Showcasing the London Array offshore wind farm in the last week at its official launch, the UK’s Prime Minister David Cameron said “[…] We are making this country incredibly attractive to invest in […] When it comes to green energy, I think we have one of the clearest, most predictable investment climates. And we’re going to add to that by completing the Energy Bill this year. So, we will have a fantastic market for investors to come and build in. […]” (see below).
I think developers of solar energy in Britain would disagree quite extensively with his claim that there is a stable regime for green energy. The most effective stimulus tool, the Feed-in Tariff, was applauded and then mauled in short succession by the Conservative-Liberal-Democrat Coalition Government. Installation rates have simply not recovered from chewings from the Treasury attack dog. It’s been boom and then bust, bust, bust, with flurries of activity in summer, but not much more :-
And this despite the yappy enthusiasm (perhaps “big, hairy”, or “big, sexy” ambition) that Greg Barker MP and his Dachshund, Otto, have for sun-fired electricity generation :-
https://www.solarpowerportal.co.uk/news/barker_once_more_quotes_22gw_by_2020_solar_ambition_2356
The Energy Bill should have been finished a long time ago, and I’m pretty sure it would have been, apart from the insane obsession with new nuclear power, which all along was predicted to consist of several kinds of big, chunky subsidy, and shows no signs of being anything other than a bankrolling exercise, even now (and too late to bridge Alistair Buchanan‘s “Crunch Winter” of 2015/2016).
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-07-02/edf-nuclear-deal-in-u-k-may-take-a-few-months-.html
“EDF Nuclear Deal in U.K. May Take ‘A Few Months’ : By Alex Morales – Jul 2, 2013 : The U.K. may take “a few months” to agree the price that Electricite de France SA (EDF) will get for power from Britain’s first new nuclear power station in two decades, Energy Secretary Ed Davey suggested. The government has been in talks for months with EDF to agree a so-called strike price the French utility will get for power from a planned plant at Hinkley Point in southwest England. Davey told Parliament’s multi-party Energy and Climate Change Committee he won’t sign a contract with EDF unless it represents “value for money” for consumers. “Even if we agree in the next few months, a nuclear reactor at Hinkley point won’t be producing until the end of this decade at best,” Davey said today. “They have been very constructive negotiations. They are taking some time, and that’s because they are very complicated.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/10164435/Rival-nuclear-companies-cheaper-than-EDF-Ed-Davey-suggests.html
“[…] Mr Davey told The Guardian that EDF was aware of the strike price that he would agree to and that he was “not going to budge an inch”. He said: “Sometimes people said it is EDF or bust. I would like to do a deal with EDF but we don’t have to. I was in Korea and Japan recently talking to other investors and vendors. Their interest in the UK market was massive. I got the very strong impression that the sort of price I was happy to agree with EDF, they could match.” In the same interview he said: “We have other nuclear options. Hitachi are very live options. They bought Horizon only last year and their pace of progress is truly impressive.” He noted that Hitachi had delivered four reactors “on time and on budget”. […]”
But the most serious contention that I have with David Cameron’s remarks is his painting a picture that the UK needs international capital to reach down from geostationary orbit, or where it is a bit lower, in transcontinential flight at 35,000 feet, to touch and bless the UK with its gilded finger of providence.
Don’t we have any investors in Britain ? We may have only a few, small British companies that can build green energy for us, but we do have a lot of wealth lurking within these very shores, or representatives of a lot of wealth. Could we not demand that those who shore their cash in Britain, and take advantage of cheap corporate tax deals, invest in British green energy ? Could we not make green energy investment a sine qua non of the residence or passsage of wealth in and through the City of London ?
Many people in Great Britain have pensions, and those pensions have funds, and those funds have fund managers. There’s a lot of money, right there. What are the criteria that govern pension pot investment ?
And then there’s the banks. Almost everyone in the UK has a bank account. Are the banks held to policies to direct finance and investment towards green energy and clean tech ? Do their customers demand it ?
Why does the UK Government not stipulate that “best value for money” as a criteria on all contracts of procurement – and investment – has to be matched by “best carbon emissions reduction potential” ?
Or are we in such an austere position that we need to offer huge, fattened sweeteners from the Treasury tax honeypot, and permission to raise already high power prices for customers, to any international engineering firm prepared to pour concrete here, so that they can arrange for the finance this guarantees ? Why are we in a position where we are being forced to throw public money and billpayer burdens at private companies to guarantee new energy build ?
This looks like a worse deal than PFI. In fact, it is much, much worse that the Private Finance Inititative, or the revamped new acronyms that replaced it. This is the wholesale gifting of large amounts of annual tax revenue and fingerlicking kilowatt hour prices to large, transnational corporations. If the economy gets worse, which it probably will, these big new construction projects may never get completed. And the new national energy infrastructure that does manage to get built won’t even be ours. Unless they go wrong, in which case the country will have to pay to mop them up. Or at the end of life, when the taxpayers and billpayers will need to pay to decommission nuclear reactors and dispose of radioactive waste.
And while we’re on the subject of investment, I need to point out that not all big infrastructure projects are alike. Some development is good, some bad. I don’t really see how the Olympic building spree can be compared in any way to what’s necessary for creating a decarbonised energy system. And building larger ports, and roads, and airports, anticipates higher levels of traded goods – the kind of economic growth that caused climate change in the first place.
If David Cameron wants to crow about big projects and be praised for it, he needs to de-select examples that are unsustainable.
There really needs to be more focus on what we really need for the future, and that requires discernment in investment. It requires moving away from high consumption models of economy, of divesting from stocks and shares in waste, pollution, carbon emissions and unnecessary trade.
Invest, yes, but divest, also.
https://www.operationnoah.org/PR_southwark_resolution
“4 July 2013: The Diocese of Southwark passed a resolution yesterday (3 July 2013) calling on the General Synod of the Church of England to consider disinvestment from fossil fuels.”
https://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/video/2013/jul/04/david-cameron-windfarm-thames-estuary-video
The UK’s Prime Minister David Cameron speaking outside at the London Array site :-
“Well let’s be clear this is the biggest offshore wind farm anywhere in the world.
And what it shows is Britain is a great country to come and invest in. And it’s meant
jobs for local people. And it means clean, green energy for half a million homes in
our country. It’s part of what we need to have secure, reliable supplies of electricity
and to get investment and jobs for our people, so it’s a good day for Britain.”
David Cameron speaking at the Press Launch indoors :-
“Well of course, when I chaired the G8, I had to arrange everything, starting with
the dress code. There was some criticism. Why wasn’t I wearing a tie ? What people
didn’t realise of course was that President Putin wanted to do the whole thing
barechested on horseback, and I of course had to negotiate him down to smart casual.
We haven’t had that problem today.
Sometimes people wonder, can we in the West, can we do big projects any more ? Can we
do the big investments ? Isn’t that all happening somewhere else in the East and the
South of our world ?
And I think if you look at the United Kingdom right now you can see WE CAN do big
projects. Not only did we do a superb Olympics last year, but underneath London,
CrossRail is the biggest construction project anywhere in Europe.
Not far away from here is Dubai Ports World London Gateway, which is the biggest port
contruction taking place anywhere in Europe.
And here you have the biggest offshore wind farm anywhere in the world.
I think it demonstrates Britain is a great place to invest.
I don’t want to have too much Schadenfreude, but it’s actually a fact that last year,
foreign direct investment into Europe as a whole went down by something like 40%, but in
the UK it went up by 24%.
We are making this country incredibly attractive to invest in, and and that’s part of what
this project is about.
When it comes to green energy, I think we have one of the clearest, most predictable
investment climates. And we’re going to add to that by completing the Energy Bill this year.
So, we will have a fantastic market for investors to come and build in.
So, a great win for Kent, a great win for renewable energy and a great win for Britain.”