Category Archives: Water Power

This is from Just Means.  Businesses and green campaigners both seem to agree that there’s a gap between what we need and what is being achieved in terms of renewable energy.

Smart companies have been concentrating their CSR efforts on preparing for upcoming legislation around energy saving. However, one of the issues is what Friends of the Earth has called an ‘information gap’ when it comes to UK energy policy. The campaign group claims that a lack of information means investors will be nervous about ploughing the necessary millions into renewable energy.

Such uncertainty could leave us unable to meet the stretching targets that the UK’s Governments have set. The UK wants to generate 15% of its power from renewable sources by 2020 and Scotland has an eye-watering target of 80%. Northern Ireland plans to generate 12% of electricity from renewable sources by next year – and those sources are to be based within the province.

Even if companies are committed to using renewable energy as part of their CSR programmes, they need new technologies out there to buy and to use.

Friends of the Earth fear that meeting such high targets will be very difficult if investors do not have the confidence to back currently untested technology.

Their thoughts concur with those of a very different organisation, Ernst & Young. Part of the firm’s CSR commitment and expertise focuses on clean energy. Its research last month into the cleantech sector found that confidence that the Coalition Government will help spark the sector’s growth has plummeted. Just 13% of the businesses, investors and cleantech companies surveyed thought that the Government would establish the necessary conditions for success. This is a big drop from the 38% who thought this during a similar survey last year.

Despite repeated talk of financing frameworks for investment in the sector, little detail has emerged. Consequently, financiers remain sceptical that this will happen during 2011.

Although 51% of those surveyed believed that the UK’s investment in clean energy and clean technology would increase this year, this still marks a drop of 10% since the last survey. What is more, just 7% of people expect there to be sufficient investment in 2011 to give the UK competitive advantage.

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