Renewable energy could meet almost all of the UK’s electricity needs by 2030, a new report published by WWF has found. Between 60-90% of the UK’s electricity demand could be covered by wind, solar, tidal and other renewable power sources, with a firm renewable energy target for 2030 in place, WWF said.
The report added that renewables can decarbonise the UK’s power sector without resorting to new nuclear power.
Later on this year the European Commission is set to publish a plan on how to decarbonise the EU’s energy sector up to 2050. It’s still a while until publication, but leaked drafts made their way into the media last week.
The Financial Times reported that a leaked Commission document – which looks into different scenarios on how to replace fossil fuels with clean energy up to 2050 – shows that wind power will become, “the biggest source of electricity in the bloc by 2050, outstripping both coal and nuclear power. Wind farms could provide as much as 49 per cent of EU electricity by then,” it said on 17 October.
20 October 2011
The European Commission yesterday unveiled a €9.1 billion plan to modernise and extend Europe’s energy infrastructure to help meet Europe’s climate and energy needs. The announcement was widely covered by the media.
“This is the very first time that the EU is co-financing the construction of large energy infrastructure from its regular budget,” the Commission said.
EU affairs website Euractiv reported that the money will be made available under the proposed EU budget for 2014 – 2020 “in the form of newly-minted project bonds, grants and loan guarantees.” These will be awarded to projects of ‘common interest’ – i.e. spanning at least two EU countries.
Did you know that wind energy is one of the most powerful tools in the box when it comes to meeting the EU’s climate targets, and that it has been so since the beginning of EU climate targets?
Back in 2005 the Kyoto Protocol entered into force signalling the start of Europe’s commitment to strong, legally binding carbon reduction targets. Under the terms of that agreement, the EU committed to reduce emissions by 8% from 1990 levels for the EU-15 by 2012. For newer EU member states, the target is between 6% and 8%, giving an average of 7.2% for the EU-27.
Wind power will provide 50% of Denmark’s electricity in 2020, the new Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt has said – a level which would beat EWEA’s prediction of up to 47.4%.
Denmark’s EU renewable energy target is to source 31% of its electricity from renewables by 2020, and the increasingly wind-powered country is already close to meeting that target. At the end of last year, Denmark had a wind energy capacity of 3,752 MW – enough to source 25% of its electricity from wind energy.
