable sources and if they don’t they are penalized. Renewable electricity suppliers receive Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROCs) for every MWh they produce with the number of ROCs per MWh varying depending upon the technologies used.

Electricity Market Reform (EMR) can be first evidenced in the publication ‘Planning Our Electric Future: A White Paper for Secure, Affordable and Low-carbon Electricity’ as the paper sets out to achieve the ‘government’s objectives on decarbonisation, renewable energy, security of supply and affordability.

Policies that promote renewable energy such as those outlined above from the UK are all good and well if they are causing positive changes. But this doesn't seem to be the case, well not in the UK as responses to a recent poll shows 'Energy-saving attitudes unchanged by green deal and price rises'. It was asserted that the Green Deal would increase energy efficency in the UK however since its 2011 launch only 57 deals have been completed and despite there being a popular concern over increasing energy bills few are aware of the solutions that can be found in being more energy efficient. 

This eye-opening response leaves one questioning whether there is much point in these policies being in place and worse still it highlights the 'government's failure to develop a functioning energy efficiency policy' (Platt, IPPR). For progress to be made then perhaps the area it needs to occur in is not in the technologies themselves but rather in the government efforts to bring awareness to renewable energy and encourage its use. That said, to see whether this conclusion holds, the viability of renewable energy technologies is a task that must, and will, also be done. 

Before this though I will look a little into the progress of Geo-engineering in my next post. So, until next time enjoy reading! 









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