The Renewables Obligation consultation document, which the government believes is “the key to securing 10% of electricity sales from renewable energy by 2010” was launched last Friday. But the ESA said that the delivery of 10% of the UK's electricity requirements from renewables by 2010 is extremely challenging and considers the government's consultation to be a failure in its attempts to use renewable sources of energy to their full potential.
The Renewables Obligation should come into effect early next year and will mean that all licensed electricity suppliers will have to provide 3% of their electricity sales from renewable sources by March 2003. This will rise to 10% by March 2010.
But the ESA believes that full inclusion of electricity generated from the biodegradable portion of waste is needed in the Renewables Obligation if the government is to meet the renewable energy and Waste Strategy targets.
The ESA said that while landfill tax remains at a relatively low level, more advanced treatment and processing technologies will struggle to remain competitive and added that financiers will be unwilling to provide funding for energy from waste projects if they are excluded from the Renewables Obligation.
Short-sighted
Debbie Dorkin, ESA's renewable energy policy executive, said: “The government has been short-sighted in excluding energy from the incineration of mixed waste from support under the Renewables Obligation. Although energy from the non-fossil derived element of mixed waste using advanced technologies will be eligible, little new capacity is expected from this sector in the next decade: there is virtually no infrastructure in place. The government's disappointing proposal anticipates failure to meet both the UK's 2010 renewable energy targets and also targets in Waste Strategy 2000 and the Landfill Directive.”
Under the obligation, cleaner technologies such as pyrolysis and gasification will be encouraged as an alternative to mass burn waste incineration, but electricity from these techniques will only receive support under the obligation for the biodegradable element of the waste. Energy from waste incineration and energy from fossil waste will therefore not count towards the obligation and their exclusion, according to the trade association, would hinder the development of new and emerging electricity generating technologies utilising waste.
Continued on page 2
Subscribe for free