The major driver for growth in renewables has been the feed in tariff which is soon coming to an end. The question is, “where do we go from here?”
As it stands, the answers to this question are unclear at best and the worst case is a renewables sector which stagnates, with little in the way of new advances. Faced with this stagnation, many business that have developed to serve this sector will either have to down scale or go out of business, a real back step after so many gains in the world of renewable power.
The UK government has made clear that it will hand decision making power for on shore turbines to local authorities who are more easily cowed by the anti-wind campaigners. They have also promised to cut the revenues (in the form of the feed in tariff) available to wind turbine schemes.
This article (viewable by clicking the link) on farm wind turbines shows how the wind sector has grown and matured over the last few years and that there is capacity and hunger for land owners and farmers to produce their own electrical energy using small scale wind turbines. These appropriately sized turbines are the prefect size to power farms and business. They offer a real opportunity for farmers and land owners to diversify, providing both a revenue stream and a cost saving which helps protect these types of business from their traditional market pressures and business risks. It does all this whilst reducing how much coal is shovelled into generators, out of sight and out of mind.
The story is much the same in Hydropower, there is uncertainty on what will happen in the coming years but certain in the knowledge that vast majority of farm scale projects may no longer be economically viable. To give this some context, water power strong enough to power up to 70 homes may not be economically viable by April next year because renewable energy system subsidies are being stripped back in the heavily subsidised energy market.