Subsidy cuts could pull the plug on community green energy schemes
Gigha was first to develop wind power similar to this. Picture: Ian Rutherford
COMMUNITY scale green energy projects could be put out of business by Scottish Government plans to slash subsidy support for onshore wind and hydro schemes, the SNP has been warned.
Under current proposals, subsidy levels for hydro schemes would be cut by half and for onshore wind projects by a tenth, so funds can be diverted to newer forms of renewable technology, such as wave and tidal projects.
Dozens of small-scale community-owned wind and hydro schemes are springing up, generating tens of thousands of pounds a year.
However, community groups have warned in response to a government consultation that the subsidy changes would make these small-scale projects uneconomical.
The Isle of Gigha was the first community in the UK to develop a grid connected, community-owned wind farm. Its three turbines, known locally as the Dancing Ladies, generate £75,000 profit each year and provide two thirds of the island’s electricity.
Lukas Lehmann, development manager for Gigha Renewable Energy, which made use of the renewables obligation system of subsidies to develop the scheme, said he had “serious concerns” about the planned reductions.
It would have “a seriously detrimental impact on proposals being developed by other communities, both on other islands and on the mainland,” he said.
Like groups responding to the consultation, he thinks the subsidies should be left at existing levels for community projects up to 10 megawatts, equivalent to about five turbines.
He added: “A blanket reduction for all onshore wind will have a disproportionate impact on smaller developments where unit costs are higher, and as such, will disproportionately impact upon the development of community owned schemes.”
The Scottish Government has a target of 500 megawatts of community-owned renewables schemes built, which would require hundreds of projects.
Many of the 140 groups and individuals that responded to the Consultation on Review of Support Levels Under Renewables Obligation (Scotland) Legislation said achieving this target would be hampered by the subsidy change.
Mo Cloonan, charity development manager for charity Community Energy Scotland, said: “This will undermine the ability of Scotland’s communities to meet the Scottish Government’s community energy target and the ability to install sufficient renewable generation to meet government targets for renewable deployment and carbon emission reductions.”
David Stewart, policy and strategy manager at the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations, asked the Scottish Government to reconsider.
He said renewables were becoming increasingly attractive for housing associations trying to provide affordable energy and generate funds for their communities, with Berwickshire Housing Association, Fyne Homes, Grampian Housing Association, Link Group and Ore Valley all pursuing schemes.
Angela Williams, development manager of the Knoydart Foundation, which runs a community-owned hydro scheme that supplies green power to 77 properties on the Knoydart peninsula in the west Highlands, warned that if the subsidies for hydro were slashed by half it would mean “prices will increase to the extent where people will look for other non renewable sources of energy to power their homes”.
A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: “Ministers will be analysing their options over the coming weeks, and announcing their decision on changes to the ROS during the spring.”
• CAMPAIGNERS have called for all subsidy support for electricity produced by incinerating waste or biomass to be scrapped.
The Scottish Government has been sent letters by 159 people in response to its consultation on renewables obligation subsidies calling for the subsidies to be reduced to zero.
The SNP is planning just to scrap support for large-scale biomass schemes and to maintain subsidies for smaller projects.
Campaign organisation Biofuelwatch wrote an open letter saying the method of generating electricity, which involves burning waste materials or wood, would mean “more land-grabbing, logging and industrial tree plantations worldwide”.
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Weather for Edinburgh
Sunday 27 May 2012
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Temperature: 11 C to 21 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: North east
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Comments
There are 106 comments to this article
Page 1 of 8
man-o-field
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 10:29 PMPorty Tam And when there is intended to be reliance upon huge numbers of wind turbines, even if not the UK thirty thousand or so referred to by Huhne - though certainly upon the thousands planned for Scotland - and there is weather such as recently there will be massive decrease in electricity supply to the Grid. Your propaganda, unsustainable as it is, is not unfamiliar to those of us with concern about our precarious energy future.
Irritatingly Intelligent Chauvinist
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 09:28 PMWhat is more important than cost, is continuity of supply which unfortunately wind cannot do. We MUST be able to supply demand for electricity at exactly the moment in time it is required.
Porty Tam
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 09:05 PMFortunately, the same tools that power companies use every day to deal with variations in electricity supply and demand can readily be used to accommodate the variability of wind energy. While occasionally the wind may suddenly slow down at one location and cause the output from a single turbine to decrease, regions with high penetrations of wind energy tend to have hundreds or even thousands of turbines spread over hundreds of miles. As a result, it typically takes many minutes or even hours for the total wind energy output of a region to change significantly. This makes it relatively easy for utility system operators to accommodate these changes without relying on reserves. This task can be made even easier with the use of wind energy forecasting, which allows system operators to predict changes in wind output hours or even days in advance with a high degree of accuracy. The increase in total variability caused by adding wind to the system is often very low. As a result, it is usually possible to add a significant amount of wind energy without causing a significant increase in the use of reserves, and even when large amounts of wind are added, the increase in the use of reserves is typically very small. The conclusion that large amounts of wind energy can be added to the grid with only minimal increases in the use of reserves is supported by the experience of grid operators in European countries with large amounts of wind energy, as well as the results of a number of wind integration studies in the U.S.
Porty Tam
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 09:04 PMSo then ill informed ones............listen and learn.........You suggest that because wind energy output varies with the wind speed, wind farms require an equivalent amount of backup power provided by fossil fuel plants, negating the environmental and fuel savings benefits of wind energy. Understanding why this myth is false requires some explanation of how the electric utility system operates. System operators always maintain significant operating reserves typically 5-7% of total generation. These reserves are used to deal with the rapid and unpredictable changes in electricity demand that occur as people turn appliances on and off, as well as the very large changes in electricity supply that can occur in a fraction of a second if a large power plant suffers an unexpected outage. System operators use two main types of generation reserves: ‘spinning reserves’ which can be activated quickly to respond to abrupt changes in electricity supply and demand, and ‘non-spinning reserves,’ which are used to respond to slower changes.
man-o-field
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 08:08 PM101...Party Tom......! Looks like there is another spell of wind electricity generation failure coming up - or renewables failure as you presumably would call it?....... Which back up do you foresee in the future for such (not uncommon) weather situations?
Porty Tam
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 06:33 PMI could be spend all day correcting your deliberate mistakes. ............A dispassionate analysis of household bill impacts in what has become a politically controversial area reveals that bills have increased primarily in response to increased wholesale gas costs and not due to environmental policies. Households energy bills increased by £455 between 2004 and 2010 to £1,060 a year. Of this increase, £380 (84%) was unrelated to low-carbon measures, with £290 due to increases in wholesale costs, £70 due to increasing transmission and distribution costs and £20 due to VAT. Around £75 (16%) was due to policies that reduce carbon emissions, including £30 to support investment in low-carbon power generation, and £45 for funding energy-efficiency improvements in homes. There! Hope that helps. The hopeless attempt by a small minority of misguided English Tories to make political capital out of this is doomed to fail as the FITS for onshore wind to be announced tomorrow will remain largely unchanged.
tested
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 06:06 PM#99 Porty Tam "The Government estimates it will add to our energy bills, from the current level of £20 a year per household to £50 by 2016" What a pile of BS the latest government report stated £75 pounds increase on a dual fuel tariff which would mean significantly more on an electricity only tariff. As for the rest of your post apart from being more BS its totally unsubstantiated BS. Your not a politician by any chance?
Porty Tam
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 04:58 PMAre you guys still sitting in front of your keyboards spouting your propaganda? You need to get out more. Your obviously biased stance means that no one believes the stuff you make up. Meanwhile here am i slogging away trying to save the planet. Anyway time for your daily lesson................I'm only here to help. The need to switch the bulk of our energy supply to renewables over the next 10 to 20 years is going to add a small cost onto all our energy bills. The Government estimates it will add to our energy bills, from the current level of £20 a year per household to £50 by 2016. But the reality is the massive competition for oil, coal and gas on the international energy markets has just added over £100 to everyone’s bills within the last three months. And will do so again. By 2016 when Renewables might be costing us all £50 a year extra - fossil fuels could be costing ten times that much. Spending on Renewables is a shrewd investment as well as an environmental imperative. The Government released a report which showed that subsidises to the oil and gas industry in Britain cost £1,000 a year, per household. We already spend over £50 per year per household cleaning up toxic nuclear waste. In that context when we're spending £1,000 each household supporting fossil fuels £50 spent cleaning up nuclear, the projected £50 to build Renewable Energy sources is a bargain. We will save far more than we spend. Britain needs huge investment in new sources of green energy to cover the looming gap in generation capacity.
Ron Greer
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 04:03 PM97 Global Warming will cause Hell to freeze over before you get an answer
man-o-field
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 01:49 PMFred Bloggs... What about the £billion and rapidly mounting subsidies for unreliable and often failing wind electricity generation? ...Just, as most recently, take a look back a few days for wind generation figures as low as under 50MW....Disastrous.
Ron Greer
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 08:54 AM94 What about some answers to my post at 74?
duelaynomore
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 07:17 AMI'm rather negative on wind turbines for mainstream power generation on well service mainland sites. But I could be persuaded that on remote islands and other sites where the infrastructure is underdeveloped, that wind turbines are an alternative to the standard generator systems such as Nuclear, coal or diesel generators, which can be expensive and difficult to build for such small communities. It is only in these situations that I could be persuaded to spend additional funds, over and above what might otherwise be spent on diesel etc..., These are our TAX pounds being spent, and I don't like to see wastage unless there is a compelling reason, to support extra costs. If however the cost per kilowatt hour, over say a 25 year period, (including all start up and capital costs)..is more than a factor of 3 times..I'd still object to turbines..there has to be a limit on this public largess !!
fred bloggs
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 07:11 AM91: What about the £400m the govt gave in tax breaks to oil and gas?
Ron Greer
Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 10:11 PM90 and 91 They must realise by now,that we are on to their pathetic little scam and so are others reading these posts. Wonder if they will have a de-brief in the shared office tomorrow.?
tested
Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 09:29 PMbridgetthecat You have a cheek calling anyone a moron. I suggest you look up the basics of electricity generation before making comparisons between nuclear and windpower.
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