Connecting the Future - Greenpeace UK

Connecting the future: the UK’s renewable energy strategy
Broader system issues
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of what Ofgem considers to be sustainable development, and of the means in
it may or may not consider appropriate to achieving it. Designing regulatory
measures requires Ofgem to balance its economic role with a broader, long
term consideration of its social and environmental impacts. However, both
its sustainable development duty and the regard it must have to social and
environmental guidance leave a great deal of latitude as to how Ofgem chooses
to balance them within its principal objective – most fundamentally in its design
of electricity market arrangements which reward large scale, centralised, often
fossil fuel plants at the expense of smaller scale renewable generation. The
Sustainable Development Commission has recently reviewed Ofgem’s role and
has recommended that its duties should be revised in order to achieve a more
balanced approach between the short-term goal of ensuring the lowest possible
costs to consumers and the longer-term need to encourage the development
of more sustainable energy systems (Sustainable Development Commission
2007). An alternative approach would be to strengthen the guidance issued by
BERR on how Ofgem should balance its duties to make it explicit that it must
contribute directly to achieving the government’s policies on renewables.
The role of government departments in enabling or inhibiting a shift in
energy systems should also not be underestimated. For example, the lack
of specific departmental responsibility for the heat sector is an institutional
barrier. At the moment, the responsibilities are split between BERR and Defra,
although there is no clear definition of how they are to be shared between
the two departments. Without a clear outline of who does what, and no
departmental champions to build up the profile of the heat sector within the
more general policy debate about reducing CO2 emissions, it is very difficult
to ensure accountability for delivery of policies. The Sustainable Development
Commission has also identified the need for a heat sector regulator to ensure
a stable framework to drive the development of more sustainable heating
systems (Sustainable Development Commission 2007). Creating a heat sector
regulator would complement departmental responsibility for heat by ensuring
that there was a broad spectrum of institutional interests aimed at encouraging
sustainable heat networks and helping to make it commercially attractive for
companies to invest in them.
5.5 Conclusions: broader system issues
The revision of planning procedures will help large infrastructure projects,
while the new Planning Policy Statement on climate change should encourage
microgeneration, providing it is applied properly by local authorities. Many
renewable projects, however, will fall between these two initiatives – too big
for microgeneration, but too small to be covered by the measures aimed at
large infrastructure projects. It remains to be seen whether planning policy
guidance aimed at encouraging more renewables will prove effective, but the
government must ultimately ensure that new renewables projects are explicitly
supported by the planning system and that they are dealt with in a timely way.
Network infrastructure also needs urgent attention if it is to allow a transition to
a sustainable energy system, particularly in view of the imminent requirement to