Eight core renewable technologies “should surely have been nine”

Government’s Renewable Energy Roadmap, which was published on Tuesday alongside the Electricity Market Reform paper, has left the UK solar sector feeling a little dejected after the technology was excluded from a list of eight renewable energy sources expected to play a key role in the country’s energy mix through 2020.

According to the 107 page document, biomass electricity and biomass heat, onshore and offshore wind, marine energy, ground and air source heat pumps, and renewable transport technologies such as biofuels and hydrogen fuel cells “have either the greatest potential to help the UK meet the 2020 target in a cost-effective and sustainable way, or offer great potential for the decades that follow.”

Solar photovoltaic and solar thermal technologies are mysteriously absent from the list, despite the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) claim that “solar PV could potentially have a role to play in large-scale UK renewables deployment in the future”.

The report argues that solar PV systems have been left out of the eight as they are currently more expensive than many alternative renewable energy technologies. A DECC spokeswoman insisted that the roadmap “focuses on the eight technologies capable of making the most significant yet cost-effective contribution to achievement of the 2020 target or our longer term ambitions”.

In contrast to this absence, the report does acknowledge industry predictions that solar technology will be able to compete on cost with conventional energy by the end of the decade.

“Cost reductions are expected to be most pronounced for electricity technologies, particularly offshore wind and solar PV, as supply chains and technologies develop to 2020,” the report states.

Speaking to renewables publication BusinessGreen, Ray Noble of the Solar Trade Association, said the technology’s exclusion from the list of eight key renewable technologies was “very disappointing.”

Seb Berry, Head of Public Affairs at Solarcentury said, “The renewables roadmap makes it clear Government expects large-scale solar PV to be cost-competitive with offshore wind and dedicated biomass electricity generation, and cheaper than all marine in 2020.”

“It is surprising, therefore, that PV is not included in the list of eight core technologies Government expects will either deliver the bulk of the 2020 target, or that ‘have great potential’ in the ‘decades’ ahead. The eight core technologies should surely have been nine.”