Summary:
As many as a quarter of British homes could be fitted with solar heating panels under new government plans for a "green revolution". Solar panels, wind turbines and household energy efficiency central. Price tag: £100b. Plan acknowledges green energy will cost more, will have transform large areas of British landscape and may have negative impacts on living standards. Plans due to be unveiled in coming week. (Published: 21/06/08)
Notes:
- plans due to be unveiled next week
- Malcolm Wicks, energy minister:
- the new proposals are "the most ambitious" such strategy that Britain has seen
- goal is to meet the EU target of 15% of energy from renewables by 2020
- call for 3,500 new wind turbines to be erected across the UK
- 30-fold increase in off-shore wind power generation
- quarter of British homes to be fitted with solar heating panels
- new loans and grants for businesses to increase green energy supply
- compulsory measure on households to boost efficiency
- total price tag: £100 billion.
- plan concedes that green power will cost more
- at a time of consumer anger over fuel prices
- plans recognise that the new energy policy could transform large areas of Britain's landscape and have a "significant impacts on all our lives...not all of these positive"
- Wicks:
- there is now a "huge momentum" in renewable energy provision;
- government would ensure that carbon emission reduction was the "core concept behind our energy strategy
- Britain currently gets less than 5% of its electricity from renewables, mainly wind.
- John Sauven, Greenpeace:
- "the plans for solar panels on seven million roofs and other steps to reduce the use of fossil fuels make sense regardless of the price of oil or the state of the climate"
- "We'll create jobs, reduce our dependence on foreign oil and use less gas, and in the long run our power bills will come down. Even if climate change didn't exist these proposals would be sensible."
