UK set to miss own green goals

The UK is likely to miss its own renewables targets as well as EU energy goals on green technology unless rapid action is taken, according to a new Parliamentary report.

The research on Britain’s energy commitments was published by the Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills select committee. It criticised the government for its “lack of urgency”.

Britain currently acquires less than 5% of its electricity from renewable sources, but aims to double this by 2010. The European Commission has also proposed that 15% of UK energy should be derived from renewables by 2020, which equates to around 40% of electricity.

Head of the select committee, Phil Willis, said: “We have been consistently disappointed by the lack of urgency expressed by the government – and at times by the electricity industry – in relation to the challenge ahead.

“We find it highly unlikely that given the current progress the UK will meet the government's ambition for 10% of electricity to be generated from renewables by 2010, let alone sufficient electricity to meet the EC mandated renewable energy target for 2020.”

According to the report, the ability of developers to deploy renewable technologies is being hampered by a growing shortage of people with the necessary skills to develop, install and maintain the devices.

It stresses that it is essential for the government to engage with the renewables industry in order to remove current barriers to technology deployment.

In a separate report, the Renewables Advisory Board (RAB) advised the government that current policies were liable to produce just 6% renewable energy by 2020.