UK Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne said in his Summer budget that he would remove the exemption that generators of renewable electricity have had from the climate change levy.
Advertisement
New government figures released today reveal the renewable energy industry is not only continuing to break records on an increasingly frequent basis, but has also for the first time met more than a quarter of the UK’s power demand across a quarter.
United Kingdom Energy Secretary Amber Rudd has announced cuts to a slew of incentives for renewable energy, citing unexpectedly high installation levels that threaten to eat up the subsidy budget.
Official data shows renewables and low carbon power broke market share records during the second quarter of this year, thanks to a surge in new solar and wind generation and the closure of several coal powered plants.
However, Scottish Energy Minister Fergus Ewing said that the government would retain the under grandfathering policy of Renewables Obligation, citing the need for clarity and certainty for solar projects to attract funding and reach financial close.
In total, renewable electricity generation rose by more than 50% year-on-year, but the industry has warned that the gains were likely to be short-lived without continued government support.
The figures show a total of 4,832 gigawatt hours of renewable electricity was created in the second quarter of 2015, a 37.3 per cent increase in renewable electricity from the same period in 2014.
By the end of the first half of this year there was 7,444 megawatts of installed renewable electricity capacity in Scotland, an increase of 5.5 per cent from 12 months earlier. “This flexibility would ensure companies and communities are not penalised unfairly by the UK Government policy change where they have already invested”.
“Scotland continues to make strong progress in the renewable electricity sector, but there remains much more to be done on renewable heat where now only 3 per cent of our heating demand comes from renewables”.
Recent changes to United Kingdom government policy will cost it £7mln and have made it tough to fund new wind and solar projects according to Renewable Energy Generation (LON:WIND).
“We’ve had a series of disappointing announcements from ministers since May which unfortunately betray a lack of positive ambition at the heart of government”, McCaffery said.
Advertisement
RenewableUK chief executive Maria McCaffery said: “Renewables have now become Britain’s second largest source of electricity, generating more than a quarter of our needs”.
