British renewable energy targets are wrong

According to a former scientific advisor to the British government, EU’s renewable-energy quotas could cause widespread poverty. EU’s heads of state have mistakenly set the targets based only on electricity usage instead of total energy consumption. Sir David King fears that this has lead to setting of expensive and over ambitious goals.

In a talk on BBC, Sir David King said that putting too much stress on wind energy projects is going to hike the electricity costs which will put more people below fuel poverty line. According to him, the number of such people in UK could very well reach half a million.

EU’s target is to meet 20% of all energy requirements, including electricity, through renewable energy sources by 2020. Most forms of renewable energy are best suited for electricity generation. Out of these, wind energy is most suitable to the UK. So instead of 20%, UK will have to generate nearly 35% of its electricity requirement through wind energy. However, producing electricity from wind energy is quite expensive as compared to other types of generation. UK’s present system of quotas will pass this renewable energy obligation costs to consumers through the energy providers.

Sir David King said that going for large investments in wind power generation will hike the electricity prices, which will adversely affect the poor people. He believes that EU needs to reassess its goal on implementing the renewable energy targets.

British wind energy companies predictably dismissed Sir David King’s views. They contended that since the companies don’t have to pay for wind, the costs are expected to come down over a period of time.