Trials, tribulations and triumphs at SR's Annual Conference

The trials, tribulations and triumphs of Scotland’s past year in green energy were laid bare at Scottish Renewables’ Annual Conference this week.

Day one of the event, on Monday, had been dominated by First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s comments on Brexit and the impacts it could have on Scotland’s renewable energy industry.

She said:

"Scotland has internationally recognised research expertise in renewables.
"We also have incredible renewable resources, and a long history of engineering excellence. Those assets give us the basis for a thriving renewables sector and supply chain.

"Brexit makes this work rather more challenging. If we are taken out of the single market, it will hinder our supply chain and reduce our skills base.”

Those comments attracted significant media attention, but it was a debate on day two which brought domestic issues to the fore.

As Scottish Renewables Chief Executive Claire Mack said:

“The First Minister is right to say that Brexit presents risks to the future success of Scotland’s renewable energy industry, but it’s vital to recognise that the most significant challenges faced by the industry in recent years have been domestic ones.

"While leaving the EU could restrict access to funding and hinder the free movement of labour both to and from Europe, policy support for renewable energy – not least our cheapest and most mature technologies – is essential.

“Westminster can help to stabilise revenues which underpin investment, and a focus on minimising costs here in Scotland will ensure this is the most competitive place to develop a renewable energy project.”

On day two of the conference, Vicky Dawe, Deputy Director for Renewable Electricity Support Schemes at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy addressed around 200 delegates on the industry’s future, in a session which also heard from RES on its plans for subsidy free onshore wind.

Vicky, whose remit covers the Feed-in Tariff, Renewables Obligation and Contracts for Difference schemes, spoke widely about the policies on which renewables pivots.

On the future of the Feed-in Tariff, where she said £100 million remains to be spent until the end of the scheme in 2019:

“We will set out our plans for the future of small-scale generation later this year” and “we are also looking to bring forward innovation which would allow this sector to deploy subsidy free”.

On onshore wind and the CfD:

“The issue comes down to the appetite for onshore wind turbines in certain areas. It really is a political issue.

“Movement on this will only come with the politicians making a decision to move forward on onshore wind, and accepting that will be really difficult in some areas, or not move forward and understanding that you will not be taking advantage of the cheapest form of electricity generation, and that is for our political masters to solve.”

And on Brexit:

“I, at the moment, can't see any need for significant changes [to renewable electricity policy] after Brexit. Stay tuned, but don’t expect any big surprises.”

On offshore wind, Ray Thompson of Siemens Gamesa highlighted the sector’s recent progress, and its ambitions to deliver 30GW of capacity in the UK by 2030, while Una Brosnan of Atkins flagged Scotland’s potential for floating wind in helping the sector go even further, and the work being done to build on recent Scottish success Hywind.

But this was Scottish Renewables’ Annual Conference, and it wasn’t just utility-scale electricity generation on the agenda.

Locogen Director Andy Lyle, who recently joined Scottish Renewables’ Board, took delegates on a whirlwind trip through the many and various challenges facing small renewables.

Andy placed the blame for the recent demise of wind turbine manufacturer Gaia-Wind squarely on Westminster, saying it was “a direct result of the UK Government’s failure to support this sector”.

He added:

“We need to understand if there is an appetite to support small scale renewables.
“I cannot stress enough that we just need some clarity on where the small-scale renewables sector is going”

Andy also highlighted business rates as a key remaining barrier for subsidy-free solar – a theme picked up by Hunter Hydro’s Kenny Hunter later in the day, as he discussed his sector from the stage.

Heat, too, was front and centre across both days of the event.

In the same session, Locogen’s Andy Lyle highlighted a lack of progress on decarbonising the sector outside low-hanging fruit, saying:

“We have had seven years of the RHI and it’s only achieved a fifth of its expectations.
“It’s been a great carrot for those who want to change, but we need policies which can do much more.”

“I am aware of high energy-use businesses in off-gas areas which have recently chosen to invest in LPG or oil boilers despite the existence of the RHI. That is a situation which just shouldn’t exist.”

Bulk cheap electricity generation will, the conference heard, open the door to widespread electrification of heat and transport.

Dr Keith MacLean OBE, Managing Director of Providence Policy, made a plea for more emphasis on heat, saying electricity has come to dominate the decarbonisation debate:

“We spend 80% of our time talking about 30% of the problem”.
He explained results of his company’s recent research into heat decarbonisation, which show how no single low-carbon solution will be able to meet future heat demand on its own.

Any whirlwind trip through Scottish Renewables’ 2018 Annual Conference should include mention of Energy Minister Paul Wheelhouse, whose address in the closing session of day two covered most green energy technologies and the challenges they face.

He addressed the inclusion of remote island wind in the next Contracts for Difference auction, saying:

“The final design of the next auction must recognise the unique challenges and costs of remote island wind. These projects could transform the economic prospects of our remote island communities.”

And he also touched on the role of community benefit in larger onshore projects, confirming:

"My view is that community benefit should be an integral part of all projects but I do understand that that may be delivered as part of a package and want to work with industry on that."

For the past two years we’ve broken up day two of our Annual Conference with a guest lecture.

Last year yachtswoman Dee Caffari told how renewable energy is enabling the boats she sails to move further and faster than ever before.

This year actor Robert Llewellyn took the stage and told delegates about the “agonising process” of introducing renewable energy into his idyllic Cotswolds village – filmed for the BBC as The Great Village Green Crusade.

Robert’s story, though, really came alive when he discussed in motivational terms the imperative to clean up our energy system:

“We have burned stuff since we were in caves, and EVs and batteries and solar and wind and tidal and all the rest are the first time we have been able to do the things you usually do by burning things WITHOUT burning things.

“This message often isn’t communicated to the public: if you burn stuff you can’t burn it again. You have to get some more, and burn it too, and keep doing that.

“When you don’t burn stuff it’s cheaper and cleaner. The falling costs of renewable energy and batteries mean it’s now easy to say that, and that’s another key message we all need to get across.”

Robert fronts Fully Charged, and it was his insights on electric vehicles which galvanised EV-owning delegates to join in the debate, too.

A final thought on our Annual Conference’s outputs comes from the Offshore Renewable Energy Catapult’s Andrew Jamieson, who echoed a call to action heard throughout the event: that industry must do more to trumpet its benefits.

He said:

“We need to talk about the economic value that this industry brings, particularly in terms of jobs and the skills that those jobs contain. We need to sell more of the virtues.

“Industry needs to reconsider the economic impact argument. That’s why Government turned the [RO / CfD Pot 1] off, because we weren’t articulating those benefits, and the backbenchers won.

“We need to say to ministers if you do this and this, these are the benefits of doing that.”

Renewables has so much to offer, and it’s our job – as a representative body and as an industry – to make sure that story is told.

Scottish Renewables’ Annual Conference was sponsored by EDF Energy Renewables, Aberdeen Renewable Energy Group, Crown Estate Scotland, Dulas, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, Scottish and Southern Electricity Networks, SmartestEnergy and SSE.