Utility Week

14 | 30TH AUGUST- 5TH SEPTEMBER 2019 | UTILITY WEEK Utility of the Future: climate change "On economic grounds, it's really diffi cult to see how you can justify nuclear power." NINA SKORUPSKA, THE RENEWABLE ENERGY ASSOCIATION Towards net zero carbon "I'm confi dent the citizens' assembly will move things faster than the politicians will. Whether it moves it fast enough, nobody knows, but I'm very confi dent that it will move things faster." ADAM WOODHALL, EXTINCTION REBELLION continued from previous page Nina Skorupska, chief executive of the Renewable Energy Association, describes the net zero target as "a huge milestone", but she is concerned by what she sees as a glacial rate of action from the government, "both in terms of setting policy and the appropriate regulations". "Things are happening anyway, almost despite the government. Solar's happened, and people say it's despite the government, like removing the feed-in tari (FIT) for renewable technologies up to 5MW and then not having anything to move on." The FIT scheme was closed to new applicants on 1 April this year and its replacement, the Smart Export Guarantee, is not launching until the beginning of 2020. The new programme will guarantee payments for excess renewable generation. A crucial part of the energy transition, Skorupska believes, is interest and investment, which could be marred by unreliable policy support. "What investors need," she says, "is a smooth-ish transition, rather than this stop/start, stop/start, because it reduces conŒ dence. "Only the real stalwarts, and the people who are passionate, will carry on, but what we need is for many, many people, and the public, to adopt it." As we push towards the future energy mix, she believes that "from an economic perspective, there's not a problem that by 2030 we could have 75 per cent come from renewables, and that would be a mix of more than solar and wind. "O shore certainly – and hopefully with politics shi" ing we might have more onshore wind again – but also energy from waste. Collecting our waste and using it as a resource, and other waste streams to make biogas, because that will hopefully help us start to decarbonise out heating requirement." On the question of nuclear power, she says "On economic grounds, it's really di— cult to see how you can justify it." She mentions how ex-secretary of state Greg Clark told Hitachi it would only get £75/ MWh during ultimately failed negotiations on the suspended construction of the Wylfa Newydd nuclear power station. "Hinkley Point C is still projected for 30 years to be paid at £92.5, so there's a big gap there, and the challenge on nuclear is that renewable power is getting cheaper." An important aspect of the evolution, she believes, will be the future of heat. She would go further than the chancel- lor and ban connection of all new homes to the gas grid until it had been fully decarbonised. The chancellor has banned gas heat- ing fro all new homes by 2025, although gas hobs will still be allowed. continue to use existing facilities because they have already had a great deal of car- bon invested in their construction, but they should be phased out as they reach the end of their lifecycle. Despite being low carbon, Woodhall is sceptical about nuclear new- build like Hinkley Point C, saying it plays along with the old narrative of large-scale, centralised power. Mixed reception XR is divisive, to say the least, whether on its methods or the very basis of its protest. Woodhall readily acknowledges this, say- ing that any protest movement is going to polarise opinion. He describes people as either jumping to join them on the streets the next day or vehemently opposing everything they¡do. Both XR and the wider movement of cli- mate change protesters have tended to be characterised as anything from communists to eco-fascists. The Spectator's Ross Clark has called them "students and le" -wing aca- demics" who are "divorced from economic forces", while in a report for right-wing think-tank the Policy Exchange, Richard Walton described the group as having roots in "anarchism, eco-socialism, and radical anti-capitalist environmentalism". Woodhall, who runs his own business and has worked with energy companies, does not quite Œ t that label. He describes himself politically as "pragmatic". He says he is more likely to favour certain party's policies if they "Œ t with the emergency that we currently are encountering", rather than committing to an all-encompassing philosophy. When it comes to perception of the organ- isation, he believes it should not matter too much, due to the objectives they have. He believes that calling for a citizens' assembly fundamentally depoliticises them as a movement. The citizens' assembly is the Œ nal of XR's three demands, which Wood- hall describes as "quite unusual". The other two call for the government to declare a climate emergency and to adopt a 2025 net zero¡target. In his view, many activist movements fall prey to constructing long lists of prescriptive goals that only work to divide supporters. XR deliberately avoids this through the assem- blies, which circumvent internal disputes about speciŒ c policies, such as nationalisa- tion or nuclear power. The citizens assembly would involve selecting a proportionate group of members of the public through sortition, like jury ser- vice. This group would then be presented with the science by climate experts "as it The renewables expert

• Cover