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Archive for the ‘climate change’ Category

gov’t response on renewable heat and feed in tariffs

Posted in biofuel, biomass, climate change, feed in tariff, heat pumps, micro chp, renewable energy, sustainability, wind turbines, tagged , , , , on October 30, 2008| 1 Comment »

Last night, Lord Hunt came back with his amendments to the Energy Bill and, as promised, here’s an update. For electricity feed in tariff, he’s proposed:

  • Feed in tariff for renewable generation up to a maximum of 3MW (excellent).
  • Qualifying technology: biomass, biofuels (oh dear), fuel cells, photovoltaics, water (including waves and tides), wind, solar power, geothermal sources, combined heat and power systems with an electrical capacity of 50 kilowatts or less.
  • No timetable for implementation (as far as I could see – is it buried in there somewhere? What will the Baroness say?)

On a heat incentive:

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Feed In Tariffs and Renewable Heat

Posted in climate change, Code for Sustainable Homes, energy, renewable energy, sustainability, tagged on October 28, 2008| 2 Comments »

A quick thought on feed in tariffs.

If a value is agreed for micro power generating renewables, what will the impact be on the solar thermal industry? Would this amount to an anti-competetive subsidy for one type of technology over another? And if so, what are the wider implications?

I can see a scenario in super low energy dwellings where the feed-in tariff for PV might result in an electric heating and DHW solution, but without solar thermal as it may have a poorer pay back. This could result in solutions biased towards oversized PV in situations where solar thermal provides a more common sense fit.

Any thoughts?

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feed in tariffs – what just happened?

Posted in chp, climate change, energy, feed in tariff, micro chp, renewable energy, sustainability, wind turbines, tagged , , , on October 23, 2008| 2 Comments »

Away from the fanfare around Ed Miliband’s announcement that a feed in tariff (FiT) is on the way, the Lords have been debating an amendment to the Energy Bill that has the support of Conservatives, Lib Dems, and even some Labour peers.

What’s in the amendment? It says the Secretary of State has one year from the passing of the bill to bring in a feed in tariff. And the qualifying technologies, their maximum capacity, and their level of support are left to the Secretary of State to decide with no specified cap.

Despite wide support, it was clear that the Government wouldn’t officially get behind the bill as it wasn’t their idea. In fact, as recently as June the Government were firmly against a feed in tariff.

Baroness Wilcox, the amendment’s sponsor, has now withdrawn it, but only on the condition that the Government meet specific terms in their own amendment, which they’re expected put forward on 5 November. However, if the Government doesn’t fulfill her demands, she will reintroduce her original amendment. Here are her terms in a nutshell (my comments in italics):

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big news: 80% carbon cuts and a feed in tariff

Posted in climate change, energy, renewable energy, tagged , on October 16, 2008| 1 Comment »

Ed Miliband has just made his first speech to parliament in his role as head of the DECC. In it, he said he’ll accept all of the findings of the Committee on Climate Change and will amend the climate change bill to raise the legally binding cuts from 60% to 80%. He will also amend the bill to include a feed in tariff for “small community-scale renewable energy projects” as well as microgeneration. No indication of what this means in terms of kW’s or, crucially, what level of support they’ll offer.

Excellent news. Also positive is that Greg Clark, the shadow secretary for energy and climate change, was broadly in favour of the announcements. And he criticised big Ed for not including measures for renewable heat. I disagree with him about the “renewable” part, but it’s heartening to hear mainstream politicians getting close to the crux of the issue.

More details here.

Full text and ministerial bumpf here.

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biomass blog

Posted in biofuel, biomass, chp, climate change, energy, engineering, renewable energy, sustainability, tagged , on October 15, 2008| Leave a Comment »

If you haven’t checked out Michael Willoughby’s biomass blog, Woodfuel Magazine, you should. It’s an RSS feed well worth subscribing to. Keep it up, Michael!

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payback periods – clients gone mad

Posted in climate change, energy, engineering, renewable energy, sustainability, tagged , on September 23, 2008| 1 Comment »

Over on Zero Champion, Phil brought up the subject of payback periods, citing some examples from clients: 12 months, or 18 months, or 39 months.

Those periods equate to ridiculously high rates of return! 100%, 67%, and 31%! Are there so many fabulous investments out there that clients can justify hurdle rates like this?

Could it be that clients are being deliberately obstructive? Or maybe they just want to carry on doing things the way they’ve always done them? By demanding short payback periods they ensure they won’t be lured out of their narrow comfort zone. But this approach is completely unjustifiable.

Ignoring the inherent benefits and taking a purely financial view, a client ought to evaluate low carbon technology in the same way they would look at any other potential investment. Let’s assume our client is a developer with a weighted average cost of capital of 12.5%*. That means they should seriously consider investments that will achieve better than this rate of return. Being conservative, let’s bump it up to 15% – a very attractive investment. We’re still talking nearly 7 years before you’ve recouped your money.

There’s an issue of risk, but only with immature technology. CHP, solar thermal, PV, wind, hydro, biomass heating: these are all tried and tested and, given good site data, their performance can be predicted with a high degree of accuracy. Even with something trickier like biomass gasification, you can factor things like increased downtime into your figures and take a pessimistic view when predicting performance. But that doesn’t mean your hurdle rates suddenly leap into the stratosphere.

So it’s disappointing to hear that client’s are requiring payback periods like 12 months or even 39. They’re taking a distorted view of technology and, in the mean time, promoting the impression that low carbon is somehow so shoddy, so flawed, such a special case, that it should only used if it promises a financial miracle.

* For this example, assume of our developer’s capital, 40% is equity and 60% is debt. Assume cost of debt is 7.5% (LIBOR of 5.5% plus another 2%) and cost of equity is 20%. I’ve ignored tax.

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Building Mag responds

Posted in biofuel, biomass, climate change, energy, renewable energy, sustainability, tagged , on August 26, 2008|

In response to my post about his 20-mile claim, Michael Willoughby at Building has responded extensively in the comments – definitely worth a read. The carbon effectiveness of biomass is quite a hot topic so if you’ve got comments or information, please get stuck in.

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Building Mag says biomass only efficient if used within 20 miles

Posted in agriculture, biofuel, biomass, climate change, energy, engineering, renewable energy, sustainability, tagged , , on August 21, 2008| 6 Comments »

There’s a short video on the Building website of Phil Clark and Michael Willoughby discussing biomass. At one point Michael claims “it’s not efficient to transport biomass more than 20 miles.” Holy smokes, where does this fact come from? I took a stab at the numbers and came up with a figure of 3000km (1900 miles) by truck before you lose the carbon benefit. That’s 100 times more than Michael’s figure. Looks like one of us (or possibly both) has got it wrong.

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I’ll be just fine, says planet

Posted in climate change, energy, tagged on August 18, 2008| Leave a Comment »

Excellent article, via Bealers, from the Daily Mash.

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being an economist is so easy

Posted in climate change, energy, tagged , , on August 14, 2008| 3 Comments »

adam smith

I’ve been listening to the excellent Radio 4 series, Our Food Our Future, over the past two weeks. In episode one they interview Alan Swinbank, an economist from University of Reading, who argues that following the current spike, food prices will resume their general downward trend.

In support of his argument, he pulls out the increasingly tired chestnuts:

1. Higher prices drive innovation
2. Technology can achieve whatever advances are required in order to support continued growth
3. Don’t worry if we don’t know what the solution is yet: the next technology may be unforeseen
4. Liberalisation of trade will ensure most effective sharing of the resulting benefits

Here the economist is talking about food but he’s using the same arguments you often hear from his brethren about energy, particularly in the context of fossil fuels: the market will fix it. It seems to be the warm fluffy blanket that they wrap themselves up in at night. And you’ve got to admit, it’s a seductive fluffy blanket.

But I’m uneasy about economists’ faith in market magic. It seems inevitable that the worlds of compound growth and finite resources are doomed to collide sooner or later (read: sooner; or even: as we speak). Sure, as limited fossil fuels become even more costly, other technologies will become more attractive. But Adam Smith didn’t reckon on the sticking power of entrenched energy interests.

I think I might convert to Economicism. Do I get to wear a funny hat?

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