On Wednesday, AD and biogas group ADBA accused the government of waging a war on renewable energy. As the Department for Energy and Climate Change announced a consultation on pre-accreditation for renewable schemes, ADBA warned that the government’s plans to curtail support for renewables will have serious consequences for the environment, bill-payers and the credibility of its claims to be acting on climate change.

The announcement seems to run counter to expert advice. Late last month the Committee on Climate Change (CCC) issued recommendations to the government for tackling the threat of climate change, chief amongst them was supporting clean renewable energy.
 
However, such support has been given short shrift in recent months; earlier in June an EU-wide analysis revealed that the UK risks failing to meet its 2020 renewables targets - renewable heating energy was a key area in which the UK has fallen behind.  Furthermore, energy department (DECC) recently announced that cuts to on-shore wind support would hit a year ahead of schedule and Defra cut subsidies for land occupied by solar panels late last year (though the department has come under fire for failing to share data on how many solar-only fields this decision will affect, and refusing to back up figures used to justify secretary of state Liz Truss’ decision).

DECC’s latest announcement also comes just weeks after Chancellor George Osborne unveiled plans to remove of the Climate Change Levy exemption for renewables in his summer budget. Industry groups have suggested that this will cost AD operators alone £11 million per year.

On Wednesday, DECC launched a consultation on removing pre-accreditation (PA) from the Feed-in Tariff (FIT) that rewards green energy producers for feeding clean energy into the national grid. PA allows people installing a solar, wind or AD project to lock into a tariff, with a guaranteed rate of payment, before the installation is commissioned.  

However, the environment department acknowledged that it was seeking to take, “Action to limit the risk to bill payers of a deployment surge under the Feed-in Tariff through the removal of pre-accreditation” in announcing its consultation. The department added, “DECC will carry out a full review of the Feed-in Tariff scheme in 2015 and will consult on a full package of cost control measures in due course.”

The DECC consultation document itself outlines the likely impact of such a decision thusly, “By removing the possibility for projects to pre-accredit, there is less certainty on offer to developers. When they begin to develop a project, they will not be certain as to what tariff they will receive, as there may be tariff degressions between then and the point of accreditation.”

Reacting to the announcement, ADBA Chief Executive Charlotte Morton added, “FIT pre accreditation is vital for the ongoing success of the anaerobic digestion sector. Even smaller AD projects are relatively complex, and take over a year to develop - pre accreditation helps to make the development risk acceptable to funders.

“Tariffs for AD are already being reduced, and deployment is falling as a result - so this change is unnecessary from a cost control perspective. The industry's long development times mean these changes would move the goalposts after the game has kicked off for projects in progress, which will have a severe impact on investor confidence.”

Morton also said that the energy department’s actions are putting the potential of green technologies at risk and “preventing the development of the very technologies that will lower consumer bills in the long-term.”

She added, “How will the government be able to maintain rhetoric on meaningful climate change commitments at December’s Paris conference, while hitting our green economy at home?”

Environment campaigner pan DECC announcement

Also reacting to the government’s announcement, which included a cut in subsidies for large-scale and the consultation, which stands to affect rooftop solar, Friends of the Earth described the move as the latest Government attack on the development of a green UK economy. The environment group pointed to the implementation of a ‘carbon tax’ on renewable energy, increased levies on green cars and the scrapping of the zero carbon homes target as examples of the government’s past form in this area.
 
Energy campaigner Alasdair Cameron commented,“This won't lower electricity bills - all new energy is being subsidised to some extent and solar is already cheaper than nuclear and will soon be cheaper than gas from new power stations.
 
“This is entirely a problem of the Government’s creation. The Treasury has placed arbitrary limits on clean power, but solar has proved too popular and efficient, and the Government seems to lack the imagination to adapt. If David Cameron wants to have any credibility ahead of this year’s crucial climate talks, he must end his support for dirty fossil fuels, such as fracking, and stop his government destroying the UK’s burgeoning renewable sector.”
 
Cameron did welcome news that curbs are being placed on converting large coal plants to burn biomass, wood fuel. He said, “We welcome Government moves to stop some forms of biomass from getting support. Burning wood for fuel can be worse than burning coal, and energy sources that cannot show significant carbon reductions shouldn’t get support.”