Wednesday 13 July 2011

Roadmap plots course to renewables

The government has released a Renewable Energy Roadmap aimed at tackling barriers to rolling out renewables. The Roadmap lays out eight technologies that have the biggest potential to help the UK meet 2020 targets in a cost-effective and sustainable way.

DECC plans to put up to £30million into renewable energy innovators as part of the programme. The department says the country could see a four-fold increase in the renewable energy consumption by the end of the decade.

Energy Secretary Chris Huhne said: "Growth on that kind of scale will be challenging, but will be necessary if we are to make the UK more energy secure, help protect consumers from fossil fuel price fluctuations, drive investment in new jobs and businesses, and keep us on track to meet our carbon reduction objectives for the coming decades."

The Roadmap highlights both onshore and offshore wind, marine energy, biomass electricity, biomass heat, ground source heat pumps, air source heat pumps and renewable transport as eight key areas with the most potential.