BBC’s panorama show on Monday night was billed as an investigation into the truth behind the UK's rocketing energy bills. Surely a rational, unbiased report from the BBC’s well-respected Panorama show would present the benefits of solar PV and other renewable energies to the wider public, while sensibly explaining the implicit costs to the consumer of supporting such technologies – wouldn’t it?
Opening the show with a sweeping statement, presenter Tom Heap made it clear that – according to Panorama – there was one major reason behind rising energy bills.
Was it the rising cost of wholesale gas, which makes up 56% of a homeowners utility bill? Or are the record profits of the ‘Big Six’ to blame?
It turns out it was neither.
According to BBC’s investigations, it is expensive Governmental policies designed to support low-carbon technology that are pushing up your energy bills.
So what are the problems with supporting renewable technologies in the UK according to Panorama?
1. The transmission distance associated with off-shore wind and the newly proposed nuclear plant sites will add millions of pounds to the infrastructure cost of the national grid
2. The cost of supporting expensive off-shore wind technology is a ‘gamble’. Oil is a cheaper, more secure alternative
3. The maintenance costs associated with giant off-shore wind farms, nuclear plants and old power-stations are enormous
4. The huge, upfront costs of wind and nuclear energy when compared with fossil fuels
But, what the investigation failed to mention was:
- The 84,000+ de-centralised solar PV systems installed nationwide which eliminate expensive transmission losses and costs
- The proven, cheaper and more secure low-carbon technology - solar photovoltaic
- The almost zero maintenance costs of a solar PV installation
- The massive potential for price reduction in green technologies or the fact that solar PV costs have fallen by 30% in one year.
Why oh why is there such a myopic insistence to view solar PV as a small-scale contributor to the UK’s fuel mix?
What does the British solar industry need to do to be taken seriously?
Clearly creating 25,000 jobs and pumping 318MW of clean, de-centralised electricity into the grid in just 12 months is not enough.
I thought there was a wind of change blowing when Greg Barker admitted that DECC had underestimated the contribution that solar could make, finally recognising that it was now capable of “scaling up and competing with the big boys”.
But how can the industry scale up and compete when, by their own omission, DECC forecasts that the latest round of FiT cuts will result in a 95% drop in 4-50kW installations?
It has become abundantly clear that the UK solar industry desperately needs an effective mouthpiece. Jeremy Legget’s letter to the PM is an encouraging start, but the industry needs to do more to force itself into the Government’s reckoning.
So what is the answer? Fight the widespread misinformation about solar photovoltaic technology in the UK? More pro-active trade associations? Nullifying the lobbying of pro-nuclear and the influence of the ‘Big Six’? Legal action?
The best way to support solar is to pull the fragmented industry together into one coherent voice and open up a sensible and regular dialogue with the government. A galvanised industry can convince the Government that solar PV could be a major player in the UK’s fuel mix. That way we can minimise the cost to the consumer, work together on the journey to grid-parity and plan and discuss a sensible reduction of the tariff with appropriate time-scales, avoiding our current predicament.
If we’re not careful the UK solar industry will be left behind and ignored, derided as an expensive small-scale, inefficient technology, ill-suited to the cold British climate.
Update:
The BBC has published a statement intended to provide some clarifiaction on the Watchdog website:
"While the film focussed on government energy policy going forward - and the associated costs - we feel it worth repeating that the rise in current energy bills is predominantly linked to the increase in winter gas prices.
"In Ofgem's Why Are Energy Prices Rising? report from 14 October 2011, it states that winter gas prices were 40% higher for 2011/12 than the previous winter.
"In its Energy and Gas Supply Market Report published the same day, Ofgem found that wholesale electricity and gas costs were the biggest factor in the rise in bills, accounting for 45% of current fuel bills.
"We accept that it would have been helpful to our audience had this point been made more clear in the film and the website materials that accompanied it."
