What will 2012 hold for the renewables industry?

14/12/2011

This is an exclusive blog by RenewableUK, trade and professional body for the UK wind and marine renewables industries.

It’s clear that 2012 will see a number of challenges for the renewables industry, some expected and some unexpected.

2009 saw the high-water mark of climate change as motivating force, but since then it, like all issues has been seen in many quarters through the perspective of the economic downturn. While the evidence for human impact on the climate remains overwhelming, our economic woes have provided a means for climate sceptics from all backgrounds to paint the green economy as the national version of an organic vegetable box; lovely when times are good, but a candidate for trimming when times are tough.

While the need to reduce CO2 emissions remains as urgent as ever, part of the challenge of winning public support over the course of next year will be demonstrating what benefits renewables have beyond their ability to decarbonise the economy. And as a growing industry there is a good story to tell, with benefits to local communities, jobs and a need for skilled employees. The wind industry alone already employs more than ten thousand people full time, and more within the manufacturing and supply chain, a figure set to rise to over ninety thousand over the next decade.

The political landscape is never a stable topography, and the renewables industry now faces the challenge of a resurgent Treasury orthodoxy determined to clamp down on costs, a narrative that has been stridently reinforced in sections of the media. But despite these high profile media campaigns, the Sunday Times recent YouGov poll found 60% thought the government right to invest in wind farms to encourage more use of wind power, while only 26% thought otherwise.

It suggests that the majority of the public, battered by increasing energy bills recognise the long-term need to lessen the UK’s dependency on volatile imported fossil fuels, stabilising energy prices and protecting them from the effects of price spikes.

As the price of oil and gas increases, and the UK’s ageing power stations go offline these issues, and the need to fill the energy gap will become more and more apparent. But in order to ensure that renewables are able to fill the shortfall it will be necessary to build on these arguments, and harness the ‘silent majority’ in favour of clean, sustainable energy now.

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