The UK has plenty of catching up to do with Europe's leaders in the renewables market. We look at how far we still have to go, and what we are doing to get there.
As the UK continues to limp along behind Europe's leaders in the use of high profile renewable energies, the government has placed its hopes on its latest attempt to boost the market, the Renewables Obligation. In theory, it sounds promising. Every energy supplier will have to produce Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROCs), otherwise known as green certificates to prove that they are obtaining a set percentage of their electricity from renewable sources.

As well as having to produce these certificates as proof of their obligated use of renewable energy, the fact that ROCs can be bought on the open market from other suppliers with a surplus, should encourage the growth that has been so slow in recent years in the UK.

In its briefing on the Renewables Obligation, The Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research explained how it thinks the market should progress as a result of the initiative: "The operation of a tradable green certificate market such as that designed to meet the Renewables Obligation is theoretically simple. When the price of ROCs rises, more and more developers will be encouraged to build renewable energy generation capacity. Moreover, market mechanisms introduce competition between renewables generators for ROC revenues. This is to the advantage of cost competitive generators and encourages others to follow suit."

There is still no hiding the fact, however that the UK is embarrassingly short of where it should be in comparison to the leading European countries. Research from market analysts Frost shows that Germany accounts for over a quarter of the EU's installed renewables base, and has "exhibited the fastest growth in recent years among major nations, with installed capacity increasing by nearly 33% on average between 1999 and 2001."

The wind power market provides the clearest illustration of the UK's shortcomings. Germany, Denmark, and Spain lead the way with a combined wind power capacity that accounts for over 83% of the total EU market. As the most developed of the renewable sources outside of large hydro, wind power in the UK stands at a mere 500 MW capacity, but with potential projects over the coming years this should increase to 1600 MW. For the British Wind Energy Association this is their best year yet, with over 200 MW of wind power being installed. There are some serious stumbling blocks in the way to further expansion, not least problems with the planning authorities, who have provided the biggest barrier to the expansion of wind energy schemes in this country over the past ten years.

In its report on the European renewables market, Frost state: "The main problems involve conflicting land use and environmental impacts. Long-term, the declining numbers of suitable sites will hamper the wind turbine industry to a greater degree. In order to overcome this problem, some countries are pinning their hopes on large-scale offshore wind farms in order to reduce the impacts of wind turbines on the population."

As BSJ indicated in May, the other renewable energy coming to the fore over the next twenty years will be photovoltaic (pv) energy. Frost stated that: "Solar photovoltaics will be the fastest growing renewable energy source in Europe over the next 20 years, with growth outstripping that even of wind power." But here once again, the government until this year has seemed reluctant to go out of their way to get anywhere near the heights so far scaled by the leading nations. The 6 MW that it hopes to be installed in the UK by 2005 pales in comparison to the 114 MW in Germany.

While the DTI claims to have plans beyond 2005 to match this level, and their intitial £20 million grant allocation has been welcomed, the question still remains as to why more hasn't been done sooner to put the UK at the forefront of the expansion of the use of sources like pv.

Fears in the industry were quite clearly stated at the end of the last decade that countries such as Germany were racing ahead in their development and use of pvs. The Germans launched their "100 solar roofs" programme in early 1999 and their market is the largest in Europe by a long way, and according to Frost a 10 MW power plant is planned in Spain, which if built, would be the largest solar pv installation in the world.

But only this year has the government has committed considerable resources to the first phase of its grant programme to encourage pv installations in the UK. While the industry has taken great encouragement from the news, it remains to be seen whether the investment by the DTI is enough to put the UK right up there with the front-runners. It should go some way, however, to encourage companies looking to invest in the pv industry. The factor most off putting to them at present is the high installation costs. Frost indicate that pvs are by far the most expensive of the renewables: "While it is true that solar pv installation costs are falling rapidly, they will still remain well above those of other renewable technologies for the foreseeable future, thus restricting the expansion of this generation technology."

Current chairman of PV-UK Rod Hacker though, has been making positive noises in the wake of the grant allocation. Speaking in the PV-UK newsletter, Hacker said: "The solar photovoltaic industry in the UK is now growing rapidly and the association is gearing up to represent what will become a major energy industry over the next few years."

While this is a well founded and widely held view of the pv industry and has been proved correct by the growth already achieved, it remains to be seen if the moves made this year to develop this potentially huge renewable market are actually the first of some much needed big strides in the right direction, or simply just enough for the DTI to avoid being accused of not doing enough.

The boat would appear to have been missed first time round, but if renewable energies like wind and pv are to be brought alongside the UKs current energy sources as viable and readily available options for suppliers, they need to be at the front of the queue this time for the journey towards their 2010 target.