Responding to the new Policy Exchange report (The Full Cost to Households of Renewable Energy Policies) WWF said today that the think-tank is ignoring the benefits renewables could bring and is advocating a risky reliance on market mechanisms.
WWF noted that in contrast to the Policy Exchange figures, a Committee on Climate Change (CCC) report last December found renewables will only add £130 to the annual bill by 2020. The CCC report also clearly showed that if the government puts in place strong policies on energy efficiency then bills can be maintained at 2010 prices.
WWF said that Policy Exchange are ignoring the long term economic benefits to the UK in becoming a leader in deployment of renewables such as offshore wind, wave and tidal. For example the latest research from Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) shows that so far this financial year companies have announced plans for almost £2.5billion worth of investment in renewable energy projects in the UK, with the potential to create almost 12,000 jobs across the country.
Nick Molho, head of energy policy at WWF-UK said: “Policy Exchange has used some pretty dubious maths and has ignored significant research by authoritative sources. Detailed modelling by CCC, Ofgem and DECC shows the impacts on energy bills will be far lower in 2020 and confirms that bills are sky-high right now because of our over-reliance on fossil fuels – specifically, gas.
“Reports like this mislead the public and erode investor confidence in the sector at precisely the time when we need to attract investment. If we want to revitalise the UK’s economy we need to concentrate on building a new industry based on renewable energy and encourage investment through stable policies, not repeated chopping and changing.”
Nick Molho added that the research also ignored the reality of the renewable energy market. WWF’s recent Positive Energy report showed that research and development alone is not enough to enable renewable technologies to mature and therefore costs to fall. Policy certainty and deployment at scale are essential both for job creation and cost reduction. Continued support is needed to enable technologies such as offshore wind to develop to the point where they can compete with cheaper low-carbon sources of generation.
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Offshore WIND staff, January 18, 2012