Tag Archives: renewable energy

While leaders debate, community energy is tackling the climate emergency

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Blog_commenergy-intextThis post is by Emma Atkins of Repowering London.

“Adults keep saying we owe it to the young people to give them hope. But I don’t want your hope. I want you to act.”

When 16 year old Greta Thunberg spoke to the World Economic Forum in January 2019, it was five months after her first school strike to protest the inaction around the climate emergency outside the Swedish parliament. Millions of school children followed in her footsteps, sparking the movement Fridays for Future. Last Friday was the world’s biggest climate strike ever; and, this time, the adults were there too.

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Onshore wind is cheap and popular, the government needs to catch up

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onshore wind smallThis post is by Sarah James, a volunteer and trustee of Westmill Sustainable Energy Trust.

I’ve shown a lot of people around Westmill Wind Farm in Oxfordshire and its neighbouring solar farm.  Thousands of people have visited the wind farm for tours and open days in its ten year life,  wanting not just to see the wind turbines, but to get up close and touch them, hear them and sometimes even lie under them, watching the blades whirl overhead.

The media and politicians have described onshore wind as controversial and unpopular in the UK. And yet our experience at Westmill is quite the opposite. It is a popular local asset that people like to visit, are curious to understand and view affectionately. Is there some reason that Westmill is unusual? Read more

Now renewables are the cheapest source of energy, it’s time to rethink UK policy

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cleanThe results of the yesterday’s government auction for renewables procurement has taken the entire energy sector by surprise. Clearing 860 MW at £75/MWh in 2021 and 2.3 GW at £57/MWh in 2022, it revealed that the cost of offshore wind has dropped by 65 per cent in under five years. This result comes close on the heels of a report from Renewable UK, highlighting that the UK’s offshore wind industry has now increased its domestic content to 48 per cent and is in the process is providing almost 20,000 direct and indirect jobs. Heavy investment during the industry’s nascent years has yielded tremendous results and the UK can confidently stake its claim to be the global leader in offshore wind.

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We need the Clean Growth Plan to avoid an epic fail on climate change

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Day view UK Motorway Road Wind TurbinesCredit where credit’s due, the UK has shown strong leadership in tackling climate change. We were the first major economy to commit to phasing out coal fired power and we’ve set ambitious, legally binding carbon budgets up to 2032. We’ve also made strong progress towards meeting these carbon targets, having achieved our 2020 target five years early in 2015. Read more

How to keep up UK leadership on clean energy and climate after Brexit

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21922973089_14ba3e7815_kThis post is by Jonathan Gaventa, director of E3G.

The UK has made significant progress in clean energy and emissions reductions in recent years, with greenhouse gas emissions now 38 per cent below 1990 levels. But Brexit raises questions about how this progress will be continued.

In principle, it should be both possible and desirable for the UK to emerge from the Brexit process with just as strong a position on climate and clean energy as before.

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How Wales is powering ahead on renewables

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solar_panels_wales_original-copyThis blog is by Amy Leppänen, communications assistant at Green Alliance.

Yesterday’s news on the Swansea Bay tidal lagoon has refocused attention on renewable energy opportunities in Wales. But where has the country got to so far? Wales has been known as a coal nation and global hub of the industrial revolution, second only to England. But our research indicates that the Welsh have lost none of their pioneering spirit and are now powering up for the renewables era. Read more

What’s wrong with government renewables support and how to get it right

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Wind Turbines for Generation of Renewable Energy in the Countryside of EnglandFive years since the establishment of the levy control framework (LCF), the government’s main tool to manage spending on clean energy, the National Audit Office (NAO) has provided some useful insights into its performance to date. While media coverage jumped to highlight its most negative claim, that renewables will cost households £17 more than planned in 2020, it failed to report the rest of the story: that energy bills overall will actually be lower in 2020, by an average of £38.

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California dreaming? Environmental lessons for Brexit Britain from the ‘left coast’

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Bixby Creek Bridge on Highway #1 at the US West Coast traveling south to Los AngelesJohn Steinbeck described the California I grew up in as ‘a poem, a stink, a grating noise, a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream.’ The golden state has always loomed large in the imagination but, in my early years, much of the stink and quality of light was literal: my dad, a Los Angeles native, used to joke that he didn’t trust air he couldn’t see. That’s how bad the air pollution was.

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Is community energy our alternative energy future?

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CommunitysolarPlymouthGreen Alliance associate Rebecca Willis reports on the project, Cultures of Community Energy, which she worked on for the British Academy.

The green fields of Wiltshire have recently become the site of an impressive energy innovation. On the last day of 2015, the Braydon Manor Solar Array was connected to the grid, plugging in 9MW of solar energy, or enough to supply around 2,500 houses.

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