The Government has published details of its proposed changes to the Renewables Obligation (RO). The Obligation is the main way in which it supports larger renewable energy projects that fall outside the Feed-in Tariff. Ahead of the publication of the changes there had been widespread concern that support levels would face severe cuts.

Fortunately those fears have largely been left unrealised and the reductions were limited.  Support for onshore wind farms, the cheapest of renewable technologies, was reduced by 10% whilst support for other technologies such as larger-scale solar and offshore wind was maintained. The UK’s huge potential for wave and tidal power was recognised through an increase in support, potentially opening up a range of exciting new projects for developers.

Once set, the levels should remain unchanged until 2017, helping provide the certainty that investors need to build the UK’s green infrastructure of tomorrow. The RO will play an important role in Good Energy’s plans to develop 50MW of new generation in the next 5 years.

As part of our vision to see the UK to be 100% renewable by 2050, there is an important role for all these technologies in our energy mix. We do, however, have a number of concerns about the way in which the support for onshore wind is reduced. Onshore wind will continue to play a leading role in meeting the UK’s renewable energy targets. As the largest sites have now been completed, developers are increasingly looking towards smaller sites. Because of their size, those sites are more slightly more expensive to develop. We think it’s important that any reduction in support reflects that, and we’re concerned that around one fifth of those wind farms going through the planning process at this time could be affected by the Government’s proposed reduction.

After initially meeting officials from the Department of Energy & Climate Change and the Treasury over the summer, Good Energy plans to continue to raise these concerns as we go forward, which have also been echoed by the industry Renewable UK.