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Redpoint works with UK Government on renewables strategy
On 26th June 2008, the UK Government published its Consultation on the Renewables Strategy designed to deliver its commitment of meeting 15% of total energy consumption from renewables sources by 2015. As part of this process, the Department of Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) commissioned Redpoint (in association with Trilemma UK and the Electricity Policy Research Group of the University of Cambridge) to undertake a detailed assessment of financial support schemes for renewables in the electricity sector. The objective of the study was to quantify the efficiency and effectiveness of different possible approaches to stimulate investment to expand current renewables deployment in the electricity sector of around 5% to over 30% by 2020.
The study involved a review of international renewables support schemes, a qualitative assessment of a ‘long list’ of potential schemes, and detailed cost benefit analysis of three of the schemes – an extension of the existing Renewables Obligation, its replacement with a feed-in tariff approach, and a hybrid feed-in tariff/tender approach. The analysis required detailed modelling of the investment dynamics in the UK electricity sector under the three different support schemes to assess their impact on generation costs, costs to consumers and the wider generation sector. The robustness of each of the schemes was tested using sensitivities to some of the key variables such as commodity prices, plant capital costs and speed of planning and connection access. The impact of high deployments of intermittent renewables on security of supply, price volatility and system balancing costs was also assessed within the analysis.
The results of the study were published in parallel with the Renewables Consultation and can be found on BERR’s website and also downloaded below.