EU renewable energy targets – renewable heat is part of the solution, not the problem, dummy!

The European Union will legally require each country in the Union to meet a certain fixed percentage of its energy by renewables by 2020 if plans announced yesterday are approved, as they are likely to be. In the case of the United Kingdom that fixed percentage is 15%. The United Kingdom has got off very lightly; Germany, which has a much larger uptake of renewables than the UK must produce 18% of its energy by renewables, and Sweden a whopping 49%, presumably because they will burn their forests. 

No doubt the United Kingdom will attempt to redefine what constitutes a renewable and get up to all sorts of mischief to delay, muddle and lower the applicable target. this seems to be the knee jerk reaction from Whitehall and the government it serves.

If you listen to the political commentators and watch the BBC’s programmes and website their take is that these targets will be very hard to fulfil because getting renewable heat is hard. This is also the position of those rather unimpressive people at BERR and of the Energy Minister, Malcolm Wicks.

They are worried because these targets are energy targets, not just electricity targets and they know that there is no way that 15% can been met by renewable electricity alone in 12 years time, so unless they can tackle the heat “problem” the UK will have to cough up some swinging fines. 

I have very good news for Mr Wicks and for BERR and some correct information for the BBC to disseminate. Fulfilling a major part of the renewable target by renewable heat is actually simple and will form a major part of the strategy in all other countries, so why not the UK?

By renewable heat I do not count biomass, which pumps pollutants and particulates which damage health into the atmosphere. No, the best and most benign form of renewable heat is solar thermal technology which can be used for water heating, space heating, heat processes in industry and even air conditioning. I know that this is what we do at Genersys, but that does not mean that I am wrong.

Let is look at the figures. 98% of our energy comes from non renewable sources. Of that 98% around 26% of our energy is used in the home. Of that 25% about a quarter is used for water heating – 6.25%. Of that 6.25% a decent solar thermal system will cover around 60% to 70% of the demand so that if we had solar systems on every home by 2020 we could cover 4% of the overall UK’s energy demand from solar thermal technology.  That is just under  a third of our likely target at a cost of a paltrey six billion a year, some of which will be recovered in taxes and all of which over a long term will be recovered in savings. This would be state financed but with a state return on its investment both financially and environmentally, so it would not be like spending three billion a year on, say, the BBC, which sucks up tax pounds without producing a financial return.

We could go further than water heating; many homes are suitable candidates for having solar space heating as well as solar water heating. Not every home is, but let us assume that a quarter of the homes can have solar space heating fitted reasonably cost effectively. Solar will not be a 100% solution but if you go through a similar exercise for space heating as I did for water heating we will come up with somewhere with another 2% or 3% of the UK’s energy from a renewable resource – daylight. 

So, with the will 6% or 7% of our energy could come from solar thermal systems, and we have not even looked at solar thermal for industrial purposes, or harnessing surplus heat from power stations in district heating systems, or installing solar thermal on hospitals, government buildings and the like. 

Unlike electricity with its storage and intermittency problems solar heat can be locally stored and used. Solar thermal’s contribution will therefore be real, and not just theoretical, whereas the electrical output of a PV system or a set of wind turbines will not always be useful. This is important because producing electricity that is not useful will not help us meet these targets, however many turbines or PV systems are built. 

So the problem with the UK’s target figure is not producing renewable heat; the solution is to increase renewable heat installations. This can only be done by making new laws, something governments are elected to do.

I can offer the Government some suggestions for new laws:- 

• Require a thermal solar system on every new home
• Require a thermal solar system as the only permitted way of heating a private swimming pool
• Require a thermal solar system when installing any new heating system
• Require a thermal solar system when building an extension
• Require a thermal solar system when replacing a roof
• Build thermal solar systems on all crown estate properties (even government Ministries in Seoul in South Korea have them) and on public swimming pools
• Ensure that thermal solar systems are an intrinsic part of all programmes to fight fuel poverty
• Provide a better system of relief for thermal solar systems than enhanced capital allowances for business
• Take up the Energy Savings Trust’s suggestion and provide a £200 per annum Council tax rebate for say 15 years for every home having a certified solar system.

Well that is a simple starter. It will keep us on track for the first year or so, and enable the market to become more familiar with a product which is an integral part of the solution, not as the government seems to think, part of the problem.