Government Policy for Renewable Energy

Following on from its signing of the Kyoto Protocol to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the UK Government set targets for electricity generation from renewable energy sources.

The first of these targets is to meet 10 per cent of the UK's electricity needs from renewable sources by 2010, with an aspirational target of 20 per cent by 2020.

In Scotland, however, the bar has been set higher as around 13 per cent of all our electricity needs are already met from renewable sources, mainly from existing large-scale hydro power schemes. Consequently, the Scottish Executive has set a target for renewable electricity of 18 per cent by 2010, with the aim of generating 40 per cent by 2020.

To achieve these targets, the UK Government and the Scottish Executive have introduced legislation requiring licensed electricity suppliers to provide increasing amounts of the electricity from eligible renewable sources year-on-year from 2003. In addition a range of capital grant schemes have been established to support the development of less-commercialised renewable technologies, such as wave and solar power.

Since the introduction of the Renewables Obligation (Scotland), or ROS, the Scottish Executive has granted planning consent to 0.9 GW of renewable capacity. Applications awaiting determination now total 4.2GW, with a further 3.1GW at the formal pre-application stage.

Similar Obligations have been introduced in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, creating a UK-wide cross border marketplace for renewable electricity.

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